Flowers, birds and nonsense limericks

Pictoee petunia in a pot. I think this one went under the name of ‘Rhythm and Blues’.

One of the many bi-coloured petuias — I have lost the name of this one.

‘Lemon Slice’ calibrachoa.

A closeup of the magenta and white striped petunia.

A picotee petunia. picotee simply refers to the white edge, This one was magenta and white.

‘Rhythm and blues’ Petunia.

April 21, 2013. It’s snowing in Winnipeg. Again.

 
I just thought I’d add that for the record. I cannot remember such a slow spring, where the snow never seems to melt and keeps being supplemented by additional flakes of frozen rain.
Spring is struggling to emerge.

 
Yesterday, I watched a pair of chickadees cleaning out the wren’s house outside my kitchen window. I wonder if they are planning to take up residence there, although like wrens, they try out a number of locations before finally settling on one. We would prefer the wrens who are very energetic nesters and keep us delighted by their antics all spring long.

 
In my back yard, near the house, the snow has retreated thanks to heat from the house and a southern exposure. Here some little plants are trying to find the light but many are still cowering under last year’s debris. I will leave this in place to protect the plantlings and ladybugs for as long as I can. The green that is showing through is proof, though, that there is life under all that snow — in fact, I am told that the ground is frozen to only a six-inch depth this year, so when the snow retreats, we will see an explosion of life. It will be one of those springs where the plants simply leap from the ground, dragging their blossoms into view almost immediately.

 
And there is so much to look forward to this year in the plant world.

 
As usual, petunias have some new cousins and so do the calibrachoas. The breeders have been hard at work coming up with ever more fantastic combinations of colours and blossom shapes and sizes. There are new petunias which I will share with you over the next couple of weeks. Last year’s were wonderful, too, as you can see here. I loved the picotee petunias in magenta and white and purple and white. The striped reds and yellow calibrachoas were lovely and excellent performers. ‘Lemon slice’ the yellow one glowed in the garden.

 
I love petunias because they bloom so valiantly all summer long, keeping their brilliant colours and always looking fresh and eager, even as summer wanes and other plants fade. I always have many pots full of them and they often steal the show away from the more expensive additions.

The other great winners were the succulents and I plan to have a lot more this year. My little collection was much admired, but as I go along I am thinking of more creative ways to grow them.
The silver dollar tree (Eucalyptus cineria) with its blue gray coin-shaped leaves was very good last year, probably thanks to the hot conditions. I still have great stalks of it dried in vases as a side benefit.

When I go through some of last year’s photos, I can hardly believe that in just a few short weeks the world outside will be as bright with colour and as lush with green when now all is still drab and gray. This is the ugliest time of year, before the spring cleanup of all that gravel put down over winter to prevent accidents.

Yet, the miracle will happen and we will be singing:

Spring is sprung
The grass is riz.
I wonder where the birdies is.
The bird is on the wing!
Well that’s absurd.
I always thought he wing was on the bird!
-Anonymous

And long ago, when just a tad, I penned this nonsense:

If a bug on a bud is a bee
The what is a tit on a tree?
They say it’s a bird,
But I call that absurd.
Is this bump on my chest called a knee?
- It should be anonymous!

As you can see, the prolonged winter has affected my brain.

Reflections on a reluctant spring

Winter bones in the garden of Agatha Wren at Victoria Beach. She made a lovely lunch and showed us her greenhouse while blue shadows played with the trees on the pristine snow.

It is the 31st day of March, 2013. The sun is shedding her hot breath on the decaying snow banks, which weep water. Corrosive and salty lake-sized puddles wash the bellies of cars and trucks. It is minus 7 Celsius, but the days are long now, more than 12 hours and 52 minutes today, and the sun is persistent, the snow no longer resistant, even though the air is still quite frigid. It will dip to minus 15 tonight, but the battle between sun and snow will continue tomorrow. Even with the air temperature hovering at just around zero, and much lower at night, the snow must soon be gone.

There is a lot of it to go. It is piled as high as second-storey windows at some rural locations I am told. Exposed to the winds, with no obstruction, the snow can drift into massive peaks. Here in the city though, it’s the snow ploughs that pile the snow up. They have buried my front garden under four feet of snow, sand and salt, scarring a dwarf evergreen in the exercise. I despair of its recovery this summer, poor thing.
In spite of all this and the reluctance of the winter air to leave us, spring is here. And I know that the stirrings under the earth are beginning. The evergreen trees have lost some of their winter blackness as the sun stirs the leaves into action, already manufacturing chlorophyll. On warm days in the heat of the sun, their sap is singing as is that of the maple and the birch and the elm and the cottonwood. I cannot get anywhere near the forsythia which is surrounded by high accumulations of snow, but I imagine the buds to be swelling and the flowers preparing to burst into colour at the slightest encouragement by warm spring winds. This year, there will be some flowers if only from those branches that have spent the winter under the snow. Because forsythia blooms on old wood, a very cold winter (below -38 C) can damage the flower buds of even the hardiest forsythia. And often damage happens once dormancy breaks and the shrub is hit with a heavy cold spell of sub zero temperatures.

But I live in hope. I am a gardener , after all.

The hoar frost was heavy on the trees and it fell like little diamonds through the sunlit air.

“Words are birds
that fly in herds . . .”
So began a limerick I composed while listening to what I am sure was a weighty argument being made by an important MP at some obscure debate back in my old world and I am reminded of this now after a two-week period during which I have given seven talks, attended nine meetings, taken part in two conference calls and listened to one long-winded political announcement. My head is buzzing with conflicting messages.

But the words were driven from my mind as I drove to Transcona this week to speak with a group of ladies who have been meeting about gardens and other things for the past 44 years! Not only were they refreshingly interactive, but the day was beautiful, with the sun smiling through an archway of hoar-frosted elms that line the streets. It was a heavy frost that was falling in diamond flakes, each flake spinning in the sunlight as it fell, picking up bits of light and flinging it outward.

I feel that I can hear the frost on mornings like this, when the air is so crystal clear and there is music in each breath of wind. If it were like this every day, we could wait much longer for spring.

A week ago, I drove to Victoria Beach to do a talk. Agatha Wren made us lunch and showed us her garage greenhouse. The snow lay deep on the ground; it had been refreshed that morning and the sun was marking blue shadows on the white land. I listened to the silence and rejoiced in the birdsong that gave it substance.

These brief encounters with the real world keep me sane. Yesterday, I drove three hours through the winter landscape to the International Peace Gardens for a meeting. Then I drove  home another three hours but by a different route, feasting my eyes on the rolling white landscape dressed up by the spring-urgent trees on either side of the road. The journey drove away the stress of the week. The time slipped by unnoticed with the scenery and a travel companion who spoke intelligently about a whole range of topics.

It is Easter Sunday. On Good Friday, we had a family dinner for 10 and the laughter echoes in my mind with sweetness. Today, Holly will come for dinner because she had to work on Friday. I have spoken with both my lovely daughters. Life is so full.

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• Spring is Out There. Somewhere. (thegardensmallholder.wordpress.com)

 

Deaming the summer garden

Above and right: My untidy garden by the little blue spruce. ( I forgot about the mugho pine). The Amur maple is in the background. The flower-filled space in the photo to the right will be left to bloom wildly for now.

The sun rises now by 7:30 a.m. and, when I am on my way to the radio station to do my weekly show on CJOB, it is just above the horizon. This morning it was a brilliant ball of burning fire shining straight into my eyes as I travelled east towards the studio. All around, the trees were dressed in white as the temperature is hovering around zero in the daytime, while at night it dips down to minus ten or so. It’s a different kind of hoar frost than in early winter. Now it seems chalkier, painting evergreens grey as the stock of chlorophyll in the leaves is almost completely used up. It is lovely nonetheless.

You can smell spring in the wind; but more you can feel it in your veins — there’s a lightening in my step, a singing of blood that seems to move faster. There a sort of urgency in the air. My thoughts keep slipping to the garden and what to plant this summer, how I want to renovate and do something completely new in the front yard.

I am a spontaneous gardener. No matter how much I plan. I can’t resist making adjustments at planting time and then the whole scheme goes awry. I’d like to be one of those gardeners who create symmetry in shape and form, but my gardens are always more sprawling and carefree. I have decided that this summer the front yard will be taken to task and turned into a tidy work of art. I even have a plan and have asked Jamie Coté who does this as a business to help me out. I need that kind of discipline.

Lovely lamium in springtime.

I am thinking that hostas, ferns, bergenia, pulmonaria and dwarf shrubs can be made to reside under the cottonwood and between the small Blue spruce and the Amur maple. I already have a number of these plants that could be divided, not to mention a couple of lovely little lime coloured barberries. Sadly, all my beautiful heuchera succumbed to the warm winters of the past couple of years; they will need replacing to add a few notes of contrast. I mustn’t forget to add some of the fabulous Brunnera ‘Jack Frost’ or better still, ‘Looking Glass’, the leaves of which are almost white with a frosting of mint. It’s about texture as much as colour, so I will have to have some astilbes for their ferny foliage. Maybe I could add some wine-coloured bugloss to cover any bare patches. I need to create some mass plantings to allow the shape and colour of the plants to show to their best advantage. With Jamie’s help, the plan will be fulfilled because I won’t be in there at the planting, changing my mind and making impulsive decisions. Either way, I can hardly wait. And I am going to enrich the soil this spring while we are waiting for planting time. The front gardens have gone several years without any help and they show it.
Right now I am shopping in my mind’s eye but wait till I get to the garden centres. I wonder if there’d be room for an elephant’s ear — I’d like the black one. Could I add a miniature water feature to keep it happy?
You see what I am doing here, don’t you? I am reneging on my promise to Glenn to remove the old cottonwood. I am enabling its shade and giving up the luxurious green lawn he longs for — right now the tree drinks as much water as we can pour on the grass. But the call of the garden is strong and I hope he will forgive me. Of course the more I enrich the borders, the more the tree will thrive and the more it will be thirsty . . .

The wanton ways of flowers in springtime

The cosmos seems to say, “Ta da!” as it opens to the sun.

I love the wanton ways of flowers in springtime. They like to open up and spread their petals when nobody is looking, but now and then on a shining morning I catch them flaunting their freshness.

They are so playful and replete with joy as they offer themselves to passing pollinators. Some make me laugh at the way they seem to sing “Ta da!” as they fling out their petals in a burst of sun-warmed enervation. There is a rhythmic dance to the way they emerge, all bright and flawless, some enticingly perfumed, dressed in their blazing colours. Even in the rain they can’t restrain themselves, unfolding more slowly, looking dewy and innocent.

Some, the peonies, unfold their petals one-by-one in a lazy sort of way. They can afford to take their time, there are so many of them. The daisy types, though, are more spontaneous, more willing to bare it all in one grand gesture. Petunias shyly un-crumple like poppies but their wrinkled petals soon turn satin smooth in the sun.

“Pick me! Pick me!” the lily begs of the bee.

Tulips unfurl in a tentative way, gradually revealing their hearts to the sun until, throwing caution aside like an unwanted blanket, they spread their petals wide in abandon. Lilies do the same, stamens reaching for any passing bee. “Pick me, pick me!”

Zinnias unroll their petals more sedately; anthers slowly unbend into an upright position like dancers in the Rite of Spring.

The parabolic crocuses are very forthright in their seduction by the sun. Long before the snow has completely left the ground, the crocuses entice fingers of sunlight to reach inside, concentrating the warming rays into the centre of the flower to fuel early seed production. This is serious business for the crocus; a late heavy frost can put it out of production for the year.

This weekend, there was a heavy breeze on Saturday that carried traces of the coming spring. It felt like March, during those blood stirring days when you know that the sun will win in the end and that all the snow will soon wither and leave, shrinking and slipping away into gray puddles, its dazzling white now past history.

Today, there is a blizzard outside the city limits. People are stranded in truck stops on the highway just a stone’s throw away because the roads are sheer ice and visibility is zero. That’s part of the coming springtime, too. This is when we usually get our deadliest winter storms that can dump several feet of snow overnight and then, aided by a biting wind, fling back it at faces and unprotected spaces like a sand blaster.

But this rebellion is all for naught in the end. The winds will die. The sun will win. The snow will melt. For a time the earth will be laid bare, looking barren but only hiding its secrets: the teeming life already thrumming beneath its surface.

Gently, the warmth of the sun will penetrate the earth, stroking awake the billions of bacteria and protozoa, and fungi, the millions of nematodes, worms, beetles, grubs, slugs, ants and spiders and all the beauty and richness of the eco system that surrounds the roots of our plants. The world beneath the surface of the earth is so many times more diverse and rich than our own. No wonder the plants want to reside there. Why be concerned about mobility when everything they need is so ready-to-root? The symbiotic relationship plants have formed both below and above ground allows them to exploit the best of both worlds.

And they put it all to such wonderful use, providing us with food for the body and food for the soul.

The crocus knows how to entice fingers of sun into its centre to start seed production early.

Lupine buds ready to burst into the open.

They are bright and flawless when they emerge.

A zinnia unfolds its anthers that look like dancers unbending in the Rite of Spring.

They all add food for the soul.

 

The transience of tranquility

It snowed last night, but the early morning sun promises a brilliant day.

The snow is piling higher and higher on either side of the driveway.

It’s minus 24 this morning, a relief from the frigid temperatures we have been enjoying, temperatures that have dipped into the minus 30s and below when the wind is factored in. In spite of the cold, it snowed yesterday, fine snow, falling relentlessly and building on the already formidable snow banks that line our driveway. Today, the weatherman predicts a day of brilliant sunshine where the fiery ball lights up the sky with a blinding lemon glow.

The snow speaks when you walk on it with that squeak-squawk song, this time a low and guttural sound because it is so cold. It is an almost perfect winter. The snow is white, not gritty-gray from sand — it’s no use putting down salt when it’s this cold, thank goodness. Driving is tricky. You have to pay attention because it is quite slippery on the streets. But our cars remain clean.

People are bundled; you can often see only a slit for the eyes of the bus people waiting at the stops. We seem to feel the cold more this winter after the balmy weather last year but there is a cheerfulness in their voices as people come in from the outdoors, saying, “Awfully chilly out there, today!” There is a pride in the acknowledgement. And we all feel vitally alive.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After writing the above, I drove to work, mesmerized by the sundogs that I chased with my camera. They are so elusive when I try to capture an image on the fly. It was very slippery on the icy-glassy streets, so the going was slow, but it didn’t matter because the morning was very beautiful. Exhaust fogs followed cars as they pulled away from street lights. The sun dogs danced on either side of the sun, which seemed so close you could almost touch it. January is the time when the sun is closest to the earth, although the earth’s axis tilt keeps us in the north from feeling its strength.

I drove to work chasing sundogs, caught here as I waited at a red light.

 

I had no sooner arrived at the office when my bookkeeper, Margot, came in and pointed out an accident on the corner right outside my window. One car had been rammed up the snowy boulevard and into the street light. The other was sprawled across the intersection, its front end completely crumpled. A red-haired woman was frantically trying to open the rear doors of the car and when she succeeded two young children, a boy of about 8 and a girl of 11, came tumbling out. They began walking in our direction, the girl holding her stomach and crying. They looked confused and in shock.

 

“Open the back door and bring them in where it’s warm,” I shouted. In a few minutes they were all inside, including the other driver who kept saying, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” I think she had gone through a red light, or perhaps couldn’t stop on the icy road. The little girl continued to cry and moan and now her brother started crying, too, frightened, I suppose. The mother was trembling and breathless.

We supplied phones and chairs and comfort and soon the fire department paramedics arrived. Some came in to see to the children. Others efficiently blocked the street until they could move the cars and clean up the debris. This was all done and traffic was flowing within half an hour. Inside, the children had stopped crying and mom was getting in touch with her family. It was finally decided that they would take the little girl to the hospital “just to be sure”, as her stomach was still hurting. The little boy had a goose egg on his head, but he seemed all right. In two hours they were all on their way.

It made me think, though, about the transience of tranquility and how it can be so easily exploded by a chance act, a split second of bad judgement or inattention. It appears that no one was seriously hurt in this case, but I can’t help but think of the disruption to their lives. The children will have missed school that day. The mom will have missed work, not to mention the funeral she said they were going to. The grandmother, who came to take the boy home, had her day turned upside down. Dad, at work, must have been frantic with worry — I could hear the kids talking to him on the phone. The family will be car-less for some time. The other driver may face charges — her car, too, was inoperable because, while it was in better shape, the front wheel had been broken.

And yet, when they were all gone from the office, the turbulent space they had occupied closed behind them as though nothing had ever happened. Our day went on as before and only the snowy tracks of all the firemen’s boots were left to attest to their presence. The snow soon melted in the carpet and dried, leaving no trace.

Outside, other cars passed unharmed through that space on the corner, creeping along to deal with the treacherous ice. The sun beamed down, flooding the world with lemon and leaving the sundogs behind as she rose. The day went on.

Soon the house will be all but buried in the snow if it keeps up.

The unattainable sound of silence

The sounds of the city permeate everything.

In my office, the heating system sounds like a plane revving up for takeoff. It is not loud, but it keeps me in a constant state of anticipation. I am alert for the message saying it’s time to board, and I don’t know whether that makes me work harder or simply adds to the stress of the day.

At home, the refrigerator has a very loud voice. It not only hums in a most irritating way, if you leave the door open too long, it complains with a chirping sound. The clothes washer and dryer, which Glenn keep in constant action, sing an altogether different tune, competing with the furnace which cuts in and out in a roundelay of mechanical song.

The downstairs television goes 24/7; it’s a Dobbie thing. I say nothing. Clocks tick, computers hum along with the other machines, the house creaks and groans with the weather. Outside, the distant highway sends off regular rounds of thunder as mighty trucks pass — occasionally punctuated by a crash. You can’t really hear the highway inside with the doors and windows closed, but the odd siren pierces the air. On a still summer night, with the windows open at 2:00 in the morning, you can hear the whistle of the train and the rumbling of its wheels on the metal tracks four miles away.

On a quiet Sunday morning, after the dawn chorus of wakening birds, you can hear the incessant whirr of the neighbour’s built-in vacuum system as she cleans up the masses of dog hair that her two big dogs must deposit every day. We used to hear the sweet sound of her daughter’s voice as she practised her singing.

The pool filter motor goes on next and then someone starts up a lawn mower.

At dawn the sound of silence is soon broken by the light.

In winter those sounds go away to be replaced by snow blowers and the sound of engines running as cars warm up. After a snow fall, you can hear the cheery sound of shovels scraping against concrete.

When the neighbour’s son on the other side of our house is home alone, he cranks up the sound so loud that it reverberates against my home office wall; I can feel the pulse of the beat and the thrumming of the base.

There is always a hum or a whirr going on in the house even when everything with a volume control is turned off. At night, I sleep with a sleep apnea mask. The sound of the machine is faint — the sound of the air internalized, but there is sound all around. The heater cuts in and out. The incessant television downstairs adds a low rumble, the computer across the hall sends out the occasional ping as the spammers do their midnight chores.
It is never quiet.

Sometimes I long for the deep peace of the countryside, where the quiet is disturbed only by the wind rustling through leaves or by small animals and insects foraging for food. You can hear bees buzzing in this air, the fluttering of bird wings, the early morning dew dripping and releasing leaves of their burden.
In this silence, the sun’s rays travel through space and warm your arms and throat with the quality of sound. At night, the crystal midnight air reveals billions of stars humming overhead.
How beautiful, the absence of mechanical sound. It allows you to hear the throb of the earth and the sound of your heart pumping blood thorugh your veins.

In the city in winter, if you rise at four, you might catch a slice of this silence between the hum of the street lights and the distance sounds of ever present traffic. The cold helps and the snow muffles the city noise, but it’s always there, competing with the creak of the trees in the frost, with the scurrying mice feet in the pukak, the patter of the daring squirrel out of his nest to gather a hurried meal in the freezing air.

I think I shall rise at four tomorrow to listen to the sound of silence.

Of New Year’s and fish stories

It’s almost 2013 and I wonder where 2012 went. It flitted across my consciousness like a wraith or like those wispy mists you see on a summer’s morning, hanging just about eye level, barely there.

It wasn’t an unhappy year, although it was filled with anxiety for much of the time while Glenn was ill. There were some ups and some downs and lots and lots of activity. There were moments of quiet joy and others of deep dismay, but that is normal for all of us.

But still, how did the year slip away like that?

When you are very, very busy, it is hard to hold on to time. I live always in the future, it seems; one event is behind and another already looms on the horizon, but what I really want is some time to dream.

I would like to lie in the warm grass in a quiet place with a good book and handful of raisins to munch on, savouring their sweetness one by one, slowly, so make them last all day.

That is what I used to do as a girl when we lived high in the East Kootenays where there was no sunset, only light followed by darkness as the sun dropped behind the mountain. I used to long for the prairies then, never glorying in the pure, cold water that ran down the mountainsides in rills and brooks and by our house in a roaring creek; or in the sweet black cherries that dripped from the trees of a deserted but fruit-laden orchard that yielded other treasures such as crisp apples, warm pears and fuzzy peaches. The pattern for my life was already set then — living in one paradise and dreaming of another.

Now I long for that mountainside where I used to take my book and blanket on a hot summer’s afternoon and lie beside the brook with its waterfall, listening to the soothing sound of insects buzzing in the sun-burned grass. It smelled of home.This small clearing that faced the afternoon sun reeked of the wonderful, wide open spaces that had been imprinted on my heart as a little girl. I knew then, at 13, that home was where the sky meets the earth like an upside down bowl of blue and where, if you stood on a knoll, you could see forever. I knew I would come back here to live or I could not live at all.

But for their brief time in my life, the mountains slipped into my psyche and I dream of them every now and then; of the channel we children dug through our yard so that a rill that disappeared underground when it came to our property would run through the garden on its way to the creek. Our digging was done fruitlessly, I am afraid, the water having a mind and a path of its own; this was an early lesson in gardening that I wordlessly absorbed. There were wonderful wild things there, too. Devil’s club filled us with terror lest we get scratched by what the local kids told us were its poisonous thorns. Hemlock, we were told, could kill us without provocation if we touched it and then our mouths. We believed all these things and they added delicious fear to our everyday existence.

We learned to fish in the cool streams there. My sister and I would take our fishing rods and our golden Labrador, Buster, for early morning adventures, telling our Mom we were going to catch trout for dinner. And often we did. Once though we were having a hard time living up to our promise. The fish were just not co-operating. We tried all the usual spots but with no success. Then we came across a still pond above a little rapids in the creek. Swimming aimlessly in the pond was a very large trout, much larger than the usual eight- or nine-inch youngsters we usually caught. Legend had it that these trout were spawned in some lake further up the mountain beyond where the road ended, past the deserted gold mills, further even than the glacier that fed the creek its icy temperatures.

We immediately set our hooks for this beauteous fish but neither of us had any luck. Still, I had another plan. I had read about fish tickling and I thought perhaps we could apply this delightful trick to the catching of our heart’s desire. Being the eldest, I tried first, confident in my superior abilities due to a 15-month earlier entry into the world than my little sister. But I tried in vain. No matter how still I kept my arms in that chilling water, and no matter how close the fish swam, I couldn’t make the final connection.

“Let me try,” sang Carole and, of course, I  yielded, if somewhat contemptuously. How could she do what I could not? Within a minute she had the fish flipped out onto the gravel beach, flopping and flapping furiously as it tried to regain the water.

“Get the crutch, get the crutch,” she shouted, meaning the “Y” of a branch we had cut earlier to string our fish on when we caught them. Holding the fish at the short end of the fishing line, you skillfully ran one side of the fork through the gills and, if you were lucky, you could extract the hook without ever having to touch the fish. But this time there was no fishing line, only my foot to hold the fish down and the subject was not taking this imposition without objection. Getting the crutch through the gills was turning out to be a difficult task. To subdue it, I stepped down a little harder but, instead of controlling the squirmy little beast, it squirted out from under my foot and right back into the water — this time not into the pool where it had been trapped, but straight into the main stream of the creek and away!

We went home fishless and dejected after many hours of pointless labour. Mom was frantic with worry because we had been gone to so long. She was not amused or convinced by our story about the fish that got away.

As for Carole, she never forgave me. Who could blame her?

Dr.Tree

In winter, trees dominate the eye and gladden the soul when they are dressed in hoar frost.

I broadcast a weekly radio show on 680 CJOB Winnipeg and I have a cadre of favourite guests. One of them is Michael Allen, or Dr. Tree as he is styled on his licence plate. Mike is my tree mentor. He knows so much about trees, about what ails them, what attacks them, what makes them strong and long-lived.

Mikke’s passion is a living thing — he suffers for the trees that are  undernourished or under threat. He personally regrets the over-breeding of some varieties such as the schubert chokecherry which is rapidly succuumbing to black knot in this part of the world. I can see it in his face  when he speaks of these misfortunes. He flinches as he speaks of how the Mancana ashes are a dying breed here or how the elms trees are so threatened because people insist on storing elm wood, which is a magnet for the elm beetle. For Mike, the loss of every tree deserves a grieving.

Today he worried about the balsam firs that are being eaten by a sawfly which chews the leaves and leaves an irregular pattern of orange damage behind. The ashes, he says are more mysterious. their plague is a fungal one for which the vector had not yet been identified. It could be, says Mike, an invisible-to-the-naked-eye, organelle that is wind borne or even soil borne. He wonders how to fight something that strikes so silently and invisibly when we are not sure yet what it is.

Mike has been doctoring and lecturing and worrying about trees for over 40 years, and he has his favourites. At one time it was the beautiful Japanese silk lilac. Then it was the shapley  Pagoda dogwood. Today it is Swiss Stone pine, which he believes does not get the exposure it deserves here in Manitoba.  He has a list of favourites for the small yard which I will post on our website at www.localgardener.net next week and carry it in our springtime issue of the magazines. On this list is the lovely Northern Acclaim honey locust which has a lacy appearance due to its finely compound leaves.

I love his passion for trees and I always learn from him.He runs a small consulting service, Viburnum Tree Experts, and he is alwyas willing to help a desperate tree owner.

 

Joy to the world

 

Christmas morning

It’s early Christmas morning. Nobody is stirring yet and the world is hushed with expectancy. What a lovely time to be awake, waiting for the day to begin and for all the good things that it will bring: the drive to Lori’s through the morning sun and snow ; the gift opening and the fun of absorbing Holly’s and Graeme’s delight as part of our own; the brunch prepared by Lori and Graeme now what he has grown to over six feet tall but enjoys cooking; the chats with Joe, Lori’s “lover” as we call him in the 19^th century meaning of the word (the word partner is so confusing these days), and with our darling Holly. She has a boy friend now, too, and Craig will be with us for the day

Then back home for a nap if we want one and, later, Ian will join us and we three will go back to Lori’s for dinner. What luxury. No need for me to cook and Ian is bringing one of his famous deserts. Perhaps Andrea, Holly’s loyal friend and part of our extended family since when they were four years old, will be there. We will all laugh and talk over one another and tells stories to each other.  

Last night, Christmas Eve, was just as lovely. Our friends came by – there were just six of us, and we indulged in a guilt-free meal of hors d’oeuvres, followed by three perfect little deserts courtesy of Ian. The fire blazed in the fireplace, the Christmas tree was splendour of white and candles twinkled all over the house. Christmas carols played softly in the background and we opened a bottle of the very best wine. It is bitterly cold outside, but we didn’t notice with all the warmth in our small house. We are so very blessed with good friends.

Later Christmas Day

It was worth waiting for. The whole day was filled with laughter. The sun did shine and sparkle off the snow as Glenn and I made our way to Lori’s on Christmas morning. It was minus 26.

At Lori’s house, all was warm and inviting and the gifts and the brunch were satisfying and nurturing to the soul and to the body. Lori’s mimosas made her giddy – she has no tolerance for alcohol – and she is funny and sweet.

Shauna called to thank us for their gifts and tell us of their plans for a splendid day. They always celebrate with homemade cinnamon buns in the morning and this afternoon they were going to a movie and then out to dinner. They all dress up and make it a special occasion, Toronto style.   

   

Later, when we came back to Lori’s for dinner, with Ian in tow, we fell into an easy camaraderie with Ian and Craig to witness funny family stories and gentle teasing of yours truly. We laughed and laughed over silly things and over nothing at all. It was the way we always laughed at Christmas when the girls were young and my sister Kitty would come over. Kitty was witty, with an innocent malice that kept us gasping with mirth.

In those days, Lori had a boyfriend who was a magician (now a well known name in magic circles, world-wide) and he would delight my little nieces and nephews by dressing up as a skinny Santa, complete with a bag of tricks and gifts on his back. Now the magic comes from us and the people we gather round us.

It was a lovely Christmas. How seldom we encounter two such perfect days. They are gifts to cherish and hold close against the other days when things don’t go as well. How grateful I am that Glenn is well and gaining weight, that the kids are thriving and happy and that we live in a warm circle of good friends.

Merry Christmas. I  hope your lives are filled with the same joy.

One of the beautiful bur oaks in our world.

Snow and oaks

Snow sifted like salt.

Snow, fine and dry as salt, sifted onto everything. Later the flakes grew, falling softly on housetops, on walkways and roads, slicking them treacherously. Windshield wipers couldn’t clear it fast enough; it melted and then turned to ice on car windows, obscuring vision. Then fog rolled in and left a rime of hoar frost on tree branches already lined with snow. The evergreens look painted, even now.

All week, the snow has tantalized and teased us. There were feather flakes on Monday and on Sunday and off and on again on Tuesday. These are light, dry flakes looking like tiny flowers and collecting on everything they touch. They rest on tree branches in the windless air, willing to whisk away at the slightest breath.
We are told that this year Winnipeg will have a white Christmas and is almost guaranteed to have snow on Christmas day. What a lovely thing to contemplate and I can hardly wait for that moment when Glenn and I drive to Lori’s, the car filled with presents, to be part of Christmas morning with the kids. Even though they are almost grown up, this still seems very important as it was to their grandparents when Lori and Shauna were young.

The oaks

We live in Charleswood, where oak forests still exist, although barely. Bur oaks can live up to 400 years and most of the oaks in this city were here when the houses they surround were built. These trees were young when the buffalo roamed here.

The oaks represent timelessness and strength.

To my eye, their time is winter. Somehow they seem more animate now as they reach up rugged branches which stand out black against the pewter sky up and welcome the snow. .

Yet strong as they are, oaks have a sensitive root system that resents the loading of soil on the surface above them. The vibrations of traffic are a disturbance to their slow march toward the future. Soil compaction suffocates trees that took root expecting only the sounds and rhythms of nature. Many of the heritage oaks are dying now, succumbing to the inexorable intrusion of people-needs.

They say time marches on, but I suspect it is people who do the marching while time stands still with the oak trees.