🎄 MERRY CHRISTMAS CAMELLIA 🎄

Camellia sasanqua
'Showa-No-Sakae'
A gift from gardener Gwendolyn Yansen.
🎄 Blooming Twenty-five December 2017 🎄

🌿 COMING IN 🌿

"From December to March, 

there are for many of us,

three gardens––the garden outdoors, 

the garden of pots and bowls in the house, 

and the garden of the mind's eye."

Kathryn S. White 

The outside temperature today in the USDA
hardiness zone 8-b of Shaw Island, 
 is a wonderful 50°F but some garden pots are 
 inside on the Douglas fir shelf in the sun,
reserved for their winter quarters. 
 Glassybaby "Elf" snuggles with pots of
"Christmas Cactus" (Schlumbergera) on the left,
a small genus of 6 species native to Brazil.
 On the right is the common "Asparagus Fern"
(Asparagus aethiopicus) native to S. Africa.
She prefers to live potbound while helping to
clean the indoor winter air. Easy going, 
but likes humidity of wet gravel under her pot
to enhance her complexion. Propagation of
the latter is by division with a handsaw or
by planting the seeds in spring.

Anno thirteen December 2017.

🌿 SHAW ISLAND TREES Down 🌿

Aged Western Red Cedar (Thuja plicata)
lost in the wind off Broken Point,
Shaw Island, WA.

Fallen grandfather Serviceberry or Saskatoon berry
(Amelanchier alnifolia), Midway Road, Shaw Island, WA.
This is the tree species with golden leaves lighting the
way like little sundrops along Blind Bay Rd to the landing
all the way into December, when we need them the most.
Her dried berries were used in making pemmican.
Thank you to Aho'i and Maggie for the jar of special
South Island Saskatoons jam from Cobble Hill, BC.

Yet another Douglas fir looking healthy
on the exterior, but rotten on the interior–– the Squaw Bay Rd
culprit that beat up the transmission power lines & the
sleep schedule for many Opalco crew;
Sunday 26 Nov. 2017.

"The future, once we reach middle age, always seems daunting and it'll never take the course you expect it to anyway. Live for the here and now, then, if here and now seems good.
       Let all planning ahead be for your plants; a year ahead for annuals, two years ahead for biennials [such as the strong, beautiful Shaw Island Foxgloves], an indefinite number of years ahead for the trees. Never take the 'I shan't see it' attitude. By exercising a little vision you will come to realize that the tree, which has a possible future, perhaps a great one, may be more important than yourself nearing your end. So it's worth thinking more about the tree and giving it a good start in life in the right position than about yourself, except in so far it is a great delight to see the tree responding and developing under your sympathetic treatment."Christopher Lloyd, The Adventurous Gardener.

Anno one December 2017
Here comes Neil just in time to fill in some slack
with a new Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum.)
The giant Sequoia is the world's largest living thing by volume.
The oldest known giant Sequoia, based on ring count, is
3,500 years. This tree is a very popular ornamental tree and is
successfully grown in the PNW, SE Australia, New Zealand,
central-southern Chile, west and southern Europe and
going strong on Shaw Island, San Juan archipelago.
Shaw Island has lost many large trees in the last year,
let's be planting!

🌿 🌿 DRY AND HAPPY FOR THE HOLIDAYS

Hope this harvest season has been good to you.
A bounty of fresh seeds has been collected
around this island
of Shaw for the Gatehouse shed.
The packets have been moved into screwcap jars for
protection from moisture.
There are herbs and a selection
of flower seed packages at the roadside shed for
late autumn or early spring broadcasting.
The handmade packets are green thoughts
for stocking stuffers in December.
Happy Holidays.

🌿 SHAW ISLAND'S LEAVES OF NOVEMBER 🌿

"Even if something is left undone,
everyone must take time to sit still
and watch the leaves turn."
Elizabeth Lawrence (1904-1985)

Author of  A Southern Garden––one of the undisputed
 classics in American garden writing. She also wrote
 Little Bulbs
Gardens in Winter
Gardening for Love
A Garden of One's Own and
Through the Garden Gate.
Horticulture magazine has a beautiful tribute to her;

click here

🌿 LILY AND COMPANY 🌿

Angel's Rosemary Blue Lagoon
Corinne's Grime's Golden apples
Cherie's "Tiger Lilies"
English Torquay Pottery pitcher.
Anno sixteen October 2017,
Shaw Island harvest trio,
"blooming where they were planted."

🌿 Wordless Wednesday

"Few plants carry such a cargo of atmosphere.
Ferns are the embodiment of green thoughts
in a green shade."
Hugh Johnson, The Principles of Gardening.
With thanks to savvy gardeners, sailors, and Shaw Island 
Gatehouse support crew, Aho'i & Maggie of Olympia, WA.
Shaw Island Maidenhair ferns 4 October 2017.

🌿 ASIAN TIGERS–––HIDDEN DRAGON 🌿

Lilium lancifolium 'Splendens'
These Asian Lilies (aka 'Tiger Lilies')
first reached U.S. gardens in 1804.
The ones reaching up to taunt the Dragon
are the first 'Tiger Lilies' at the Gatehouse,
Reefnet Bay Road, Shaw Island.
Anno thirteen September two thousand and seventeen.

🌿 Summer Rose from Shaw Island 🌿

Rosa 'Abraham Darby'
Crow Valley handthrown clay pot
For Raymond & Claudia.
Thanks for the visit from Portland, OR.
Summer 2017

🌿 Great White Heads 🌿

"...in the midst of which Leaves, sometimes in the middle
of autumn, and sometimes sooner, there rises up a
great white Head of white hard Flowers closely thrust together,
sometimes they are of a Milk, or Cream, or yellowish
White color." 
The English Herbal by William Salmon, M.D., 1710
And Shaw Island cauliflower this day of 12 August 2017.

🌿 LOVE-IN-A-MIST 🌿

Nigella damascena
delicate looking but hardy enough
for growing on Shaw Island.

Botanical Name: Nigella damascena
Common Name: Love-in-a-mist
Life cycle: Hardy annual.
Native Growing Region: Southern Europe and northern Africa.
Zone: 4-8.
Height: 12"-24"
Bloom time: mid-summer. 
Maintenance: Low.
Water: when dry and fertilize monthly.
Flower: Showy flowers open pale but mature to an intense pure shade of sky-blue such as we all find irresistible. Self-sowing but not a thug. Deadheading spent flowers will extend the bloom period, but will also prevent the development of attractive post-bloom seed pods.
Cut flowers in the morning to minimize water loss. 
Culture: Should be sown directly by broadcasting seed in the autumn or spring. Resents transplanting.
Days to Sprouting: 10-15.
Uses: Mixed borders, cottage gardens, cut flowers, dried fruits, bedding, and containers. Stems with dried capsules make excellent additions to dried flower arrangements.

Notes: A popular cool weather annual. Flowers are followed by pine green, globular seed pods that have reddish-brown markings. They like full sun to part shade and ordinary garden soil with excellent drainage. The drying seed capsules can be viewed here

Van Dusen Botanical Garden, Vancouver, B.C:
"A favorite of Victorian gardeners, adds a delicate touch to almost any planting scheme. Seeds of Nigella damascena are NOT edible. The edible Nigella seeds are Nigella sativa."

      Here's a passage from An Island Garden by American author and poet Celia Thaxter (1835-1894). They wrote primarily about the Isles of Shoals, a group of nine small islands located ten miles off the coast of Portsmouth, N.H. Her family operated a large resort hotel on Appledore Island and Celia's presence helped to attract many of the leading artists, musicians, and authors of the day. Celia devoted uncounted hours to her spectacular flower garden. 

"I hold a flower of the pretty Love-in-a-Mist, the quaint Nigella, and scan its charming face. It blossoms late and long and is a flower of most distinguished beauty. It is star-shaped, in tints of white, blue, and purple, with full rich stamens and anthers of warmer red-purple, the petals on the back delicately veined in each variety with fine lines of faint green. The rich luster of stamens is surrounded at the base by eight smaller inner petals in different tints, so wonderful in detail, so ornate in decoration as to be simply indescribable. Each large outer petal is curved and cup-shaped, yet each has its finishing point that makes the blossom starry, and these eight inner petals radiate from the center within, above the larger ones. The foliage, whence it gets its old-time name, Love-in-a-mist, is like a soft green vapor, and in the double varieties, runs up and mixes itself with the petals. The single varieties are much the finest. They have a faint perfume of anise, and they are among the quaintest and most interesting flowers I know."

Nigella damascena
Seed packets now for sale at the
Shaw Island Gatehouse,
Reefnet Bay Road, Shaw Island, WA.

🌿 CAPTURING SHAW ISLAND SUMMER, 2017 🌿

"Love-in-a-mist "
Summer harvest for Gatehouse Seeds.
Ripening seeds releasing from
Nigella damascena capsules.
Shaw Island July 2017.

"Summer is a promissory note signed in June, it's long days spent and gone before you know it, and due to be repaid next January." 
American writer Hal Borland

Thomas Jefferson grew Devil in a Blue Dress on his plantation. Celia Thaxter planted it on her island. And Gertrude Jekyll spent years selecting a cultivar for color -- a pure, soft blue of a quality distinctively its own. With that distinguished past, it is now more commonly known as Love-in-mist. Franziska Reed Huxley tells of it as fine to plant in autumn but she prefers successive plantings in the spring. Many choices for those of us in USDA zone 8b.

♦︎ Seeds from an island garden are now processed in packets for the seed-shed racks, at the Gatehouse, Squaw Bay Road, Shaw Island.

🌿 Shaw Island Summer Roses 🌿

Summer Roses
Glassybaby Jade vase
For honeymooners, Paul and Sandra.
Best wishes & thanks for the Gatehouse visit.
Shaw Island, July 2017.

🌿 ONE JULY 2017 🌿

"We might think we are nurturing
our garden,
but it's our garden nurturing us."
Jenny Uglow, OBE.

Mexican Bell Vine
(Rhodochiton astrosanguineus)
Shaw Island, WA.

🌿 ANYONE CAN BE A GARDENER 🌿

These examples and many more
 locally grown and harvested herb and
flower seeds are now on the racks.
Stop by the Gatehouse,
Reefnet Bay Road,
Shaw Island, WA.
What an easy to pack-home-souvenir
or gifts for your gardening friends
who would like an
organic treat from the
San Juan Archipelago.

"Anyone can be a gardener. It's simply a matter of choice. On the day you find yourself fretting about the first frost or ruminating about Rhododendron color, the day you say to yourself, 'I'm a gardener'––you are one. You need no degrees or doctorates, no accumulations of blue ribbons at a prestigious Iris Society Competition, no title bestowed by an intimidating gardening society, no personnel official to declare, 'you're in,' nor any special knowledge of pH factors or compost heaps. What is essential is training your vision to see beyond what's already there; having enough strength to haul around a garden cart filled with fifty-pound bags; and money, because you can't start planting without any plants.. 

Dianne Benson. Dirt. The Lowdown on Growing a Garden with Style.

  Here is a customer review of the above-quoted O/P book by Benson, one review of 16 on Amazon, each rating the book with 5 stars.

"I don't even remember how I found out about this book. I bought a used copy on Amazon about a year ago and am today ordering another copy as mine is falling apart and dirty from being used outside. I couldn't garden without it in my Zone 7 shady garden with horrible clay soil. Along with the basics of gardening, it is a personal, opinionated account of creating a garden. I may not ever grow the exotic tropicals Ms. Benson loves (I am too lazy to dig them up for the winter) but there is so much information in this book on what to grow, how to do it and what to combine it with you are sure to find something you love. Be aware that there are no lush color photographs, just some black and white and line drawings. Love it, Love it, Love it!"

🌿 ISLAND SUMMER ROSE 🌿 2017

"Then I will raise aloft the milk-white rose
For whose sweet smell the air shall be perfumed."
William Shakespeare
Henry VI, Part 2, 1.1

ROSA banksiae 'alba'
LADY BANKS rose.
Mideke hand-thrown porcelain pot
and Oyster drills from an island beach.
Shaw Island, WA.
Anno One June Two Thousand and Seventeen.

🌿 A Deer and Drought Resistant Garden 🌿

Herb 'Golden Feverfew'
A deer-resistant Shaw Island garden plant.
(Most often deer resistant.)

"A vegetable garden almost anywhere in the San Juans requires a fence to keep out the deer. However, there are a lot of beautiful plants you can use in an ornamental border that the deer won't touch––and many of them are drought-resistant as well. Doug Bayley, a landscape gardener who worked at the Farm Nursery on Orcas Island had an experimental deer-resistant and drought-resistant garden there and he learned a lot.
      Some plants were more inviting to the deer than he expected and got nipped in the late summer after the lush growth in the fields tapered off. Those included Shasta Daisies, gaillardia, tulips, pansies, and almost all the annuals except zinnias. Deer also eat yew shrubs (although they're supposed to be poisonous) and cypress, and in the fall they rub small trees and shrubs with their horns and strip the bark off. 
      But there's a long list of plants that came through a full year untouched by the deer, and he recommends them for unfenced areas. All the herbs did well, including rosemary and lavender. Rosemary is considered good luck next to the front door, he added, and rosemary cuttings make a traditional housewarming present. Successful shrubs included potentilla, especially Ellen Willmott; choisya and skimmia, both plants with fragrant white flowers; ceanothus, rock rose, broom, juniper, rhododendron, cotoneaster, heather, hypericum, buddleia, boxwood, ilex, Pieris, and barberry.

Rhomneya coulteri
Deer resistant.
Photograph by Far Reaches Farm Nursery,
Pt. Townsend, WA.

      Among the perennials, Rhomneya is both deer and drought-resistant but difficult to propagate. Doug tried a couple hundred cuttings at the nursery and was successful with five. 
      Peonies, daylilies, and delphinium lasted as long as they bloomed, but then "the deer munched them down," Doug said. Iris, "are pretty cast iron." Other successful perennials included santolina, dianthus, bergenia, crocosmia, pulmonaria, hardy geraniums, Ajuga, Campanula, Lychnis, poppies, evening primrose, hellebores, and catnip.
      Most of the drought-resistant plants are California natives. Some of the more successful plants were Ceanothus, California wild lilac and rock rose. Doug pointed out that many plants will take a lot of drought in August if they get plenty of water in May. In fact, a dry August helps them harden off for winter. 
      We have some limitations in the San Juans, including the deer and the lack of water––but Doug pointed out that the climate here is ideal for almost all kinds of gardening."
Text by San Juan Island writer, Louise Dustrude. San Juan Islands Almanac. Friday Harbor, WA. Volume 11. 1984.
      
For her Shaw Island experience, Diana includes these on a list of deer-resistant plants:
Lily, Aster, Gladiolus, Alyssum, Cosmos, Dahlias, Zinnia, Sunflower, Crocosmia, Pieris, Viburnum, Stachys byzantina (Lamb's Ears) and Helleborus.

     Others that Cherie can add; Agastache rugosa, Boxwood, Camas, Foxgloves, Fritillaria imperialis (Gatehouse flower spring '18), Cotoneaster dammeri, Crocus, Cyclamen, Daffodils, Dianthus, Echinops, Epimedium, 'Honey Bush', Leucojum (Summer Snowflake"), Lonicera nitida, the winter-blooming Mahonia x 'Charity', Magnolia grandiflora, Papaver cambricum (Welsh Poppies), Nicotiana sylvestris, Oriental Poppies, Trillium, the old-fashioned Kniphofia (but not the gorgeous large yellow-flowered cultivars), Common Mullein (Verbascum) which are being tested around the Gatehouse garden. Alyssum has been devoured in the Gatehouse garden summer of 2018. The names in red ink are stocked on the seed shelf at the Gatehouse.
🌿 In 2019, Shaw Island deer enjoyed the juicy center buds coming on the new growth in a pot of Dahlias at the Gatehouse and dined on the red flowers of Crocosmia 'Lucifer.' Some pots are climbing higher to the top of a spool-table so let us see how that goes.
In July of 2019, the deer cleaned off the flower heads on Yarrow, Rubeckia, Persicaria, and several Red-Hot Pokers. But the flowering tobacco is strong and without teeth marks.
🌿 There is an informative essay by Jeff Chorba on Designing with Deer Resistance. Click here.

🌿 BLUE-EYED MARY for MAY 🌿

Blue-eyed Mary
(Collinsia grandiflora)
Mideke porcelain pot.
In early April on coastal bluffs, on through June,
whole ledges and slopes reflect the sky color as
myriad Collinsia open their buds.
It can be a rather tedious gleaning of seed from the
small capsules, so we might not find it for sale at
Gatehouse Seeds.
Enjoy her in the wild.
Anno One May Two Thousand and Seventeen.

🌷 TULIPS 🌷 NOW AND THEN

There are only a few more days to catch the riot of color in the tulip fields of the Skagit Valley for the spring of 2017.
      The Tulip Festival folks have a helpful site--here is a link to Bloom Status, the source for this beautiful photo. RoozenGaarde lists they will have tulips blooming until 7 May 2017.

Skagit Valley tulips
RoozenGaarde Farm,
as of 27 April 2017.
Photo from the Bloom Status site.

If you'd rather I stay within the bounds of our garden isle of Shaw, I can do that with one of my favorite tulip photos from the garden of Gwen Yansen, from fifteen years ago. These are Menton Tulips, an attractive blend of three colors.

Menton Tulips ©
A late-blooming, single tulip bred in 1971.
As pretty as the grower, Gwen Yansen (1915-2012.)
Gwen's garden, Shaw Island, WA.
Photo by author 2002.

🌿 HAPPY EASTER 🌿 2017

🌿 Swamp Beauty 🌿 "YELLOW ARUM" One April 2017

YELLOW ARUM
(Lysichiton americanum)
Most often known in the PNW as "Skunk Cabbage,"
they are more stunning up close and personal; if you are
on the island, it is worth a stop to view this native happy
along a small stream on Ben Nevis Loop Road,
where lives a lot of the March rain.
Shaw Island, San Juan Archipelago, WA.
Anno One April Two Thousand and Seventeen.

"The large tropical-looking swamp plant whose brilliant yellow spathes illuminate the dark swamps as early as February or March [is still out to greet us this day on Shaw Island.] The spathe unfolds to reveal the spadix, a thick stalk bearing hundreds of small greenish flowers. Shortly the fleshy oval leaves emerge from the mud, ultimately to form huge fans. These are the largest of any plant occurring in our area. Some have measured 56" long by 29" wide!
      The whole plant has a smell of spring, of surging growth, that would be objectionable in a closed room but is not unpleasant in its own habitat. For the record, it does not smell at all like the mephitic spray of the skunk. Bears consume the whole plant, including the short thick rootstock, while deer occasionally browse the leaves.
      This huge plant is related to the taro, staple food of the Polynesians. Both plants produce a stinging sensation in the mouth, due to calcium oxalate. Ages ago, the natives of our area discovered, as did those of the South Seas, that roasting and drying the root drove off the substance responsible for the stinging, burning taste, after which it could be ground to an edible flour.
      Look for the yellow torches of the Yellow Arum (Lysichiton americanum) in the mucky ground and swampy areas along the coast from Alaska south, and in the interior of BC south from about the latitude of Prince George to central California."
Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest from Alaska to Northern California. Clark, Lewis. Sidney, BC; Gray's Publishing Limited. 1976.

Nancy J. Turner (Plant Technology of the First Peoples of British Columbia. UBC Press, 2001.) tells us that the large, flat, water-repellent leaves were used as wax-paper by virtually all coastal aboriginal cultures and even some cultures in the interior. They also made makeshift berry containers by folding and pinning the leaf edges together with sticks.

🌿 ELSIE'S HELLEBORES 🌿

Heritage Hellebore from Elsie Crawford Wood,
Shaw Islander who cultivated a garden now under the
WSF traffic lanes at the landing.
Anno twenty March two thousand and seventeen.
Celadon porcelain vase by Mideke.
For K.A.L.

"Never expose your Oranges, Lemons, and the like tender. Trees whatever seasons flatter, 'til the Mulberry puts forth its leafe, then bring them boldly out of the Green House." 
John Evelyn's spring advice to his gardener at Sayes Court in 1687.

"Presumably the mulberry waits to put forth its leaf until all danger of frost is over, so the advice should hold good for one's geraniums and other tender bedding plants."
From: A Countrywoman's Year. Verey, Rosemary. Little, Brown and Co., 1989. 

🌿 JOAN IRVING BRANDT on her birthday 🌿

Remembering the flowers 
& friendship of
Joan Irving Brandt, artist &
helpful summer resident 
of Shaw Island.

"Butterflies 

and poppies 

belong to each other.

The flower's petals

are as translucent as wings.

I really feel that they would fly away too, 
if they were not tethered by their stems."

Joan Irving Brandt

Joan's career in watercolor got off to an early start with the purchase of one of her works by the prestigious Metropolitan Museum. At that time she was the youngest American painter to be so honored. Over the subsequent years she lectured, taught and juried from Hawaii to Italy. But she is best known for her observant genre subjects found in the United States and especially the American West Coast. 
      The American Watercolor Society voted Joan an Honorary Life Member. She is cited as an important force in the mid-century revival of watercolor as a major American art form.
Excerpts from a commemorative talk by friend and art collector Gene Crain on the Patio at Blue Sky, 2 December 1995.
      "Happiness is too often confused with acquiring things. Awareness is self-rewarding in that it leads on to appreciate without desiring." Joan.1949.
      The watercolor in this post is the cover of a 16 page booklet archived in the Gatehouse collection of Shaw Island history, courtesy of long time islander, Marlyn Hoffman. Joan's artist husband, Rex Brandt, inscribed: "Joan thought an extra lot of Shaw Island people."
      Hanging at the Shaw Island Community Building there is a Joan Irving Brandt watercolor of the islanders on South Beach, celebrating the launching of the John Alden cutter, JOHANNA, 27 May 1987. Thank you Joan.

🌿 GARDENING IN THE DIRT for MARCH ONE🌿

Gwendolyn Yansen (1915-2012)
Shaw Island gardener
enjoying the annual spring rite releasing her
 pots of cherished Begonias from winter storage,
under the house, as she did for c. fifty island years.
She wouldn't mind if Rosemary Verey called
her a dirt gardener, but Gwen always changed into
clean clothes to go to the landing for mail.
A hard act to follow.
Photo 2000.

"Americans speak English but often their expressions are far removed from ours. On one occasion I was introduced as a 'dirt gardener'. I felt mildly surprised and even embarrassed––did my fingernails so easily betray my daily occupation? Later I learnt it was intended as a compliment, to convey that I actually dig in the garden myself. A shared appreciation of a subject or a mutual way of life is the best way to seal a friendship."
A Countrywoman's Year. Verey, Rosemary, OBE; Victoria Medal of Honour, from the Royal Horticulture Society, the highest accolade the Society can award.

Shaw Island Hamamelis flowers in February and
stretching to Gwen's birthday on March 4
Shaw Island March 2017.

🌿 IRIS RETICULATA🌿

Iris reticulata and friends.
Anno twenty-three February
two thousand and seventeen
Shaw Island

"This little bulb (named after the net-like coat of fibers that protects the bulb itself) is one of the best-loved of all irises, giving pleasure out of all proportion to its size––it is only a few inches tall. Its velvety blue flowers flecked with gold arrive in very early spring, and are heavily scented. It is quite hardy and increases fast in well-drained preferably alkaline soil––a few bulbs planted 3 inches deep and 4 inches apart in autumn will form an established colony in a year of two.
      Being so small, do not let the irises get swamped in a large border. They are ideal for the rock garden, or for raised troughs, where they can be seen and sniffed near eye-level. 
      After flowering the leaves present a problem, for they grow very tall and grassy and are something of an eyesore, and must not, of course, be cut down. A light, non-strangulating ground-cover might be planted nearby.*
      In her epic poem The Land, Via Sackville-West honored Iris reticulata as one of the earliest flowers of the year."

 For no new flowers shall be born

Save hellebore on Christmas morn,

And bare gold jasmine on the wall,

And violets, and soon the small 

Blue netted iris, like a cry

Startling the sloth of February.

      
Quote from: Perfect Plant, Perfect Garden by Ann Scott-James (1913-2009.) Journalist, author of several classic gardening titles.
Published by Summit Books. N.Y. 1988.
* A suggestion for a colorful plant to hide some of those late-stage iris leaves is this spot of summer color, Golden Feverfew, an herb easy to start from broadcasted seeds available at Gatehouse Seeds this spring and summer.

Golden Feverfew
Tanacetum parthenium "aurea"
Shaw Island, WA.

Golden Feverfew 
(Tanacetum parthenium "Aurea")
Handpacked, island-grown seeds
are available at Gatehouse Seeds
Reefnet Bay Road, 
Shaw Island, WA.

🌿 SHAW ISLAND HELLEBORES for VALENTINE'S DAY 🌿

HELLEBORES AND HEARTS
Hand-hooked wool on linen table mat with hearts by Marlyn
Happy Valentine's Day from Shaw Island.

🌿 FEBRUARY ON SHAW ISLAND 🌿

"NO WINTER LASTS FOREVER;
NO SPRING SKIPS ITS TURN."
Hal Borlan (1900-1978)
For birthday girl A.B.
Anno three February two thousand and seventeen.
Carved Viking Dragon by Nicklas Nielsen, 2014.

🌿 WINTER FUEL 🌿

One full woodshed,
wrapped with overflow under her ample eaves.
Builders, Ed Hopkins and Buzz Melville.
Shaw Island, ca. 1980

"The world is much the poorer for the lost technologies of earlier times, where it was common knowledge, for example, exactly which wood was good for what.
      I came across this translation of a Latin poem on the properties of firewood. It appeared as a letter to The Times on 1 March, 1929."
   

"Beechwood fires are bright and clear, if the logs are kept a year.

Chestnut's only good, they say, if for long its laid away.

Make a fire of Elder tree, death within your house shall be.

But Ash new or Ash old is fit for a queen with a crown of gold.

Birch and Fir logs burn too fast; blaze up bright and do not last.

It is by the Irish said, Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread.

Elm wood burns like churchyard mould; e'en the very flames are cold.

But Ash green or Ash brown is fit for a queen with a golden crown.

Poplar gives a bitter smoke, fills your eyes and makes you choke.

Apple wood will scent your room with an incense-like perfume,

Oaken logs, if dry and old, keep away the winter's cold.

But Ash wet or Ash dry a king shall warm his slippers by."

Hugh Johnson on Gardening; The Best of Tradescant's Diary. Johnson, Hugh.
The Royal Horticulture Society. London. 1993.