Landscape with Chair and Bench

A patch of dirt, a place to sit, a structure over one's head. Do these not constitute a garden? Most certainly, I say.

Perhaps it has become a cliche these days to opine that a garden is a state of mind. Yet here it is - an elegant pergola rests partially on a sawhorse and a chair. The chair seems to have been upended for the nonce, but benches sing with the colors of growth, and the scent of earthy mulch twitches the senses. Overhead floods and spots deconstruct into intriguing shadows on the ground.

All this, in the midst of a wintry month, is nothing if not a welcome sight.



Jim Osman's installation is on exhibit at the Brooklyn campus of the Long Island University Humanities Gallery (first floor Humanities Building, gallery hours 9-6,) till the end of February.
http://www.brooklyn.liu.edu/depts/art/pages/humanities_gallery.htm

Name that Plant

One is constantly surprised by what a plant might throw up in one's face. For example, I had no idea what this plant was when I first encountered it over ten years ago.

Later I surmised that my plant was a kelanchoe. Much, much later on, with more information, I concluded it to be K. delagoensis, aka Chandelier Plant, or Mother of Millions, or Mother of Thousands.

I had first discovered its spindly stem crawling out of a cracked seam from the rotting wooden windowsill in my previous studio; there was no dirt, unless one counts dust. I kept a watchful eye over it, though I never took any active caring steps with it. Yet through thick and thin, mostly thin, (and it remained skinny,) my studio companion weathered the years with me. When the time came for me to leave that studio, I understood my unofficial mascot was accompanying me. So, carefully I dislodged the plant from its place in the sun and brought it home - in time, to be potted up and reside in the new greenhouse.

And how did it do in its new abode? See for yourself. Above is a picture of my particular kelanchoe, prayerful, if a bit fangy, in its first year of life in potted soil.

But beware: do not - I repeat - do not let it loose. Those coiners of common names for plants do not jest, all those epithets: mother of thousands, mother of millions. They mean it: really I'd say mother of trillions, mother of gazillions - for once one of those cute wee little clinging babies hits pay dirt, each has no qualm at all about growing up to become...

A MONSTER!

And yet, and yet...
Look again, see what grows on top. One has to, yet again, hand it to the plant-namers:

CHANDELIER PLANT...

A Winter Day's Dream (with Bee)

Mulch Pow(d)er

Some people see "winter wonderland," and yes, it is, sort of - a miniature urban one - I will not deny it.

But I see mulch.


The powder of snow is the perfect mulch for all that is percolating beneath its white blanket. And fortunately back here where only the dog - a pug - mostly trudges, the blanket stays mostly white a bit longer than what falls on the streets of the city.

Grapefruits, or Pomelos?

During a visit this fall to Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania, in one of their greenhouses, I admired giant pots of what I took to be a gargantuan variety of unripe grapefruit, Citrus × paradisi. I have since then concluded that they are pomelos, Citrus maxima, or C. grandis.

And indeed, maxima they are, and grandis, too.

Having made that discovery, I've started noticing that pomelos are now being sold at greengrocers around town. Displayed on the fruit stand next to our more familiar paradise, or forbidden, citrus - the grapefruit - the pomelo definitely projects a blowsier appearance, almost twice the size of the former. And indeed one finds that underneath the rind is almost an inch of fleshy white pulpy membrane. In taste, pomelos are a milder version of the grapefruit. If you're one of those who habitually sugar your grapefruit, you may wish to give the pomelo a trial.

And really, looking at the beauties from Longwood, I apologize for even daring to associate the word "blowsy" with them. I suspect that these are the Californian variety, and like many others from that neighborhood, they are spiffier than most. They are lovely. And they are in season now.

A Promise

Just a reminder: There is buried treasure under that white stuff. These will be daffodils in a couple of months.

Jewelry of the Winter Garden

In these chilly days of January, one is hit by the idea that the garden produces jewels. And we are not talking metaphorically. We are not referring to the fruits of the vines or the trees in the summer, as in, "oh, what a gem of a tomato this is! Doesn't it look gorgeous?"


No. We're talking about a vibrantly red leaf, say, of the Viburnum bodnantense 'Dawn,' hanging on for dear life on the very end of the twig, gravity exerting its will in the guise of an encrustation of crystal ice.


Or buds of that very same viburnum with a dusting of powder snow, a bit before its fragrant flowers break into full bloom later in the season, in February. If one could pluck the bud, encase the entire bit in a solution of permanent crystal ice to wear as a pendant on a chain, one would have a necklace Tiffany's couldn't manufacture under any circumstance.

Or how can one resist the allure of a spray of the thready flowers of gem-encrusted witch hazel, Hamamelis x intermedia 'Primavera,' pinned to the lapel of an elegant suit jacket? No jewelry store, however classy, can match what the garden has to offer, shown below.



And here's a cluster of diamonds from the air; no carbon mine in the earth can yield this bunch up.