Category Archives: Flowers

A favorite fragrance of my Grandmother, these lilies of the valley make for a poignantly-perfumed bouquet. Even its small size and stature emits a potent scent that carries on the slightest breeze, or fills a small room of the house. It’s a tenacious ground-cover, colonizing and expanding, particularly if it finds fertile and hospitable soil, such as often occupies a garden. For that reason, I try to keep it on the outskirts of our backyard, as I do with mint. 

These sweetly-scented sprawlers will take over their allotted space, and then reach for more. I admire such strength, as much as I appreciate the fragrance they produce at this tender time of the year. To make an impact, they must be used en masse. 

In a little vase, and viewed up close, they become the central figures of today’s story – a story rooted in the scent of memory. 

These cherry blossoms, daring to bloom at such an early and treacherous time, are always susceptible to wind and rain and the roughest of spring weather, but before they get torn from their perches I usually manage to get a few pictures of their beauty. For this post, I’m pairing them with a song by Air, a gentle way to end a weekend.

I don’t want to be shy
Can’t stand it anymore
I just want to say ‘Hi’
To the one I love
Cherry blossom girl

I just want to be sure
When I will come to you
When the time will be gone
You will be by my side
Cherry Blossom Girl

Tell me why can’t it be true

I’ll never love again
Can I say that to you
Will you run away
If I try to be true
Cherry blossom girl

Cherry blossom girl
I’ll always be there for you
That means no time to waste
Whenever there’s a chance
Cherry blossom girl

Tell me why can’t it be true

May: the lilacs are in bloom. Forget yourself. ~ Marty Rubin

Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart; I breathe at this hour the fragrance of the lilacs, the violets, and the roses, as at twenty years ago. ~ Victor Hugo

Starting in shadows only possible by sunlight, the cherry blossom parade began its march in the cold, grim gray around which spring sometimes surrounds us. A cruel few days of wind threaten their duration and perfection, hastening their exquisite show in a spring that has proven unwieldy and wild. 

This cherry tree moves quickly – its blooms barely noticeable one day, then suddenly bursting open with the first drip of rain. Up until the last week or so it’s been a dry spring. These were just waiting for the water, and they don’t care whether it’s sunny or gray when they bloom. It will happen when it happens. 

Instead of enjoying them on the branch, while the wind bit at my face, I hurriedly stole these pictures. Looking at them now, I feel a residual echo of their beauty and grace. This year, that will have to be enough. 

Circus peanut orange is a color I don’t particularly seek for my own garden, but every now and then, such as on a rainy, dim day, I love seeing it cheer a gloomy nook of a local greenhouse, as it does on this cheerful hibiscus. A ruby throat is a decadent addition – little slip of fire at the heart of creamsicle sweetness. 

The best designs are simple and based in the most rudimentary lessons of nature. Color combinations especially are taught to us in the way nature arranges its blooms and foliage. The golden throat of a bearded iris flanked by the purple majesty of its perfumed petals. The chartreuse leaves of the coral bark maple and the thrilling juxtaposition of its reddish stems. The striking magenta of the Lychnis tempered by the wooly gray green rosettes of foliage from which its fire rises. 

Such were the ideas of inspiration flitting across my mind when I was deciding which curtains to order for the patio canopy this summer. I decided to keep things simple, and chose a white and yellow palette like the ‘Ice Follies’ Narcissus seen blooming in the garden this week. 

The drabness of stormy days and the lingering threat of snow demanded something cheery and sunny. Last year I added accents of yellow to the patio in a table and a couple of plant stands, and no one got to see any of it. I’ve held onto them for another year, and they are quite striking when the sun echoes their glad glow. It’s sets a fun stage for outdoor visitors, and when a chill deigns to creep in at last light, these curtains can be drawn closed in a circle of intimacy and warmth. 

We’ve had an abnormally dry spring thus far, leading to problematic brush fires, and a deficit in the water that has usually saturated the ground by now. Not that I’m wishing for rainy days, but I know their importance, and the way they quickly coax reluctant bloomers into unfurling their petals and releasing their delicate perfume, like the jonquils seen here. 

This patch of Narcissus has performed reliably for a number of years – not always the case in our yard, where several patches have failed to take well after a first season of bloom, petering out to nothing but a few weak stalks of foliage, even when I’ve allowed them to ripen to shriveled form. That’s not the usual way of the otherwise-powerhouse performance of these bulbs, so I’ll enjoy the ones that do work, and keep trying every fall. 

A Saturday spring evening when the scent of jonquils is just barely in the air. I can’t tell if it’s really there, or if I just really want it to be. And so I squat down and bring a bloom to my nose, inhaling the delicate aroma, faintly sweet with a sort of tangy and tart base. I can’t describe it other than it smells like spring – impossible to capture or duplicate, and maybe that’s for the best. If they bloomed every day, and were commonplace at the florist, the way that they conjure spring would be blunted. 

Tomorrow the rains will arrive, as much a part of spring as they are cherished by the garden. If they get too rough, I’ll pick a few, as I did the ones seen here. Making it this far deserves some pampering, especially when they’re this close to the finish line. 

This recent post contained just the smallest bit of hope in a vase, and I’m thrilled to report a happy ending here. I wasn’t sure if these few felled narcissus blooms would survive a late-season snowstorm, but survive they did, opening in time for a proper Easter morning celebration. I’m hoping for similar spring miracles in the garden after a wicked winter of trials and tribulations. 

Hope is something that’s been on the distant horizon of late, and while I’ve been hesitant to reach out to it so soon (I learned the dangers of that in 2020), I am indulging in some brief bits of relief, as Andy just got his second dose of the COVID vaccine, and I’m due for my second in two weeks. 

Almost all of the people who are important in my life have gotten or are in the process of getting their vaccines, so this spring and summer looks to be a time of reunions and small gatherings with the ones who mean the most to us. That is certainly a happy circumstance – as happy as these colorful blossoms, leading the flower power brigade. 

Pinks and reds and purples, oh my! I have no more words to accompany this post, and luckily the prettiness begs for silent appreciation. 

Our ground is still very much frozen, and there is still some snow on the ground, so while spring is technically here, the true feel of it lingers a little bit behind. For that reason, my trips to Faddegon’s continue, giving me a lifeline with their greenhouses and gorgeousness, as seen in this orchid spray backed by a bed of moss. Such a scene of beauty need not a litany of words to describe it, and so I retire for this Saturday night – the first night of spring.