Category Archives: Flowers

A wee bit early this year, this ‘holiday’ cactus (which manages Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter depending on its mood) is blooming right now, which may signify a quicker winter. Not that such a thing ever really exists. Winter will be winter, and for as long as it will be – as long as the dates tick away, and time cannot be banked or fooled in name or mission. But this cactus, blooming now on the other side of the New Year must sense a shift in light, meaning we have ticked up to where we were when last it bloomed, which was in October.

That doesn’t quite work out with where the sun is at, but this year it bloomed early, so maybe this re-bloom will follow that tracking. Upon checking the archives, it looks like this one usually blooms its repeat bloom in February. We’re not quite halfway done with January, so it is indeed early, but I’m not complaining. 

We need color and light and life, and this gorgeous little plant is putting on the show so desired. This is the time of the year when I start making weekly pilgrimages to Faddegon’s to simply walk through their greenhouses and marvel at their Australian tree ferns or olive branches, neither of which we could ever grow in our shaded and dry home. Instead, this cactus will have to do, along with a few other standard specimens like a Norfolk Island Pine, a spider plant, a philodendron, and a couple of ZZ plants. 

This cactus is the only thing we have that blooms, and so it’s highly prized and cherished. It’s about twenty years old, and I can no longer remember where it came from or how it came to live with us. Most likely it was a gift in a smaller pot, a throw-away supermarket find that I may have been gifted at some Secret Santa in some far-away and long-ago office world. Strange how much time has passed, and how little this little guy has changed. Strange and comforting – the way the world is when it’s feeling somewhat kind and generous.

It makes sense in a strange way, when you think about it, as the tumultuous weather rollercoaster we’ve had of late mimics those days of later winter and early spring. Such it was that the last time I was in Boston there were Japanese cherries and witch hazel – two early spring bloomers – dangling their flowers in the almost-December air. 

As charming as it was to see these blooms greet the holiday season, it was also a bit of a mind-fuck. They aren’t designed to bloom right now. Will this ruin their spring show? Have they spent their beauty and energy now, when we may have needed them most, with only winter ahead? Only time, and the arrival of next spring, will tell. 

Rather than worrying about what may or may not be, it is best to simply enjoy these strange out-of-sync bloomers – a boon or casualty of climate change or a freak blip in the weather. 

They’re also a cheerful reminder that we are closer to the start of spring than we may think we are. After next week it’s only one more season away…

This is my favorite day to work, as the office is mostly empty, gloriously quiet, and peaceful in the best possible way. It’s a reprieve from the hustle and bustle of the holiday season now in full-effect, and a satisfyingly calm entrance to said season. Seeking to bring some hygge into the journey to Christmas this year, I’m crafting more quiet moments like this. There will be bombast enough in the festivities to come. 

Pink petals tinged with green would seem more suited for late spring, but in November they carry a more potent magic than they would in their expected season, and for that reason I adore seeing them here. In this birthday bouquet for Andy, their beauty is matched only by the subtle hint of perfume they exude. 

For a deeper artistic rendering of that fragrance, I will spritz some ‘Rose Cuir’ on for a day or a dinner. Followed by a little ‘Portrait of a Lady’ for evening enchantment, these two rose-inflected fragrances give a rich and sometimes smoky effect, ideal for fall or the earliest chill of winter, when their inspiration is most badly needed. 

The rose is a year-round sure of beauty, for the eyes or the nose, and with so many ways of wearing it, I find it a signature fragrance that works in ways that don’t always make sense. Beauty is like that sometimes – it doesn’t follow conventional form. It leans toward the unexpected, the untried. Anytime something zigs when we think it should zag makes an indelible impression which the expected can never quite conjure. 

As we begin the trek into the holidays, when the rich and decadent hedonism of the season needs tempering from time to time, the rose can both cut through that heaviness while creating its own hefty presence. An impressive trick from a stalwart beauty.

My first brush with the kalanchoe plant was in some dim and cold fall season when my parents received one as a gift, probably for the holidays. It was a dark pink variety, the color of which thrilled me. It ended up in Gram’s room, where it had a Southwest exposure, capturing the most sun of any room in the house. As a succulent, the kalanchoe loves sun and heat and approaching dryness between waterings. I didn’t know much about it back then, so when it stopped blooming I didn’t give upon it as most people do.

Instead, I pruned off the flowerheads and trimmed it a bit, then settled into a hands-off watering schedule until about a year later it sent up another volley of blooms – this time on longer and leggier stems, but no less beautiful. After that, it yellowed a bit and declined, so they may only be good for a season or two. I haven’t returned to them since, but when I saw these in Faddegon’s, I was reminded of my pleasant first brush with them, and took their picture. 

Today is Election Day, so I urge everyone to get out and vote. And honestly, when you consider the official Republican platform, the only sensible thing to do is #VoteBlue. I’m usually more independent in my choices, but this country is on the precipice of being lost – and it’s the crazy Trump-supporting anti-vaxxer asshole Republican morons who are going to wreck it for all of us. Right this ship before it’s too late. 

Ok, now that that’s done, let me move onto the real post at hand, which is a celebration of the cyclamen, because they are coming into their own in the local greenhouses, and as November sheds its stubborn leaves, the barren gray days ahead need a jolt of color and life. 

Cyclamen flowers float like butterflies above their handsome mottled foliage, speckled with sage green and wintergreen and all kinds of green. Florals and leaves combine for a showy yet graceful combustion of color and form.

When the days go dark, and the grays go wild, and the land begins its slide toward a winter slumber, we need this sort of fanciful hothouse escape.

Our crazy holiday cactus has decided to bloom for Halloween this year, and we are celebrating it because there is a dearth of color in the garden right now – and for the foreseeable future. When last it bloomed it was February, skirting its usual holiday-oriented bloom time (which is a toss-up between Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter). She’s putting on her pink splendor for Halloween, as if wanting to take part in the dress-up festivities. I’ll leave her to it. 

The hydrangeas have given us their most floriferous year since I planted most of them almost two decades ago. While they have grown into large and impressive plants given their age, they don’t always bloom a lot. It’s a challenge of Zone 5 winters, which up to the past few years have usually killed off the buds before they get a chance to develop. This year, however, all buds survived, and coupled with a less-severe pruning practice, we were rewarded with buckets of blooms all summer long.

That has continued into the fall, and without a proper frost yet we still have blooms coming along nicely, as seen in this light blue branch, which I clipped for indoor enjoyment. It’s deceptively soft and delicate, and looks like something that’s more suited for the brightness of spring. I like the mirror of that at the end of the season – it reminds me that we are closer to spring than we think, already over a full month into fall. 

These luscious asters have been everywhere this season – from Maine to Manchester – and they have brightened the darkening fall days, somehow sensing how badly we needed beauty right now. Their centers ripen from bright yellow to a gorgeous shade of rust then almost into a deep maroon, as if each one were a little encapsulation of a sunrise and sunset – a single day’s sun-journey for each set of lavender radials. The flowers seen here are all at different stages of the journey, something that adds another layer of enchantment to the presentation. 

When you see a little spot of beauty on Newbury Street, you should pause to take it in. 

There’s a lot of beauty on Newbury Street, in the fashion and the art and the people.

But in a hidden flower, it feels like there is more. 

It’s the last really colorful month for outside splendor, and as such some of the flowers seem to be putting on a brighter and more saturated show than they may have done earlier in the season, when the whole of summer spread out before them. Now any day might be the last before a hard frost, and so we have this beautiful moment where the flowers put on their showiest farewell, perhaps sensing this will be it for the season. 

Every added day at this time of the year feels like a bonus flower day, and maybe this will be one of those extended falls where the warm weather lasts and sees us through to December. It’s the least Mother Nature could do after giving us such an awful summer.