Autumn

The dry leaves fall,

 

 

Fall from distant gardens in the sky,

 



Fall with an air of resignation.

And in the night this heavy earth falls down,

 



 

Down from the stars into a lonliness.

 

All of us fall. This hand must fall.

 

 

 And look around you; it will all go the same way.

 

 

Yet there is One who holds all falling things,

 



 

Gently, eternally within his hands.

 

 

 

by Rainer Maria Rilke



Out of my Tree! Ideas?

My attic, garage, basement, well the whole house  is full of stuff that's just too good to throw away, supplies for future projects, plant pots, etc.  You name the worthless junk and you'll probably find it somewhere around here.  I have enablers and every now and then, I'll find special gifts on my front porch from my friend Florence.  A weke ago, these showed up:

They're  Chinese jade trees  which at one time looked similar to the one in the image below that I borrowed from Ebay.  Florence's husband, Howard, has tons of these stored away as he imported Chinese antiques for years.  They have fallen out of favor a little bit and the carved stone and glass leaves,  flower petals and berries make great objects to include in mosaic and other glass projects so they are cut off leaving these pots with bare trunks and branches. 

 

In a conversation, I mentioned to Florence that I thought the two of them were interesting.  Somehow they multiplied after I mentioned that.

Please save them from a trip to my attic where they'll most likely be forgotten and help me think of something fun to do with them.  I was thinking maybe tiny Tillandsias wired to the branches or maybe ornaments of some sort.  What would you do (besides throwing them away?)
(How's this for a segue to try and make it o.k. to post a totally random picture at the end of the post?)

Speaking of the attic, I was up there recently and saw the fall colors of my Liriodendron tulipifera and thought it was kind of interesting viewed through the attic window.  Blurred, it almost looks like a large piece of multi - colored glass in the middle.

You like me!

Nadezda from Nadezda's Northern Garden recently nominated The Outlaw Gardener for a Beautiful Blogger Award.  It was very nice of Nadezda to do this.  Thank you Nadezda for your thoughtfulness.

 

 

Accepting the award on my behalf is Ms. Sally Field. I stole this idea from Gardeninaciy who will hopefully forgive me.

 

 

 

To claim awards like this one, one must share, disclose, divulge, reveal seven things about himself and nominate other blogs to receive the award. 

1) I was born in Vermont  and raised in Alaska.

2) Conducting, singing, and listening to choral music is another of my passions.

3) For the last 17 years, I've been a special education teacher but was a music teacher for many years before that.

4) Performing in community theater is a hobby.  My favorite role, which I've done in several productions, is Tito in Lend Me A Tenor.

5) Four pomeranians allow us to live in their house.

6) I was a voice major in college.

7) I am not fond of flying.

I hereby nominate everyone in my blogroll as they are all great and I'd hate to hurt anyone's feelings by not including them.  Congratulations all!  You can't deny I like you! 

Time for a Celebratory Giveaway

This is the100th Outlaw Gardener post and what fun I continue having doing this.    I started thinking about  blogging because I'd been reading, enjoying and commenting on several great garden blogs for a few years and thought that their writers seemed like they were having a lot of fun.  At some point, The Dangerous One and I began corresponding and a year or so later, as a surprise for my 50th birthday, a meeting and garden tour were arranged.  Both the person and garden are pretty spectacular as many of you know. Nine  months later Loree came to visit my garden and posted about it here.  I remember being relieved that it wasn't a W.W.T.T. (What Were They Thinking?) post.  Because it was a rainy day, we spent more time  chatting inside than out and she asked me if I had put any more thought into starting a blog (which I only recently learned was an abbreviation of web log.)  Anyway, I finally got around to figuring out how to use blogger and started TOG a few days after her visit.  I am grateful for her nudging.

 

Posting on TOG has been enjoyable in large part because of all of you who read and/or comment on my entries.  Another blogger called comments the blossoms of the blog garden.  Thanks for being so blooming nice, for finding me and making me feel welcome in the blogosphere.  It's been great fun to get to know  so many fabulous gardeners and to feel like part of an online community of like-minded souls.  Through reading your blogs and your comments on mine, I've learned a great deal.  Thank you for the time, energy, and heart that you all have been putting into your blogs for so long.

 

To celebrate the occasion of my 100th post, I'd like to give away a couple of books:  Design in the Plant Collector's Garden by Roger Turner and Shocking Beauty  by Thomas Hobbs.   I bought Design in hopes that it would in some way help me with my huge collection of oddities in pots.  After deciding to simply embrace my inner plant hoarder and give up the possibility of ever having a tidy, tasteful garden with nice architectural lines, even pavements, and water features that don't fall on visitors , I feel much better.  Lovely book though.

 

 

Thomas Hobbs's books are full of gorgeous images and the cover of this one inspired many of us to search out and plant  the darkest Rheum palmatum 'Atrosanguineum' we could find.   I was given a second copy of this lovely book and am delighted to pass it on.

 

So, if you'd like to win the books, simply leave a comment on this post.  After a week, I'll throw all the names in a receptacle of some sort, have someone else draw a name, announce the winner, and send the books to you.

 

Thanks again! 

The Artist Inimitable

When I was a kid, I picked up every beautiful autumn leaf to admire the intricate distribution of colors.  Many of us  grew up in a time and in places where children were set loose outside to amuse themselves for hours at a time. How we did this without video games, cell phones or constant adult supervision is a mystery to most parents and children these days.  These times alone or maybe with a pal in nature are the backdrop for some of my best childhood memories.  Raise your hand if you remember creating stone dams at the edges of dirt roads to create little lakes or to make rapids in the "river" down which we sailed leaf boats.  We played outside in the rain, we got dirty, we were allowed to be children.  At the end of the day, my pockets were always full of special rocks, leaves, little pieces of smooth wood, and any other natural wonders found during my adventures.

Some things never change.  As I sit at my desk there lies on my left a pile of leaves just used to make these scans and on my right a couple of smooth stones found on the beach hold down a pile of papers. It seems that we gardeners never outgrew the love of playing in the dirt or looking with wonder at leaves.   

 

Now that I'm finished trying to be a respectable adult or caring much what others think, it's still fun to play outside.  Yesterday after work I walked around the drive through window of a Dairy Queen gathering these leaves noticed  the day before when I was cameraless.  People seemed to be puzzled by my behavior but as I'm writing from outside the walls of Bedlam, it seems that no authorities were summoned.

Speaking of questionable mental stability, between 1759 and 1763, Christopher Smart, during his confinement for insanity in St. Luke's Hospital, Bethnal Green, London, wrote a poem titled Jubilate Agno, first published in 1939 under the title Rejoice in the Lamb: A Song from Bedlam.  The manuscript had been found in a private collection.   In 1943 Benjamin Britten used parts of the poem to create the cantata "Rejoice in the Lamb,"  a work which I love and have conducted several times.  The following two fragments end the work and often come to mind when observing something as beautiful as these leaves.

 

For the trumpet of God is a blessed intelligence
And so are all the instruments in Heav'n.
For God the Father Almighty plays upon the harp
Of stupendous magnitude and melody.
For at that time malignity ceases
And the devils themselves are at peace.
For this time is perceptible to man
By a remarkable stillness and serenity of soul.

Hallelujah from the heart of God,
And from the hand of the artist inimitable,
And from the echo of the heavenly harp
In sweetness magnifical and mighty.
Hallelujah.

Kale, Kale, The Gang's All Here!

I have a confession to make.  I LOVE kale.  It's quite trendy right now to make kale chips and growing it organically or buying it at a local farmers market to put in one's juicer is quite the thing.  While I enjoy those along with more tradidional kale recipes, I'm talking about the ornamental kale that shows up everywhere this time of year and looks pretty decent all winter long.  Perhaps it's despised by many because of overuse in municipal plantings, maybe some people find it common or dislike such garish colors.  Do you suppose that some folks find the appearance to be too close to something that belongs in the vegetable patch (potager?)  I'm lumping ornamental cabbage together with kale for the sake of this post. 

 I'm not sure what it is that attracts me.  Maybe it's the frilly edges of the leaves or the sometimes subtle color shading.

It could be that I think that anything that looks good in the winter is pretty special.

Or maybe that I love eating all the vegetables in the cruciferous/Brassica group.

 It works well with autumn colors.

Looks attractive with other lovely foliage.

 And can look striking even later in the winter.

These pictures were all taken at Watson's Nursery in Puyallup.   Watson's is a very popular place and during the spring and summer seasons, the parking lots are often nearly full of cars & the nursery teeming with people.  It was interesting and delightful to visit on this autumn day just a couple of hours before closing when the staff actually outnumbered the customers.

There you have my confession (oh, and I also think that the sweet smell of pansies on a warm winter day is delightful and am not above planting a primrose or two, just not huge beds of them.) 

What's your tasteless pleasure?  [P.S. I'm thinking that common garden pleasure might be a better choice of words.]  C'mon  fess up.  We're all friends here (or at least we were before I spilled the beans about this whole kale loving thing.) 

A Berry Good Year

November first is the feast of all saints or all hallows (All Hallows' eve or Halloween being the night before.)  All Saints is followed by All Souls Day and the two often get smushed together into one celebration of those we love and see no longer.  Today is also Dia de los muertos, a national holiday in Mexico and  celebrated around the world.  Day of the Dead comes from the All Saints tradition.   This is a beautiful and reflective time to remember fondly our beloved dead and to celebrate the fruits of their lives' labors.  Similarly, in the northern hemisphere, many of the plants in our gardens are slowing down, dying for a time and putting forth the final fruits of their all-too-brief time in the sun.  Here are a few of my garden's fruitful saints.

Pernettya mucronata,  which I first read about in Dan Hinkley's Winter Ornamentals,  will hold these beautiful fat purple berries for months.  In fact, these berries will hold on through next summer through the bush's blooming period and will only drop when the new berries take their place.  This is a great evergreen small shrub with multi-season interest  which I feel should be grown more frequently.  

Ilex verticillata, our native deciduous holly, sometimes called winterberry, will drop its leaves and hold its berries all winter long. The male and female in my garden came in tiny pots from Caroll Gardens many years ago and has only now attained sufficient size to  bloom and bear. 

Leycesteria formosa a.k.a. Himalayan Honeysuckle  looking wonderful as ever.  Find more images and information about this cool plant here.

 Phytolacca americana, a.k.a. Pokeweed, in it's autumn glory.  I know it's a weed and loves to seed everywhere but I don't have much trouble controlling it by pulling it up where it's not wanted. The stems of the entire 10 -15 foot plant turn that bright fuschia color you see at the top of the picture below in the fall and when the leaves turn color ther's quite a show with the berries, leaves and stems.  Added bonus - it shades out the impatiens glandulifera that someone thought would be a good idea to allow to grow in his garden.

 Berries at various stages of ripening.  These persist for much of the winter providing food for birds.

 Clerodendrum trichotomum berries.  That turquoise color is way cool and fairly rare in the plant world and is always a delight to the eye.

Some viburnum or other.

Callicarpa americana

Pyracantha looks sweet but has delightful thorns.

Dichroa febrifuga berries will look like this in a month or so.

Hips of Rosa rugosa 'Yankee Lady'

Ilex aquifolium or English holly is a bit invasive here. I let a couple of plants live outside of the fence in the alley; it's evergreen and the prickly leaves keep folks from wanting to climb the fence.

Physalis alkekengi or Chinese lantern plant's cheerful orange color and fat shape always make me smile.



Hypericum

Arum italicum which blooms in the spring, sets seed and goes dormant for the summer.  At this time of year, the seeds have ripened and put on quite a show for a month or so already and the beautiful new foliage emerges.  This will be green and fresh looking all winter long. 

Happy All Saints' Day!