It’s been a little while since I’ve shared any stories about my garden and a lot has happened since then…
On one side of our front porch there is a wood trellis that this Honeysuckle vine grows up. It doesn’t need much care – just a quick pruning in the spring. It has a short growth spurt every spring and during this time I will feed the vines in and out of each other and the trellis. It blooms in mid-June for about three weeks. I’ve noticed that it’s sweet scent is strongest just after a rain and since it has rained so much this summer I was able to enjoy these smells very often.
My face bloomed into a huge smile when I saw this first Day Lilly, near the end of June.
I planted these two small flower gardens last year. Last year, the plants were healing from the transplant and so we only saw a total of maybe thirty flowers during it’s month long season.
As you can see, these patches are very healthy, this year, and full of blooms and flower buds. During its peak we counted over thirty flowers a day for almost two weeks. That’s an incredible increase!!! I imagine next year that these gardens will thicken up even more.
Day Lilies are flowers that totally live up to their name – the flowers last for only one day and then they shrivel up to make room for tomorrow’s flowers. The Tiger Lilly is different in this respect…
With much patience I had to watch these flowers grow. Day by day the plant grew taller and taller. Day by day the buds began to form and stretch into long cigar shaped tubes. Then it was time for Joanne and I to go away on our weeklong honeymoon.
When we returned, these flowers were in full bloom and I smiled – I had waited a long time.
Tiger Lilies bloom just once, but the flowers stay open to share their beauty with the world for a little over three weeks. It was worth the wait!
One evening, Jo’ and I were sitting in the back garden talking about flowers and all their wonderful scents. We started wondering about what it was that makes smells – all those millions of teeny-tiny little things that go into our noses to attach to those teeny-tiny smell receptors in our noses. Even if the things that bring the smell to our nose come and go with our breathe I imagine that a little something is always left behind – to be absorbed into our bodies through our noses and lungs. I concluded that if this was true then we could realize that the flowers we smell actually become a part of us – a part of our bodies, connecting us and integrating our bodies with the Earth.
We can appreciate the Earth with our eyes and ears but we are connected with the Earth when we drink and eat – that’s a pretty common understanding. Now, that I’ve come to appreciate another way in which we are connected with the Earth – through smell – I realize that although connections of this nature can be enlightening (when smelling a flower, or the scent of a forest after a rain), they can also be devastating (connecting us to the many pollutants that we have created).
Just as I have become integrated with the flowers in my garden, I have also become integrated with every car that drives by my house and pesticide that is sprayed on a neighbour’s lawn.
Whenever I make speculations and question the world around me I am always happy to gain a new perspective of understanding – even if it scares me a bit! Let’s become a people that are connected with what the world has to offer us and not with what we feel is important for our economies!
Jim
On one side of our front porch there is a wood trellis that this Honeysuckle vine grows up. It doesn’t need much care – just a quick pruning in the spring. It has a short growth spurt every spring and during this time I will feed the vines in and out of each other and the trellis. It blooms in mid-June for about three weeks. I’ve noticed that it’s sweet scent is strongest just after a rain and since it has rained so much this summer I was able to enjoy these smells very often.
My face bloomed into a huge smile when I saw this first Day Lilly, near the end of June.
I planted these two small flower gardens last year. Last year, the plants were healing from the transplant and so we only saw a total of maybe thirty flowers during it’s month long season.
As you can see, these patches are very healthy, this year, and full of blooms and flower buds. During its peak we counted over thirty flowers a day for almost two weeks. That’s an incredible increase!!! I imagine next year that these gardens will thicken up even more.
Day Lilies are flowers that totally live up to their name – the flowers last for only one day and then they shrivel up to make room for tomorrow’s flowers. The Tiger Lilly is different in this respect…
With much patience I had to watch these flowers grow. Day by day the plant grew taller and taller. Day by day the buds began to form and stretch into long cigar shaped tubes. Then it was time for Joanne and I to go away on our weeklong honeymoon.
When we returned, these flowers were in full bloom and I smiled – I had waited a long time.
Tiger Lilies bloom just once, but the flowers stay open to share their beauty with the world for a little over three weeks. It was worth the wait!
One evening, Jo’ and I were sitting in the back garden talking about flowers and all their wonderful scents. We started wondering about what it was that makes smells – all those millions of teeny-tiny little things that go into our noses to attach to those teeny-tiny smell receptors in our noses. Even if the things that bring the smell to our nose come and go with our breathe I imagine that a little something is always left behind – to be absorbed into our bodies through our noses and lungs. I concluded that if this was true then we could realize that the flowers we smell actually become a part of us – a part of our bodies, connecting us and integrating our bodies with the Earth.
We can appreciate the Earth with our eyes and ears but we are connected with the Earth when we drink and eat – that’s a pretty common understanding. Now, that I’ve come to appreciate another way in which we are connected with the Earth – through smell – I realize that although connections of this nature can be enlightening (when smelling a flower, or the scent of a forest after a rain), they can also be devastating (connecting us to the many pollutants that we have created).
Just as I have become integrated with the flowers in my garden, I have also become integrated with every car that drives by my house and pesticide that is sprayed on a neighbour’s lawn.
Whenever I make speculations and question the world around me I am always happy to gain a new perspective of understanding – even if it scares me a bit! Let’s become a people that are connected with what the world has to offer us and not with what we feel is important for our economies!
Jim
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