🌿 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.

🌿 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.

🌿 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.

🌿 In the Spring ・・・ 🌿

"In the spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours." 

Mark Twain.

Helleborus argutifolius
Blooming on Shaw Island
anno twenty March twenty sixteen
Glassybabys, Frog Hunting, Jade & Pollen.

ON GARDENING

Rhododendron 'Polar Bear'
Purchased from Meerkerk Gardens, Whidbey Island, WA.
Blooming on Shaw Island this day of Eleven July 2015.

"Gardening is not some game by which one proves his superiority over others, not is it a marketplace for the display of elegant things that others cannot afford. It is, on the contrary, a growing work of creation, endless in its changing elements. It is not a monument or an achievement, but a sort of travelling, a kind of pilgrimage you might say, often a bit grubby or sweaty, though true pilgrims do not mind that. A garden is not a picture, but a language, which is of course, the major art of life."

The late, great Henry Mitchell, in the Essential Earthman.

      Slate published a beautiful tribute to one of my favorite garden writers in 1998. See Deborah Needleman