Category Archives: Gardening

Andy and I have been happily watching the bright chartreuse emergence of the fig leaves in our potted plants that have been overwintering in the garage. They are the very first signifiers of spring, starting well before anything outdoor feels safe enough to emerge. March is dangerous business for an outdoor plant in upstate New York. 

We enjoy the delicate first flush of leaves close-up, taking the time to examine and appreciate them, because they will not last. In the dim windless protection of the garage, they come into the world to cheer us momentarily, but as soon as they get brought out into the wilderness of the backyard, where there is no shade and no buffer from the wind and colder nights, these leaves will shrivel and drop before the real summer crop begins. 

For now, they give us hope. I know Andy is getting antsy for the warmer weather, for the time when his back will ease a bit with the heat and the pool and the extended sunlight. He has eyes on opening the pool at the earliest opportunity, a happy thought not very far away.

I yearn for that too. 

Behold the Ficus umbellata!

Emboldened by the recent success of this Ficus ‘Audrey’, I’m trying my hand at the predicted plant superstar of 2022, the Ficus umbellata. Supposedly its care falls somewhere between the ease of ‘Audrey’ and the difficulty of the infamous fiddle-leaf fig. Unimpressed by the wrinkled form of the latter, I never bothered trying the fiddle-leaf, and I’ve had mixed success with the common Ficus benjamina (I currently have a variegated version of the weeping fig doing relatively well. It loses some leaves, but soon grows new ones.) 

As for the Ficus umbellata, its big, bright and beautiful leaves are the main attraction, getting larger the happier it is with its surroundings. Hopefully we can find enough light and humidity to keep it content. My finger are crossed. 

The other day our outside temperatures reached into the mid-60’s for perhaps the first time this year, and though I’ve been hesitant to prematurely herald the end of winter, we seem to be on the right track. I took a quick look at our side yard, and after startling a rabbit, I found this little sign of spring poking through the ground. 

The very first jonquil to appear is always a happy sight. My parents have a few that have already shown up in a protected space outside their front door. These brave and bold shoots run the risk of being buried in blizzards and snow squalls up until April, so to see them take such a chance and demand their place in the sun at this early point is emboldening and heartbreaking at once. The simple yearning of the world to shake off the frigid countenance of winter always touches me. 

Whenever I see a spring bulb poking through the winter snow, I’m reminded of a May snow squall from my childhood. Yes, May, because in upstate New York that’s the bullshit we sometimes get. A little plot of tulips was just about to bloom, and I had been anxiously awaiting the show for months. Every day as the buds swelled and then started to show some color, I rushed out to make note of their progress, carefully studying and examining each bud as it evolved, wholly invested and caught up in their growth. When at last they opened their red and yellow petals, the snow squall hit, and snowflakes piled up on their petals and leaves, rising on the ground around them. I wanted to cry. How cruel, I thought. How utterly unfair and cruel to snow on such beautiful flowers and destroy all the months of slumber and growth it took to get here. I went inside dejectedly, wondering at life, accepting its harsh lesson, and teetering between feeling despondent enough to give up and invigorated to try again. 

The next day I went out to see them, and to my surprise all the snow was gone, and the tulips were still blooming. They’d survived the quick brush with snow and recovered. A few of the leaves sagged and bent beneath the ordeal, but overall most were intact, and as beautiful as before. That was my second lesson in as many days. Even when you think all is lost, keep going. Some things are stronger than we think they are, even if they’re delicate and pretty. 

“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” ~ Buddha

Behold the burgeoning beauty of Ficus benghalensis ‘Audrey’ – a specimen I procured a little over a year ago which has done decently in our front window, and marked the ticking of time in miraculous fashion. I only just noticed how much it had grown over the last year when I revisited the original post announcing its arrival. Back then, it was only a couple of inches high, with about six leaves held tightly  to a central stem. As it became comfortable in its new home, it would unfurl a new leaf every month or two, until it arrived where we find it today – well over a foot tall with 17 full leaves (and a new arriving as seen below, indicating the start of another growing season. 

I am usually better at keeping track of such growth, waiting with anxious anticipation and measuring growth in inches and leaves and blooms with annoyingly Virgo-like precision. For the Buddha tree, I’ve merely enjoyed its company, pausing beside it as I do my daily meditation – inspired into a calmer state simply from its pretty and peaceful countenance. Such a gorgeous green keeps me inspired during the dullest winter days. It also reminds me to be present in the moment, grounding my thoughts and worries, seeking to find a similar peace as the Buddha, seeking some state of enlightenment through the practice of mindfulness. 

And so this happy little guy grew right before my eyes, and I didn’t even notice it. I don’t know if that’s because I was being more or less mindful, or whether my mindfulness was focused on what did or didn’t matter. Like the mangled roots these trees sometimes develop, some entanglements are best left alone. 

As for the future plans for Miss Audrey, I’m going to allow him to grow a bit taller and see how well it attains a single-trunk tree form. At some point it may require staking to stabilize it, depending on high high and heavy it gets, and how thick the trunk develops. But these are thoughts and worries for another day. 

For now, I’m offering gratitude for how far this plant has come in the past year – a journey that can only be seen in hindsight, if it needs to be seen at all. (Below is where we began a year ago.)

“If you forget the joy of life and get caught in the pleasures of the world, you will come to envy those who put meditation first.” ~ Buddha

The Australian tree fern has proved impossibly elusive as far as growing in my home goes. I’ve given two of them a try, even installing special lights and a humidifier to make it happier, all to no avail – both gave up entirely, shriveling away into sad and brittle shells of the glory you see in a greenhouse here. At approximately $60 a pop, it became an expensive trial, error, and failure times two. 

For now, until the big lottery win and a garden room, I will admire these beauties from afar, in a proper greenhouse or the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. 

Throughout my 46 years, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with the arborvitae. My earliest memory is a rather sour one, based on its initially off-putting aroma coupled with a neighbor’s harsh and ugly pruning technique on the bush that stood between our yards. That first impression stuck, and when I saw it used so ubiquitously in yards and landscapes around the world, the distaste was only re-enforced. 

Over the years, however, my taste changed. My assessment evolved. The usefulness of the arborvitae began to change my mind. Coupled with a re-examination of its form and attributes, the transformation was complete when I watched a hedge of it going up in Ogunquit, Maine, and upon closer study I noticed its beautiful scale-like foliage, and the way it could so gorgeously accentuate its chartreuse overtones in the afternoon sunlight.

It is possible to change, to refine taste, to offer another chance at something you once disliked. I like that lesson. I like that possibility. 

This Cornus kousa ‘Wolf’s Eye’ tree easily wins the contest for longest season of beauty and interest, thanks to its incredibly extended ‘blooms’ (more accurately bracts) in this rainy summer of 2021. They lasted well into August – an unheard-of length of time to be in bloom, faux or not. Followed by these pretty pink berries (so delectable to the birds and squirrels), the variegated Chinese dogwood in our backyard has made the otherwise-disappointing summer this much prettier. 

This particular specimen also housed a robin’s nest earlier, with its gorgeously-shaded eggs and territorial red-breasted birds, and is now providing much food ad fodder for the roving bands of squirrels and not-so-finicky finches, which have moved from the cup plant seed heads to these speckled fruits. Taken altogether, the Chinese dogwood provides almost four full seasons of beauty and interest. 

The fig trees sent out their fruit early this summer, and then simply stalled while the hot weather they favor stalled and then utterly failed to arrive. That didn’t stop them entirely – only delayed their magnificence until this moment, when they suddenly started ripening all at once. I’ve been picking them off as I pass by, popping them into my mouth and enjoying their sweet goodness, as I’ve done with our cherry tomatoes. 

They’ve been abundant enough to provide for an appetizer for our last family gathering – served with a drizzle of honey and some goat cheese, they made for a perfect starter, and I could point out to everyone exactly where they came from. We overwinter these in the garage – they’re hardy to one 5 but such fine specimens the produce so well don’t deserve the risk of overwintering them outside. Besides, it’s always a thrill to see them start putting forth early green growth in March when it’s still snowy and blowy outside. That sort of magic wouldn’t happen if they were left to fend for themselves against the ravages of a upstate New York winter. 

Little bright suns in the form of this Helianthus hover at eye level, bringing some of the celestial down into our land-bound existence. These beauties are backed right up against a cup plant which towers above them, so they lean forward, straining for their own space in the sun, their own spot in the world. They are carrying the garden this week, as the sedum and anemone put on a quieter show in muted shades of pink and salmon. Soon, all this color will drain as well, as much from the sky as from the garden. I’ve been avoiding that, pretending it’s not happening in a vain effort to keep this summer going, but nature needs her rest. When these go to seed, the finches will have one last chance to fatten up and sustain themselves through the winter. We will get through it together. 

Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ is a mainstay in many gardens, thanks to its late blooming time and handsome form and structure year round – and I do mean year. Come fall and winter, its dried flowerheads form one of the few lovely spots that carry the garden through to spring. They look especially striking when topped with the first few inches of snow. 

Maintaining fall and winter interest is not especially of note among most gardeners, but we do a disservice to ourselves when we think that just because the growing season is in suspension we don’t still look out at the yard. Plants like this Sedum keep the garden alive until we get back out there in the spring. 

Late summer is at hand, as evidenced by the blooming of the seven-son flower tree. The buds to this form much earlier in the summer – usually peeking out at the end of June, and then slowly developing into these small and unspectacular blooms that are more fragrant than anything else, produced in enough abundance to appear as loose clouds. 

Beloved by bees, who have been buzzing around en masse and eliciting all the sweet nectar they can, the perfume of this tree is its most intoxicating aspect, though the papery bark of its trunk, when allowed to develop fully, may give such intoxication a run for its money. 

The birds have found a haven in this tree too, with cardinals using its branches as a perch between flights, and finches finding safety in its leaves whenever someone gets too close to their preferred cup plants. It’s a focal point of the poolside garden, and its charms mostly outweigh the peskiness of its falling blooms, which I’ll scoop out as much as possible before they sink to the bottom. 

The finches have been having a daily party at our stand of cup plants, joining the masses of bees and a couple of butterflies, and now and then an iridescent dragonfly. If you want to see the one in the opening GIF, you’ll have to look fast, because it’s gone in a flash. The finches are even more flighty than the hummingbirds we’ve had lately, disappearing with the first movement of the door or the opening of a window. As such, we treasure their golden beauty all the more, because it is so fleeting. They will stick around until well into the fall, as the cup plant’s seed-heads continue to ripen. Doing their part to ensure the proliferation of future cup plants around the yard, the finches work on their picking and pecking to disperse the seeds far and wide. It’s not exactly welcome at this point as we have enough cup plants to last for a lifetime, and their roots reach down early and intractably, but I cannot begrudge the finches their food and their fun.