From the category archives:
There’s something beautiful about an old watering can, but it’s got to be a metal can, nothing plastic that predictably hardens, chips, and discolors uniformly with age. No, only real watering cans have Shibui. They have character because there’s something endearing in their unique scruffiness.
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Have you ever come upon an iridescent rose or is there even such a thing?
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Were I an oil painter, I’d gain inspiration from a quote by Stanley Horowitz:
Winter is an etching, spring is a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all.
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Garden lore has it that the scarlet-orange color of the Trumpeter rose actually intensifies in the summer heat.
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The massive scale of grass steppes, valleys and thin riverine forests in the Khan Khentee protected area in northeastern Mongolia are better suited to horseback riding than to walking, but on this day I was a happy biped moving slowly through dung-maculated valleys full of the bleached skulls, spines and other stray bones of departed animals.
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On second thought … petunias ~ although often considered “ordinary” because one sees them in so many places ~ are really quite extraordinary.
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Native to Chile, the Butterfly Bush (Buddleia globosa) ~ bearing clusters of lavender, white, soft pink, yellow, purple, or cranberry cone-shaped flowers ~ is sure to bring hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies to your garden.
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The common marigold. Or is it so common? Right off the bat it has three great things going for it:
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Reflecting on how memory of certain flowers is interlaced with distinct moments in life, I acknowledge dogwood (Cornus florida): Spring 2001, when we traveled with our younger son to Yosemite National Park – a time when abundant yellow-hued dogwood adorned the valley; Spring 2002 and 2003, when a magnificent, wide-armed pink dogwood off Zayante Road in Felton became the favorite backdrop for seasonal family photos; and Spring 2004, when, strolling along Robles Lane in Bonny Doon with my dear friend Laura (sadly lost to cancer two years ago), we came upon a single white dogwood tree, magically glowing in a shady grove of old redwood and spruce.
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… by any other name would smell as sweet. But what if its name were …
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