Back from grey to green

“There comes . . . a longing never to travel again except on foot.”

- Wendell Berry, Remembering -

 

Yet another flight... I'm just back from the concrete jungle of Hong Kong to the lush greenery of Singapore; my new hometown feels like a pretty country town in comparison.

 

With family and friends on several continents, I'll probably never be able to travel on foot only. So why am I writing about this? I'm not sure; the quote just came to my mind while sitting on the plane back home. I was thinking of Wendell's longing of not travelling anywhere but where you can go on foot; of being content with one's life as it is, and not always craving for more of everything - experiences, things, happiness. Or maybe he didn't even mean that? I don't know; I never read the whole book.

 

In my tangled thoughts, I felt him also talking about being closer to the ground and to the soil. Which is not what I do for the moment, living as I am in a high rise some 60 meters above the ground. Garden girl as I am, I need soil under my fingernails, and I need a garden to mirror continuous ebbs and flows of life. Needing an elevator to get to the ground is not for girls like me; I feel as misplaced as my potted plants, that quickly wilt away in the unrelenting sun without showers from my watering cans. Never to travel again except on foot would be unrealistic, but I should be able to get closer to the soil again. I just need to take one step at a time.

 

On a New Year's Eve...

To live is so startling,

it leaves little time for anything else.

- Emily Dickinson -

I hope 2012 brings you a great gardening year!

Making a prairie, today

To make a prairie it takes one clover and one bee,

One clover and a bee, and revery.

The revery alone will do, if bees are few.

- Emily Dickinson -

Today, bees are few, but luckily, there's enough clover to make a whole prairie. I just love Emily's writing.

Pssst - it's official...

Today, it is the first of March and officially the first day of spring. I can't think of a better day for Karin Boye's poem Yes, of course it hurts. One of the most quoted poems in Sweden, it is a touching and insightful allegory of one's search for perfection and insecurity in front of the unknown.

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Yes, of course it hurts

when buds start bursting.

Why otherwise would spring hesitate?

Why would all our fiery longing

be bound in winter's frosty haze?

Yet, the casing held the bud all winter.

What is this new that chafes and breaks?

Yes, of course it hurts

when buds start bursting,

hurts what grows

and hurts what wanes.

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- Karen Boye, from collection "För trädets skull", 1936 -

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As I've always loved this poem, I decided to translate it myself. The Swedish original poem, two English translations and much more about Karin Boye can be found here. The light will be back soon - I can't wait...

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Quote of the day

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We don't express nature, we express our relations to nature.

The fact of creating is the expression of nature.

-Adaline Kent (1900-1957), sculptor-

Adaline created the human-like, reclining sculpture in the famous pool at the Donnell garden in Sonoma, designed by Thomas Church in the 1940s. This pool became the most photographed one in the world and articles with pictures of it were widely published in magazines and gardening books. Adaline's name was rarely mentioned in the articles.

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I found a autobiography by her, published in 1958, the year after she died in a car accident. The quote above is from this wonderful collection of fragments from her notebooks and photos of her sculptures. There are several pictures of minerals, shells, pebbles and magic and primitive artifacts that she kept in her atelier; many of them functioned as inspiration to her artwork. Adaline's sculptures have strong, biomorphic forms; her language of expression had its roots in her close relationship with the nature, just as she writes above. Her smooth but powerful, abstract style reminds me especially of Henry Moore; maybe it is the strong connection with the nature that makes the work of both sculptors so calming, consoling.

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Adaline Kent: Presence, 1947. Collection SFMOMA.

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I photographed the logs above on the Ruby Beach at the western shores of the Olympic Peninsula; the glowing logs of redwood brighten up the leaden grey and murky brown tones of these cold, Pacific beaches. Adaline would probably transformed the essence of them into one of her sculptures...

Quote of the day

The snowy white Camellia japonica 'Nuccio's Gem' is flowering now in my garden.

The absence of flaw in beauty is itself a flaw.

- Havelock Ellis (1859-1939) -

The perfection of my orderly shaped, pure white camellia is almost intimidating. From a pearly, tight bud, an endless spiral of impeccable petals open up one by one. How imperfect it makes me feel, its flawless beauty contrasting with all my shortcomings.

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Quotes of the day

The glaucous Euphorbias are in full bloom, opening their lime-coloured and honey-scented flowers to the bees and the sun.

To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music the words make.

- Truman Capote, McCall's, November 1967 -

The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.

- Vladimir Nabokov -

For some days, I've been feeling overwhelmed by the writing course I'm taking. The required textbooks teach different aspects of the creative process, and introduce techniques and tools necessary for telling good stories. I've waded through lessons in creating coherent structures, rendering convincing characters and crafting effective dialogue. And looking at all this clear, sophisticated, inspirational advice makes my heart sink: I'm almost paralysed by all things that I should consider before and while writing. "The chief enemy of creativity is good sense", said Pablo Picasso, who probably never let good advice come between him and his artwork. I feel tempted to agree with him, just to save my face from myself.

Quote of the day

Hamamelis x intermedia 'Jelena' in full bloom, its sweet scent carrying through the endless drops of rain.

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Words are things, and a small drop of ink,

falling like dew upon a thought,

produces that which makes thousands,

perhaps millions, think.

- Lord Byron, from Don Juan, Canto III, 1820 -

No, I am not a great lover of writers of the Romantic era; I don't think I have even read Lord Byron's version of the legend of Don Juan. But this wonderful quote came up last week at a writers course I am taking, trying to figure out if I can ever be good enough to 'really' write in English, now my third language. 'A small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought...', such a perfect metaphor for the process of writing. They say that all writing is translating, turning your thoughts into symbols on paper; writing in a foreign language adds still another dimension, as there are so many meanings that each word carry, not obvious to someone like me, who didn't grow up with the language. Seeking the right words takes time, and sometimes the small drop of ink evaporates, like a dew drop in the morning sun, taking my thoughts with it before they reach the paper.

All is calm, all is bright

And now let us welcome the new year, full of things that have never been.

- Rainer Maria Rilke -

I hope you all have a lovely, peaceful Christmas time, however you choose to spend it.

The Intercontinental Gardener.

Quote of the day

Only tame birds have a longing. The wild ones fly.

- Elmer Diktonius -

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I loved this Diktonius quote while I grew up in Finland. It seemed to symbolize all my longing for things to come; growing up and entering the world. I wanted to be one of the wild, courageous ones, even if it sometimes was against my true nature. And in a way, I have kept flying. But as the years have gone by, I'm not so sure anymore: what if it takes more courage to stay than to fly away...?

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Original quote in Swedish: "Endast tama fåglar har en längtan. De vilda flyger". By Finnish - Swedish poet and author Elmer Diktonius, Min dikt, 1921.

Quote of the Day

The enjoyment of beauty is dependent on, and in ratio with, the moral excellence of the individual.

- The Crayon, New York's leading art magazine of the 1850's -

Don't you just love the definitive certainty of a connection between moral and beauty in the quote above? At the time when The Crayon wrote this, most writing about art was quite evangelical, full of conviction of that the arts could change the moral dimension of life. In America, the wilderness was seen as a prototype of Nature, the place where the designs of God could be seen in their pure and unedited stage. The vast, wild landscape and nature, that was being discovered during this period especially in the far West, became a symbol for America in art, and lead to numerous paintings depicting the American landscape, often in an idealized form.

The art of landscape gardening followed the same paths of thought. Andrew Jackson Downing (1815-52), one of the most significant voices in the area during 19th century, writes in A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening from 1841 that "Although music, poetry, and painting, sister fine arts, have in all enlightened countries sooner arrived at perfection than Landscape Gardening, yet the latter offers to the cultivated mind in its more perfect examples, in a considerable degree a union of these sources of enjoyment...". Jackson Downing explains the two 'distinct modes' of landscape gardening art as the 'Ancient, Formal or Geometric Style', with regular forms and right lines, and the 'Modern, Natural or Irregular Style' with varied forms and flowing lines. He goes on to explain how "Every one, thought possessed of the least possible portion of taste, readily appreciates the cost and labour incurred in the first case, and bestows his admiration accordingly; but we must infer the presence of a cultivated and refined mind, to realize and enjoy the more exquisite beauty of natural forms". Which could be translated that the more moral excellence and taste the onlooker has, the more he or she enjoys the purest form of landscape architecture, which according to Jackson Downing is the 'Modern, Natural or Irregular Style'.

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Jackson Downing continues to explain the reason for the change of taste (a favourite concept during of the first half of the 18th century) from the Formal to the Natural Style: "The increased admiration of landscape painting, poetry, and other fine arts, by imbuing many minds with a love of beautiful and picturesque nature, also tended to create a change in taste. Gradually, men of refined sensibilities perceived that besides mere beauty of form, natural objects have another and much higher kind of beauty - namely, the beauty of expression." And he ends his essay with the conclusion that "A natural group of trees, an accidental pond of water, or some equally simple object, may form a study more convincing to the mind of a true admirer of natural beauty, than the most carefully drawn plan, or the most elaborately written description". Of course, Jackson Downing's text follows similar developments and writings in Europe. It is interesting, though, that something of the "moral supremacy" of the Informal or 'Natural' style that Jackson Downing's writes about, can still be felt when reading about and visiting gardens of today, especially here in the United States (and I am not talking about sustainability or ecological issues here).

Coming back to the original quote: considering all the money and time we spend on all things of 'beauty' like art, books, films, magazines, most of us should be creatures of a great moral excellence, if that predication would have been true. Sadly, it does not seem to be so.

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On the picture: A Tricyrtis hirta, a beautiful member of the lily family from the Himalayas. I grew it in my garden in Melbourne, Australia, and still get a bit nostalgic when I see it. I took this photo in a wonderful, private garden that Daniel Mount showed me for a couple of weeks ago; he has designed parts of the large garden and is the head gardener for it.

Quote of the day

I love borders.
August is the border between summer and autumn;
it is the most beautiful month I know.

K

Twilight is the border between day and night,
and the shore is the border between sea and land.
The border is longing: when both have fallen in love but still haven't said anything.
The border is to be on the way. It is the way that is the most important thing.

K

- Tove Jansson -

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The days of summer are dwindling away frighteningly fast. Leaves are already turning yellow, albeit from drought and not from the lateness of the season. My parents are visiting us in Seattle for the first time; seeing them here feels like a confirmation for that we actually have moved away, again.
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The Justitia carnea cutting that I got from Marian in June is flowering with flesh pink plumes. I have repotted it a couple of times to give the roots more room to grow; strong roots mean healthy, happy plants. But how many times can you repot a plant before doing it more harm than good? Am I on the right way?

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Picture from "Who will comfort Toffle?", a children's picture book by Tove Jansson first published in 1960.

Quote of the day

Decayed literature makes the best soil

- Henry David Thoreau -
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Having been a voracious reader my whole life, my mental compost should by now be a steaming heap of crumbling, dark-brown soil full of nutrients and micro-organisms for something good to grow. Of course, the question is if I have fed it with the right stuff; those organic, well-balanced materials, that with a bit of added moisture disintegrate into a smooth, sweet-smelling humus ready make any plant leap to the skies with joy. Or have I unintended fed it with things difficult to digest, or kept it either too wet or dry? Or maybe, just maybe, I've been too lazy or comfortable to occasionally completely turn it over to give it more oxygen, so that the small aerobes can do their job?

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For many, summer is a time of reading; newspapers and magazines drown us in tips about what to take as a companion to the hammock or beach. This year, I will think of my mental compost heap and choose books that complement its balance well; not too wet, so it rottens to a smelly mass, not too acid, so that the heap won't heat and not too dry, so that the whole process looses its momentum. And of course, I will try to turn it properly over sometimes, to let some well-needed air to the heap.

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Today, I planted some beautiful Polygonatum x hybridum 'Variegata' that I bought at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens for a couple of days ago. I love their thick, juicy rhizomes with white buds telling in which way the plant is growing. The maroon stems and leaves with white margins are beautiful, too, not to mention the nodding bell-formed flowers that come up early in spring. I had masses of old Polygonatums that had spread themselves between the cliffs in my garden in Saltsjöbaden (not the variegated ones, though), and I enjoyed how they thrived in those hard conditions, shooting up early in the spring and staying around until late autumn.

Quote of the day

What is a garden but a species of desire?

Such a short sentence, containing the true essence of gardening... I love how it leaves everything open for the reader to interpret the meaning of "desire" - for some, it might mean aesthetic issues, for other, practical or ecological; so many possibilities in one short question. This quote is by Bonnie Marranca in her preface for American Garden Writing, an Anthology (2003), in which she has chosen more than fifty essays from travel journals, letters and personal essays of the country's most famous gardeners and garden writers. Some of the writers included in this highly interesting volume are internationally well-known like Thomas Jefferson, Frederick Law Olmsted, Henry David Thoreau and Beatrice Farrand (well, at least if you are interested in garden history), but some of them are probably known to the American public only. The range of the essays is wide, from aesthetic considerations to growing beans and the morals of composting. This excellent collection has given me many new writers to study further, and I recommend it warmly for anyone who would like to get a glimpse at the ways in which Americans have worked, thought and written about their gardens from the earliest Colonial days to the present.

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The Stewartia pseudocamellias are just starting to flower in my garden. I am totally taken by this beautiful plant that has so many virtues to recommend it: lovely, round buds that open to delicate flowers with white, fringed petals and bright yellow stamens looking from them; glossy, healthy-looking leaves which turn to a lovely bronze red in the autumn, and a grey and reddish bark that looks stunning all the year. Stewartias are quite hardy and can be grown even in the Scandinavian, cold climates up to the Swedish Zone 3, which is about as far North as Stockholm, but I've never grown them myself; in Sweden they were very pricey and the nurseries always warned about the long time they take to establish and flower for the first time, which could be up to 5 or 7 years. It is lovely to "inherit" plants like this, getting to enjoy them directly without the long wait...

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New beginnings

Flowering Pacific native dogwood, Cornus nuttallii

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I am too excited to concentrate on writing; I just "got" a garden and we are moving in already in the end of next week. For the moment, it is all happiness; the spring is here, everything is blooming and I am walking with my feet barely touching the ground. The new garden (it feels odd to say "my" quite yet) is far too well-manicured for a person like me, which gives me something to work on. I like my gardens a bit wild and not too proper; I prefer admiring formality somewhere else than in my backyard (for it truly can be beautiful, too). I am already making a list of "must-have's" (oh, here we go again...) and plants of nostalgia to be included in this garden. After having made two gardens, I hope I know how to edit my plans and not to overdo things, however enthusiastic I might sound. But my main project will be planting a kitchen garden, the girls are just in the right age to enjoy growing their own veggies and flowers. And since we are not travelling anywhere this summer, there is a chance we get to enjoy the results too. So, being mentally too busy for anything else than family-centered thoughts, I just wanted to give a short update with some pictures from gardens around me, full of blooming beauties.
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The excitement, the true excitement, is always in starting again. Nothing's worse than an accomplished task, a realized dream.

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- Marilyn Harris -
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Thriving forget-me-nots, Myosotis sylvatica

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Species Rhododendron, with nodding, pink bell-formed flowersK

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Blooming white lilac, Syringa vulgaris 'Alba'
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Blooming lilac, Syringa vulgaris

Quote of the Day

Half the interest of a garden is the constant exercise of the imagination.

- Alice Morse Earle, 1897 -

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Sometimes I wonder if our gardens really do exist, other than as a projection of our dreams in our minds and thoughts. I've so often seen that empty look in other peoples eyes when they look at my plantings, unable to imagine them as I do. I my mind, I see the promise of beauty with no bare soil, all the tiny seedlings forming beautiful mats of well-combined perennials, the twiggy saplings as full grown trees.

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I found the pretty snowdrops above (Galanthus elwesii, the giant snowdrop) on my morning walk and started wondering if the ones I planted in my garden in Saltsjöbaden, hundreds of them between a large group of Hostas, would soon come up. And of course, I started to contemplate new plants to complement the scheme in my garden. So, even if I am not getting the physical exercise of gardening for the moment, my mind is definitely being busy with the creative part of it.

Quote of the Day

One kind word can warm three winter months.

- Japanese proverb -

Quote of the Day

In my nostrils still live the breath of flowers that perished twenty years ago.

- Mark Twain -

... or more than twenty; I just thought about my late grandfather, who asked me to smell a twig of Philadelphus flowers when I was 5 or 6 years old. He was almost blind, but he had been an avid gardener all of his life, growing day lilies, dahlias and agapanthus in Finland for more than a half century ago (he would have been 112 now if he still had lived). I still remember my surprise as he recognized the plant without barely seeing it. First later I realized how natural it would have been for him to orientate himself in the garden with the help of the most fragrant plants. He died when I was too little to really know him, but at least I know where my gardening genes come from.

Quote of the Day

For fast acting relief; try slowing down.

- Lily Tomlin

(picture taken by me at Chelsea Flower Show 2007)

Quote(s) of the day

For those interested in garden design:

A garden without trees scarcely deserves to be called a garden.
- Henry Ellacombe


For those thinking more in economic terms:

Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.
- Warren Buffett

And for those who just like general wisdom:

Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
- Abraham Lincoln