Category Archives: seasons

Welcome Back

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Last week, when straightening the house before bringing my husband home from a hospital stay, I brought the first few roses to open since early December inside to brighten the table by his chair.  A rosemary sprig completed the little bowl of multi-colored blooms…all from the same bush.  These roses, named Mutabulis, are different colors at various points in their budding and blossoming, darkening with age, instead of fading.  Single petals open soft yellow, changing through peachy coral  to  rich pink and finally dusky crimson.  Flowers of all these colors will often be on display at the same time, looking as if a host of varigated butterflies has settled on the bush.   C. S. Lewis said  “What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.”  I can stand on all four sides of this huge rose bush and see a different color rose each time.  I know this is due to this old rose’s roots as well as by what they are nourished.  I believe I am hearing that the sort of person I am is due to the same things.

When I picked the flowers for Joe, they were the first and only to open.  Today, only 2 weeks later, our three rose bushes in the corner of the back yard are putting on quite a show.

Winter Friends

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  Our Northern friends think we are funny when we gasp at 19 and 20 degree weather, but a recent forecast for days of these temperatures with little relief for thawing had us scurrying to clear the shelves at Home Depot of materials for wrapping pipes and covering foliage.  On the day before the predicted hard freeze, as I watered, then unscrewed water hoses and prepared to wrap faucets, I discovered one plucky narcissus opening little white stars in brave bloom.  I brought it inside to grace my kitchen window sill. The petals have turned to parchment.  Little heralds of flowering to come,  they are paper stars of hope.

In the evening after I picked the flower, Joe helped me with shaking out large wraps for citrus trees, azaleas, and container plants.  We were on our back porch, and after the first big whisk of a sheet, there was a mighty flapping and bustle on top of our heads.  As I cowered, I realized we had startled a dove who had made her nest in an empty hanging basket by the back door.  She gave us as much a fright as we had given her, and flew away indignantly to watch us tuck plants in for the night and leave night lights on. The porch lights must have helped her and her babies  keep warm, too.  They sing their morning song to me every day, thank you notes.

 

 

Autumn

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Today, on my last birthday that will be sixty –something, I think of the gift of time, and the changes that come in this time in my life.   In this quiet hour as I sit looking at my garden changing into its autumn dress, I consider what the dormant fruit trees and  absence of bright  blooms says about these growing things.  They are different now from March or May or the heat of August, but those of root and permanence survive their winter and will bring heartspring with leaf and bud, even new fruit in a few months.   

In the garden seasons  I see beginning and changing and, yes,  some endings.  But the story of the seasons begins a new verse with its cycle of renewal and rebirth.   In my autumn self my roots remind me of this larger cycle of hope and grace.  I love my November birthday!