Category Archives: Seasons

winter, spring, summer, fall, writing about it all

Spending My Daylight Savings

Turning back the clock that one hour never ceases to thrill me. When else does it feel like we can cheat time? And although a recent article in the Wall Street Journal says DST has outlived its usefulness, turning the big hand back one number is a small but welcome compensation for the coming season of dark. It was delicious to take an early morning walk today and watch the sun shimmering on the few trees still holding on to their leaves. It won’t be long ’til winter snatches even this sweet span of light when I awaken.

But there is an upside to living in this close to the border of Central Time. The days start lengthening sooner here in southeast Michigan than they do in, say, Manhattan where day can end somewhere around 4:49 pm. In this corner of Michigan, despite the winters with their fifty-twelve shades of grey, and the cold, and the snow that appears overnight demanding to be moved before I can leave for the day, the winter solstice is only seven weeks away, a mere forty-nine days. Lengthening days are already just one calendar page away.

At first the additional moment or two extra of daylight is negligible. But soon, like droplets of water wearing away at stone, the  light will begin to wear down the night. My spirit will begin to rise as the sun sets later and later each day. Even if it’s cold, and it will be, even if it’s grey and snowy, which it will be, that extra slice of light is a bridge I can cross knowing spring will be waiting at the other side.

 

Transplants

Last spring we had the best kind of landscaper working with us: he really knew plants and was committed to transplanting everything we were digging up:
the hosta takeover that was uprooting a path by the toolshed, the shade-loving astilbe that were never happy in our shade, a hedge of boxwood so impenetrable it belonged in a fairy tale. One day I saw him contemplating a flowerbed that, in 28 years, I have never been able to get just right.

“You need to spread that bed out,” he said when I joined him on the patio. “And it’s too dark back there,” he continued, gesturing to the expanse behind the never-just-right bed. “You need to lighten it up. The hosta will do just fine there.” He was right about the “dark back there.” A tangle of ivy and vinca vines layered with years of fallen leaves and branches, I long ago nicknamed it the wasteland. A couple years ago, I tackled it, taming the ivy, making way for the vinca to weave her way through. In the dappled spaces free of vines, lilies of the valley have begun to spread. But it was still a wasteland, dark and boring. Perfect place to relegate the hosta, it’s probably my least favorite plant.

Why am I no fan of hosta? In just a season or two it can colonize an entire flowerbed, doubling and tripling in size like yeast, or the blood-hungry plant from Little Shop of Horrors. And wouldn’t you just know it? The landscaper specializes in hosta; grows all kinds of varieties from little bitty ornamental ones to great big feed-me-Seymour ones. “Yep,we’ll sprinkle them in the back. Put in some white hydrangea, too. That way you set off your flowerbed in the front.”

So he widened the bed of affliction, dug in my less-than-loved variegated white and green hostas, divided an over-enthusiastic Japanese anemone and tucked part of it among three deep green hostas big as playhouses. He refilled the hosta-free bed by the tool shed with astilbe. Maybe they’ll like back shade better than front shade? He pulled out the “boxwood sarcophagus,” a twelve by three by four foot hedge so thick that if I were Sleeping Beauty, my Prince Charming would have never made it through. Luckily my Prince Charming’s been with me since before the boxwood was the size of a take-out carton.

A year later everything has so far made it through. The variegated hosta are up and brightening the formerly dark wasteland. The halved anemone is already playing house with the trio of Seymour-sized hosta. The astilbe is rising abundant and luscious, looking better than it has in years. No flowers yet, but they look so healthy I can just hear the nearby forget-me-nots looking over and whispering to each other, “I’ll have what she’s having….”

I may never know why the shade by the back door is better than the shade by the front. What I do know from tilling this little patch of earth going on three decades, once something finds its place in the sun (or shade) there’s no holding it back.

One for Me and One for You

Well, the sky’s not blue but the pink dogwoods are in their glory and when I look out my bedroom window I see the azaleas peeking through the petals of the dogwood flowers. If I didn’t know better I could be in Atlanta this birthday!

The final post of this birthday challenge is below. An interesting exercise to discipline myself this way. I know, tons of other bloggers post daily or tweet or whatever. Next challenge, to do this once a month moving through the cycle of topics. Wherever you are, whatever is blooming in your state, enjoy the day and thank you for your comments and sweet wishes and celebrating with me the whole week through. And now the fifth post.

A few years ago I had the privilege of volunteering in Cranbrook’s gardens. My second or third week, the Garden Mother offered me some rudbeckia she was digging up. I said as polite a no thank you as I could; rudbeckia is such a tenacious spreader that even the thought of introducing it into my flower beds made me cringe. Whatever she saw in my face obviously changed the assumptions of her newest volunteer, for her next words were, “Ah, so you’re a real gardener, are you?” Yes, I guess I am.

Our gardens are often filled with cuttings from one friend or another’s garden. The sweet woodruff cheerfully colonizing the shady patches at the edge of the patio was given to me by our wonderful neighbor Kay. She was moving away, uprooting not only herself and her husband, but some of her magnificent flowerbeds as well, sharing her mature perennials with friends. It’s lovely to see the bright green leaves of this well-behaved creeper and remember when Kay lived across the street. And by pure coincidence she now lives near my father and step-mother, so we still get to see each other.

A college friend of mine has hosta cuttings from our garden that she planted in her mother’s backyard some two decades ago. When she purchased her first home a few years back, we got together to celebrate, and there in her own garden were the offspring of our hostas that she had divided so long ago. Makes me smile to consider this leafy thread of propagation making its way from house to house, state to state, garden to garden.

The summer after I demurred on the rudbeckias, the Garden Mother was separating some magnificent Japanese anemones. These are wonderfully showy plants. Sprays of pink and white flowers, the shape of apple blossoms, cascade from slender stems that bob gently in summer breezes. When they’re happy, you know it because the flowers are profuse and keep a comin’. I was thrilled to be offered three cuttings.

They’ve now gotten a bit too happy and last year I divided one of the clumps and tucked it behind some azaleas. She was a bit peckish last summer but we’re hoping all will be well once spring is underway. It gives me a thrill to know that a small piece of Cranbrook’s magnificence is happy in our yard. Even better I was able to offer her some bee balm when I was thinning them. That something from my little patch of earth has sunk down roots at Cranbrook is way cool.

Looking around the yard, there’s one spot where no perennial flower has ever taken hold. The earth is too rooty from the Bradford Pear; it’s shady. Some daisies are persevering, but not really spreading. You know, I bet they’d look great accented with some…

And a great big thank you to my writer buddy and friend Diana D. for this lovely birthday bouquet of grape hyacinth. Diana, the color swoonful and I love it! Thank you.

Garden Secrets

With my 56th approaching by week’s end, I thought to throw out a birthday challenge for the week. Can I create a post a day, limit 300 words or so, each one about Nature or our garden? Of all the topics I blog about, writing about Nature thrills me the most.

Born in the spring and raised in Atlanta, I always thought the world celebrated my birthday by bursting into blossom. And while many a birthday up here in the Great Lakes State has often been spent wearing snow boots, this year my day has been heralded for nearly two weeks already.

I am grateful for each of you who stops by, leaves a comment or just allows my words to lift your heart or pique your curiosity. I won’t send out a daily notice of a new post. Just know that there will be a nature reflection each day this week. Here’s Day Four’s post.

There are secret gardens and then there are garden secrets, hidden vignettes of flora or sculpture, a cairn of souvenir stones or shells, or the wrought iron planter you grabbed from a neighbor’s refuse pile on trash day.

And then there are the mementoes that are not really secret, but tucked away just the same. They await you each spring as you head out full of purpose, only to be stopped in your tracks by bittersweet memories. McKenzie’s grave marker does it to me every year. Four times now I have started to clear the brush, knowing it is there, and four times now my breath catches in my lungs and my heart folds in on itself, an origami of sorrow.

She was a lovely and sweet dog, never yappy; she was affectionate and free with licks and tail wags. McKenzie made us laugh and regularly invited us to chase her through the house. She didn’t really do tricks but was a great walking buddy, having been trained not to stop and sniff every rock, tree trunk or dog bottom that we might encounter. She came to us by chance and for a decade delighted us daily. And then she was gone, too soon, too painfully.

There are those who can never be without a dog and then there are others, like Martin and me, who wait too long, like parents who kind of think they’ll go for one more child but grow complacent and comfortable not having to drag along extra diapers and sippy cups on every excursion. We’ve toyed with the idea but always turn practical and budget conscious. What about the traveling we want to do? What about being footloose? What about having to make once again the searing decision to end a beloved life?

And so we remain dogless but not dogfree. No one who has ever loved a dog completely lets go of the leash.

It’s Sugar Tyme

With my 56th approaching by week’s end, I thought to throw out a birthday challenge for the week. Can I create a post a day, limit 300 words or so, each one about Nature or our garden? Of all the topics I blog about, writing about Nature thrills me the most.

Born in the spring and raised in Atlanta, I always thought the world celebrated my birthday by bursting into blossom. And while many a birthday up here in the Great Lakes State has often been spent wearing snow boots, this year my day has been heralded for nearly two weeks already.

I am grateful for each of you who stops by, leaves a comment or just allows my words to lift your heart or pique your curiosity. I won’t send out a daily notice of a new post. Just know that there will be a nature reflection each day this week. Here’s Day Three’s post.

The flowers of the Sugar Tyme crabapple have been gestating for weeks. This sweet little tree has been patiently waiting her turn while the Bradford Pear, commanding and thrice Sugar Tyme’s height, went into a magnificent flowering of white. The pear bloomed so unseasonably early that I would wake up some mornings and look out, momentarily confused over whether it was snow or flowers covering her branches.

The petals of the pear have now drifted into memory. For the past week the crabapple has gifted us with occasional top notes of perfume, wafting through the yard like renegade balloons escaped from a far-off balloon man.

I first encountered crabapple trees in ’75, Kenyon College, the spring of freshman year. To this day, their scent reawakens in me every college student’s late spring conflict: do I head back to the dorm to study for exams or do what I really want to do, which is put on a pair of shorts and a halter top and run barefoot through the grass? Heading to the dark side of fifty, I marvel how the essence of one small tree turns back the clock to rekindle decades-old ambivalence. Responsibility or youthful abandon? Academic duty or feeding the soul?

Overnight the Sugar Tyme came into full and gorgeous flower. When I left for work today I hesitated, enjoying the memories before I slowly backed down the driveway, sunroof open, all the windows down. Youthful abandon took the necessary back seat to responsibility.

I don’t wear shorts too often and haven’t owned a halter top in nearly four decades. But tomorrow morning while morning is still new and quiet, I will steal outside barefoot. Tomorrow morning it’ll just be me, my soul and the Sugar Tyme.

Planticipation, or Waiting for the Garden to Bloom

With my 56th approaching by week’s end, I thought to throw out a birthday challenge. Can I create a post a day, limit 300 words or so, each one about Nature or our garden? Of all the topics I blog about, writing about Nature thrills me the most.

Born in the spring and raised in Atlanta, I always thought the world celebrated by birthday my bursting into blossom. And while many a birthday up here in the Great Lake State has often been spent wearing snow boots, this year my day has been heralded for nearly two weeks already.

I am grateful for each of you who stops by, leaves a comment or just allows my words to lift your heart or pique your curiosity. I won’t send out a daily notice of a new post. Just know that there will be a nature reflection each day this week. Here’s Day Two’s post.

No matter how small or large, simple or complex, gardens take work. Either you’re weeding or planting, lugging around and working in soil conditioners, or you’re watering or fretting over the lack of rain. Your back is aching, your hands are blistered. And I’d wager any gardener you ask will tell you it’s worth it.

I’m a pissy gardener. I gripe halfway through planting the dozens of bulbs I couldn’t pass up. I whine about all the weeding. Each year I swear we’re moving into a condo where I’ll plant a handful of annuals in one, count it ONE, terra cotta pot.

But then the first warm breath of spring comes and with it delicious anticipation as those first curls of green force themselves through the earth. Day by day, inch by inch the leaves spiral upward; blossoms begin to unfold. Then the snows usually return and shock the heck out of these beautiful gifts. But they persevere, reminding me that I, too, should get out in my glory and give winter a big “So what!”

Whether it was global warming or the Passover pixies, all of our bulbs were up and glorious just in time for the Seders. I’d planted a ton of daffodils and on the advice of a fellow gardener, nestled a few tulip bulbs within a circle of daffs. “Rabbits won’t go near daffodils, so your tulips will be safe.” I was only willing to risk losing a half dozen or so of Holland’s best, but my pal was right. The spawn of MacGregor’s nemesis only got to one. The rest stayed safe within a circle of yellow-capped soldiers.

Passover has now passed. The hyacinths are waning. The daffodils have bid their adieux. I deadheaded the lot of them today, a sad endeavor. No matter how long they stay, it’s never long enough. But look! The lilies are breaking through the earth; at the other end of the bed, the peonies are opening their leaves to the sun. Anticipation quells all garden gripes, salves the blisters and mutes the aches. No, I could never be satisfied with a single terra cotta pot.

The Birthday Challenge

With my 56th approaching by week’s end, I thought to throw out a birthday challenge. Can I create a post a day through Friday, limit 300 words or so, each one about Nature or our garden? Of all the topics I blog about, writing about Nature thrills me the most.

Having been born in the spring and raised in Atlanta, I always thought the world celebrated my birthday by bursting into blossom. And while many a birthday up here in the Great Lake State has often been spent wearing snow boots, this year my day has been heralded for nearly two weeks already.

I am grateful for each of you who stops by, leaves a comment or just allows my words to lift your heart or pique your curiosity. I won’t send out a daily notice of a new post. Just know that there will be a nature reflection each day this week. Ready for this week’s 56K Birthday Challenge entry? So am I. Here is the first one.

Forsythia. I sometimes think of it as a garden’s stepchild. Glorious for about two weeks, it fades to a utilitarian green, branches wild and unkempt its taxi-yellow blossoms faded to brown mush upon the earth. Forsythia is a great garden element, but nothing to build a landscape around. And yet this bright golden-yellow shrub is spring’s harbinger, coming into bloom even if there is snow on the ground, waving her blossom-laden branches as if shouting to one and all, “Hey! Wake up, everybody! Spring is here and I AM SHE!”

For all my gentle dissing of this beautiful flowering shrub, there is a nearby stretch of forsythia that is magnificent; I await its return each spring. The shrubs have been sculpted into a nicely-rounded hedge some six feet tall. And it stretches, are you ready?, for almost half a mile. Each year it calls to mind a great golden caterpillar inching its way down the road. The country club on Maple Road that maintains and nurtures this beauty does so from Franklin Road almost to Inkster. I am grateful to whomever the Knollwood deciders are who ensure it is kept up, fertilized, and trimmed so precisely into its signature form. With budgets being savaged everywhere, it is good to know that some expenditures endure for the good of all.

Had the author of Ecclesiastes been writing about forsythia, she surely would have added a coda to her time to plant, time to sow line: there is a time to blossom and a time to fade, a time to appreciate and a time to recall with delight.