SPACED OUT

Ask anyone who knows me and they’ll tell you how claustrophobic I am. Though my therapist friend Judith insists, as she always does putting a positive spin on things, that I just need more space than most people. Still I had to be drugged to take an MRI, and I opt for staircases over elevators any day.
Michael calls me affectionately “squirrelly” . I’m not sure exactly what he means. Is he referring to my evasive nature? Or my nuttiness?
Here on the farm space is at a premium. Our house is tiny, with no room-of-one’s- own for either of us, which can make winter uncomfortably tight. With the lingering winter skies which can be so bitterly low compounding the fact. In spring and summer our lives expand on to our vast decks and expansive lawns spreading out through the orchard right up to the edge of the swamp. Life gets a little yin and yang around here as we expand and contract our realm with the seasons.
My working realm also expands greatly this time of year. I garden about 15 acres all together for my 4 clients and if you count the 7 acres at home, well, you get the picture. There is a lot of ground to cover in a week making more like a Serengeti ungulate than a squirrel. Some days I wish I could soar over it all like an observant raptor instead.
The term “ spaced out” is probably foreign to my parents generation. I’m sure it arose from the drug-induce mind-altering state know as the 70s. It is a floaty state hard to explain, between meditation and aggravation, activity and sloth. No place to anchor, nothing to understand. I felt it when I floated on my back in the briny Caribbean off the coast of Nicaragua in March. I feel it sometimes in the morning before my first cup of tea, when my mind lies numb in my cranium.
Now I don’t want to live my life in a spaced out state. I love the rush of activity, the sparkle of curiosity, the solid silence of meditation. But sometimes , just sometimes, I like to space out, to vanish.
And sometimes that involves getting away.
On Saturday I used the last of my energy from a very exhausting week to rocket myself out of the lowlands. With my caffeinated foot hard to the pedal I sped over the rain splattered, green saturated Cascades and down into the inland deserts of Washington. There wasn’t enough time to think, so I headed to a favorite spot: Umptanum Canyon.
The valley was filled with bird song and wildflowers, the skies blue. The treeless landscape let my busy mind wander, dissipate, finding the relaxing space it needed.
And then I could enjoy, plainly and simply enjoy, the beautiful flowers, so casually, so artfully strewn through the valley. Each time I go there the I see new flowers. The season has been cool and wet many early flowers still bloomed though the valley was filled with Memorial day hikers and campers.



Lithospermum ruderale



Prunus virginiana, the chokecherry native to vast expanses of North America.





Some grasses are already turning autumnal colors as the soils dry out on the slopes above the Umptanum Creek.



Nothing helps the the spacing out process better than lazily moving clods in a blue sky and a nap.



This remarkable little Mimulus gave this inch worm a place to nap out of the sun.






This garden worthy combination of Hackelia diffusa, spreading stickseed, and Lupinus sericeus, silky lupine, is prevalent throughout the canyon.




My favorite Northwest desert shrub Pushia tridentata, bitterbrush, a rose relative, has a beautiful fragrance taht is not at all rosy.



After leaving the canyon I drove around to Umptanum Ridge. Wind whipped and spartan offering vast open views even with the clouds moving in. It takes austerity to a new level. I hardly spaced out though, so attracted to all the wild flowers that defiantly break out of this hard volcanic soil and into the harsh winds.



Among the many species of lupin here, the stony-ground lupin, Lupinus saxosa sood out with it's dense flower heads.



There were still vernal pools pocking the dry ridge where common camas, Cammasia quamash, grow.



There were also several species of l phlox in bloom, this one is Phlox speciosa, showy phlox, which it certainly is.



Thompson's paintbrush, Castilleja thompsonii not yet in bloom but lovely none the less





I had to hold this large flowered brodiaea, Triteleia grandiflora var. grandiflora, against the raging winds.

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Any of you who have been reading this blog for a while know I have a fondness fro clovers, Trifolium ssp. This is Trifolium macrocephalum the large heade clover, one of our natives, unfortunately not in bloom.




In some ways I’ve always lived on that wind swept ridge. I feels more like home than the lush Snoqualmie Valley. But when I returned home to our freshly tilled field and new greenhouse I knew I wouldn’t be able to space out any more. It’s time to plant the vegetables and flowers. But somewhere in side I have put the expansive Umptanum Ridge , the roar of it’s wind, the intimacy of the wildflowers and when I need a moment to space out, I’m going to close my eyes and go there.

JOY TO THE WORLD

Time seems more and more slippery as I age. One year, one month, one moment more firmly braided into the other, emerging from the other like a new snake from an old skin. At no time is this more obvious than in spring. I have an itchy need myself to change. To strip free, unfold, awaken. To re-green.
A dear friend of mine who reads this blog regularly asked me why I changed the design of my blog so much. I guess because it’s easier than painting the house or the extra bedroom. Easier then finding someone to give me a desperately needed hair cut now that my Laotian hairdresser has disappeared with out a trace. I worry, I worry.
I worry, dear readers, that you will get bored with the same-old-page week after week like I do. Magazines change their faces regularly. The seasons change, and so do I. My blog seemed so wintery all black, dark and cramped. I wanted to set it free, let it express the lush new world I face each day.
When I talked to my mother on Mother’s Day, she was jubilant as a a spring song sparrow. “The grass is just jumping out of the ground,” she chirped. She had looked out over the still brown pastures in the morning, winter leaves late in the Upper Pennisula of Michigan, by afternoon all was vibrant green. I can remember the speed of the re-greening in the midwest, the fresh emergent green that delights and energizes. I began for us months ago and progressed langurously through one of the coldest springs on record. Now everything is so green you can’t even see green any more, or imagine the months when it vanishes. Here in the Evergreen State, where dark conifers dominate and green never totally retreats the re-greening of trees and fields is slower, easier to ignore. I was blind to green, my head buried in my work and worry.
Last week I was doing some transplanting for a client. I was thinking about my grandfather who was an estate gardener, too. I was feeling grumpy about being out in the chilly morning air digging, as I’m sure he often was. He was a grumpy old man who most of his grandchildren could not appreciate. To me he was magical with his stories of growing up in Brazil, his knowledge of nature, even his grumpiness seemed like a power and not a short coming. When I was doing my grumpy digging I dug up a piece of debris. The garden in which I was working is a new garden, I never find a chard of pottery or an aluminum pop-top, so to finally dig something up was quite exciting. I like finding bits of the past, pulling them out of the dirt and into the light. The something I found was on an old Pall Mall cigarette pack, my grandfather’s brand. It’s red and white printed paper was protected by the cellophane wrapper for years in the earth. It seemed spooky strange and yet comforting to find that Pall Mall package while thinking of my grandfather 30 years after his passing. As if from the underworld, the other side he was saying hello. It was also my brand for a while after he died, some strange reach for continuity, just like being a gardner is, and perhaps the grumpiness.



I don’t really like being grumpy in spring, while every blade of grass and flower is being so joyous. Each year I swear I will take spring slower the next year so I can enjoy it. And each year spring and the busy season comes and I’m a rushing grump again. I know there are remedies for this. Sometimes it’s a beer, other times a nap. But this week I found an even better solution: joy. It took a little work and a little caffeine to find it, but it’s there among the flowers. In particular the tulip ‘Happy Generation’.




I had stopped at Wells Medina Nursery, one of many nursery stops in my busy day. In their mixed borders they had planted a miscellany of tulips, that I actually took a moment to enjoy. And what a joy they brought. Especially ‘Happy Generation’. There is something about the combination of red and white. The fierceness of red balanced by the cool sophistication of white breeds pure cheerfulness. Why do you think circus tents are red and white?
I know there is a certain Christmassy sort of tackiness to this color combination, but it makes me squirm with childish delight. Candy canes and Santa come to mind, but also Valentiney wishes. “Be mine, be mine.” Who can decline these cupidinous wishes’ kisses? So I let these tulips kiss me all over. And I began to laugh. I suddenly remembered why I was gardening, and at such a fierce pace. I was not for money, or too keep busy, but for joy. Joy, that word I rarely use, too antiquated, too Christmasy for any other time of year, is what filled me.
One of my first memories is of sticking my face into a big red tulip, a gigantic tulip compared to my two year old face. A group of adults stood around smiling as I took a whiff. In my memory I have no thoughts, just the un”adult”erated feeling of joy.
I forget, I forget about this joy in getting caught up in my grumpy adult life. But it only took a tulip to remind me and then I saw red and white everywhere in the gardens I create.



Cytisus alba ‘Elegantissima’ froths over Rhododendron ‘Winsome’



Tulipa ‘Red Shine’ behind a variegated boxwood.

Once I was woken up by red and white I could see the green. The spring greens are already darkening into summer greens, which will become the golden greens of August before it all drops away again to the dark, dark greens of winter when I can legitimately sing “Joy to the World”.



And suck on a candy cane.

DUMB LUCK

John Lennon said “Life is what happens when you’re making plans to do other things.” I’d like to alter that quote to say, “ Life is what happens when you're putting off things you should have done last year.” I’m banging myself over the head right now for not getting plants labeled in the garden. I always relied on my firecracker memory for plant names, both Latin and common, but when I walked around our muddy 6 acres yesterday I realized my cup runneth over and what is spilling out is all the names of plants I thought I would surely remember when I planted them only 3 years ago. Michael was proactive and got all his roses and hydrangeas labeled a month ago.I thought I could skiff along on his wake and get my labeling done, too. Too busy. It’s that time of year.
But here’s the problem, a little fancily marked 4-leafed clover that I bought a few days ago came home without a tag. It was the one plant I bought that day that I didn’t know the name of. Not that it’s all that important, it’s just a Trifolium repens cultivar that I want to watch grow, see if it hybridizes with others on the property, just fun. So why am I obsessing? Because there are a lot of plants around here, valuable, rare , unique, that I don’t remember the names of. So I decided in lieu of a lengthy, photograph-laden blog. I’d keep it simple so I can get my labeling done.

THE FUCHSIA IS NOW:REPRISE

I know I swore I’d focus on the here and now when I was finished with all the Nicaragua blogs. But the here and now is about the future at this moment. And in mine and my clients’ futures are fuchsias.
We’ve been having an unbelievably cold spring. I’ve heard 15 degrees below normal. It’s great for the daffodils which are in a state of suspended animation. I wish I could say the same for myself, but the busy season has started. Those of you who think professional gardeners have a great life filled with stop-to-smell-the-roses moments haven’t known a gardner in spring. The pressure is on, the future whether it’s June garden tours or August parties is already being prepared for. This is when I love fuchsias the most. I can buy and bed them out early, I wouldn’t plant coleus, petunias or geraniums during these cold wet days, and they will perform until the first hard frost. I wrote several posts a few years ago about the glory of fuchsias. I’ve lost a few of the not-so-hardy ones since then but not my love of these excellent performers. The one pictured is ‘Cherry’ a reliable upright for bedding out.

I made be exaggerating a bit about the non-stop busy-ness. I actually made a stop at the Washington Park Arboretum the other day to catch the last of the late Japanese cherries in bloom. I love the flowering cherries more than any flowering tree.



Pink powder puffs are usually not my favorites, but I couldn't help but stop to marvel at this old unnamed cultivar in the Arboretum.




I prefer the white cherries or this green flowered form 'Ukon', some listings call it yellow, but to my my eye it is the shiest bit of elegant green I've ever seen in a flowering tree.

And as far as daffodils go....
Who needs ‘em when you have a lawn full of dandelions?




Of course I do. I love the snowy ‘Mount Hood’, and about 150 others, at least.

"PLANTS, PLANTS PLANTS!"

Well, here they are. A handful of what I saw, just a taste of the amazing botanical diversity of Nicaragua.



Jicaro (Crescentia cujeta) has a strange flower pollenated by bats, it actually looks like a bat. It produces large hard round fruits that contain numerous protein rich seeds that are made into a drink. This one is growing in Arboretum Nacional Juan Bautista Salas Estrada in Managua.



The national arboretum a center for education in the capital grows many useful plants of Nicaragua. Common Bamboo (Bambus vulgaris), though not native is grown extensively for construction material. It ain't bad looking either.



We went to Chocoyero Canyon National Reserve outside of Managua mostly to see the flocks of green parakeets, toucans and yellow headed amazon parrots, but we had a lot of botanical surprises along the way. Like this Philodendron goeldii.



The very large buds on a vine I never found the name of.



Along with the creepy knowledge that vampire bats inhabit this canyon, luckily we visited after dawn, was this floral oddity, a Dutchman's pipe of some sort ( Aristolochia sp. ).



Our destination was Paradise and that was Little Corn Island on the Caribbean side of the country.This little island inhabited for a long time was forested with plants from around the world. Mostly fruit producing like bananas (Musa acuminata). The whole island felt more like a garden than a jungle, though jungley it was.



It rained daily while we were there. Plenty of mushrooms erupted from logs, piles of manure and the ground. We didn't eat any. But I had to get a picture of this odd fuzzy one. The photo is a little fuzzy, too.



Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) another tree brought to the island by man made up a large portion of the jungle canopy.



Hoja de estrella, or root beer plant, (Piper auritum) is native to the island though I only encountered it in gardens. The leaves smell like root beer and the locals make a tea from the leaves to aid digestion; they are also used to flavor meats and tamales, though modern research says it could lead to liver cancer.



Mangoes (Mangifera indica) were the dominant tree on the center of the island, coconut palms dominated the beaches. Both are from South East Asia, though they look right at home. While we were there the mangos put out their new spring growth, which was a beautiful bronzy plum pink.



Ah, my beloved pineapple (Ananas comosus). There is noting like this bromeliad. It is said to be native to Brazil, but to date there are no wild populations found. It has been cultivated so long and has settled in on Little corn Island so that it seemed quite natural to see them popping out of a clearing in the jungle in glorious technicolor.





Syngonium angustatum grew prolifically on the island, climbing palms, mangoes and anything else it could get a hold of. It grows throughout Central America. The red fruit are eye catching but inedible.



This sweet little fern covered the volcanic rock on the north side of the island. Wherever I travel ferns are the one thing that make me feel at home.



I wonder if these islanders realized that they painted their house the color of the Senna alata buds. Or did the color just seep subliminally into their design scheme?




Where the palms hadn't gotten a foothold, bay cedar (Suriana maritima) grew in thickets on the beach. For a tough little shrub that takes salt spray, harsh winds and high light it has a rather fine and delicate appearance.



Yuca (Manihot esculenta) is a starchy staple in the tropics. It only makes it to northern tables after being processed into tapioca. The beautiful growth habit and red petioles are not to be ignored either.



After leaving Little Corn Island we spent a few days in western Nicaragua in the city of Granada which gave us the opportunity to vist the the cloud forests of Volcan Mombacho. Begonias tumbled out of every rock, climbed every trunk and bloomed with abandon. Every year back home I kill a few. I still don't get begonias, though I love them.




The starry fruit of Clusea sp. in Michael's big hand.



It was unfortunately not orchid season. Still we did see a few. And a lot of Epidendrum radicans. It covered a large open meadow high up on the volcano. It was so windy that day I asked our guide Eddie to hold it still while I took the picture.



Though ferns usually make me feel at home the unearthly size of these young tree ferns lets me know I am far from home. Eddie and Michael look on.



The cloud forest if a matrix of varying textures. The large oak like leaves are tobaco de monte(Telanthophora grandiflora), not a tobacco relative at all but a miniature sunflower.



The leaves of Capriote (Miconia laevigata).





Back in Granada there was no lack of plants though most were sequestered in inner court yards. Here the shadow of a royal palm (Roystonea regia), a native of Cuba, commonly found ass street trees.



The inner court yards of the beautifulMi Museo, Granada's archelogical museum, were beautifully planted and a tranquil cool place to escape the city in the afternoon.



The inner court yard and open air restaurant of La Islita, where we stayed. How nice to here the screech of parrots and cacophony of grackles during breakfast.



Just behind our hotel the tourist zone ended. This over grown orchard, I'm not sure what kind of fruit trees these were though next door they grew cashews, was a great spot for bird watching in the early morning.




The symmetrical use of royal palms in the inner courtyard of Convento y Museo San Francisco amplified the contemplative beauty of the place and induced a sense of grandeur though the space was quite small. A tip to all gardeners:keep it simple.

And to all travelers: visit Nicaragua.

Apologies

Years ago a chef friend of mine said you should never apologize for a meal your serving. “ It’s the worst seasoning,” she said. I’m sure I had just apologized for a meal I felt was over-salted, overcooked or just plain tasteless. My wise-chef-friend ate it anyway, relished it if I remember correctly; she had a great appetite. And the subject never came up again.
Until now. I wanted to start this post with an apology. My internal editor, consistently on, said “ wait a minute...” So I must pad my apologies with a few excuses for not having written more about Nicaragua. The country I was so fascinated by after visiting it in early March for the first time, that I ran to the library after returning, actually several libraries and the internet, to read all I could about the natural and human history of the country.
It’s flora and fauna is amazingly diverse. It’s history complicated by evil dictators, revolutions, counter-revolutions, earthquakes, embargoes and hurricanes. And hope. I found Nicaragua a happy place. Not just because I was happy to be in the sun and warmth in early March, when spirits in the Pacific Northwest were being doused with chilling rains. There was a simple everyday happiness there, maybe in comes from living where it’s sunny and warm all the time. Maybe it comes form having devastating earthquakes and evil dictators and revolutions behind . Suddenly ordinary everyday living is like a celebration. I’m not saying there weren’t complainers, we’re everywhere. We probably were kicked out of the garden of Eden for complaining about the taste of the forbidden fruit, not for picking it.
I had intended to write a series of posts on Nicaragua. And all I have are a bunch of excuses: there was a flood; there was a debilitating head cold; there were daffodils , making me forget about coconut palms, bananas and hibiscus. Shouldn’t I be writing about daffodils? You will be able to find plenty of blog posts on daffodils this time of year. It’s spring, they’re triumphant and nothing makes people crow louder than triumph.
Now that I am finally and firmly past the beginning of the post I can start apologizing. Firstly, I’d like to apologize to my readers who have been waiting since I promised “pretty pictures” of our trip way back on February 20th, nearly 2 months ago. I took over 1200 pictures on the trip. Mostly snap shots, though some could actually be called photographs. Thank God, for the digital camera; remember all those rolls of film?
As you know I love to take pictures of plants. “Plants, plants, plants!” my friends scream when I show then pictures from a trip. So I tried to be bold this time and include buildings. All the following pictures were taken on Little Corn Island. Though “in” Nicaragua, this tiny island is, geographically speaking, more part of the West Indies.



















I am especially fond of these last 2 buildings. They look like something I could build. I also have a rustic hut fantasy. “ Ah, the simple life.” I must admit the barefoot inhabitants of these 2 building looked totally relaxed and happy. They were not rushing anywhere, or fussing. Maybe I misread them, but abject poverty looked very tempting when I thought of all my commitments and work back home.
It made me wonder what on earth our government was doing in the 80’s, and actually well before. Thwarting these peoples hopes of living in a more just society, in being able to own the land they worked, to have health care and education, doesn’t seem very democratic to me. It seemed like a huge cruelty and filled me with a million apologies every where I went. Luckily the Nicaraguans are governing themselves, not that I didn’t here complaining (what is democracy without complaining), but they're getting on. The many members of cooperatives that served us, from the cab drivers to the nature guides, to reforestation projects, all seemed very happy. And that made for a happy trip for us.
Oh. one last apology. I still haven’t posted any pictures of all the cool plants and gardens I saw. That will be coming next... And then on to daffodils.