Category Archives: Flowers

Along with the lilac, lily-of-the-valley is one of those old-fashioned plants with whom most people of a certain age carry some sort of happy childhood memory. I’m not different from most people in that regard, and these rugged little perfume powerhouses remind me of my grandmother, who loved their scent so much she had all her bath products tinged with it. (It made gift-giving a snap since she always appreciated anything with their sweet perfume.)

They’ve been in their glory for the past two weeks, coinciding with the lilacs to provide a two-tiered fragrance combination that is the epitome of spring. In our backyard we have a patch of ‘Miss Kim’ lilacs from Andy’s Mum, and nearby a patch of naturalized lily-of-the-valley that came from I don’t remember where. The latter, in the typical invasive nature of the species, has colonized several areas of the yard since we moved in almost twenty years ago, and as much as I love the flowers, I’ve had to be rather ruthless with their encroaching rhizomes. It’s been a battle for a while now, though I usually let them have their flower show before cutting them back without mercy. Gardening isn’t for the weak of heart.

The foliage remains handsome and clean through the entire summer, and in fall it will occasionally turn a light yellow before disintegrating into papery wisps come the end of winter. In truly wretched conditions, it may prove more manageable and easy to control – a dry shade will eventually take its toll, but it’s nothing some moisture and a good topping of manure won’t turn around in a few short weeks. If you’re looking to coddle a few pips or get a large going from a small one, manure is also key, as is evenly moist but well-drained soil.

There is a pink variety that I have yet to see in person, and it sounds delightful, especially if used in a bouquet. Speaking of which, it takes a great deal of back-aching work to garner enough stems for a proper bouquet, but it’s worth it when the perfume fills a room.

When many of us are wisely taking precautions by limiting our travel and visits to family, we look for ways to connect through memory and sensory experiences that bring back loved ones who are distant or even gone forever. Such was the case of this bouquet of lilacs, which I picked for Andy in the hopes of reminding him of happy memories with his Mum, who gifted us with the original plant from which we now reap these armfuls of flowers.

A single vase is enough to fill a room with their sweet perfume – and these have other happy memories associated with them. They used to greet us every Memorial Day weekend in Ogunquit when we’d first step into our room at the Ogunquit Beach Inn. A stand of the traditional, old-fashioned New England variety lined the driveway, and if we stood on our roof-deck we could almost reach over and touch the lavender-hued blooms. The fragrance carried on the breeze – the quintessential perfume of spring, of hope, of welcome and warmth.

This year, the bouquet reminds us of those happy times, and the loss of them as well. Not in a sad sense, really, more a calming and reassuring presence of people and places we’ve known, and times touched by love and merriment. 

The genus Tulipa has been captivating growers and flower appreciators for generations. I remain charmed by their colorful, if brief, showing every May, and their slightly spicy scent that has yet to be accurately embodied in a perfume. It’s for the best. Treasures like that are more beloved for their elusive and temporal nature. That said, fragrance is secondary to the visual impact these bulbs produce, which is usually best the first year after they are planted. Some reliably perennial varieties have been produced, but I still enjoy these in other gardens rather than my own. Too many rodents would feast on them if I were to put them into the ground, and I couldn’t do that to a bulb that once caused a world frenzy. 

For the past few years, I’ve passed this same azalea in full bloom in a little side corridor of downtown Albany, and it always thrills. Not having spent anywhere near as much time as I typically do downtown thanks to New York on PAUSE, I’ve missed this sort of excitement – the color play of hot pink with the vibrancy of its green leaves. It is a stunning combination – an inspiration on so many levels.

These annual reminders of spring are getting noticed a bit more this year, maybe because I haven’t seen them on such a daily basis, or maybe because I’m seeing things in a way that I used to see them before grown-up concerns in life got in the way. 

This will be a quiet post, in a Sunday of quiet posts. We’re at that point, I suppose. If you’re lucky enough to be in the vicinity of a lilac bush in bloom, I implore you to pause whatever you’re doing (even if it’s reading this post – I’ll be here when you return) and go take a deep inhalation of its glorious perfume. It is the scent of spring, the aroma of hope, the fragrance of happy nostalgia. If you had a childhood where lilacs played any part, they probably have similar connotations. For Andy, they remind him of his mother.

I watched as he walked over to the lilac bush we’ve had since we moved into our home, a gift from his departed Mum. That single lilac has multiplied into a couple of stands over the years. Sometimes there is a bountiful bunch of flowers, other times the flowering is spare and sparse. The one constant is the fragrance – always the same, always redolent of our childhoods, of innocent memories. He stopped and breathed in their perfume.  There were happy memories in the scented air.

Lilacs remind me of my Mom as well, as they would always be blooming for Mother’s Day. I’d sneak out the night before and wrangle them from their gnarled stands, carefully cutting the stems and putting them in water as part of her gift presentation the following Sunday morning. We also had several groups of them on and near our property, so they reminded me of childhood and the first flush of spring – always a relief after the dour darkness of winter.

The day’s sun begins its slow descent. It lingers longer now, extending its warmth and light, delaying the day second by second. Blue sky backs the cloud of lilacs hovering near Andy’s head as he captures a photograph. The songs of birds mingle with the chirps of chipmunks. Nature has been in a good mood, and we are grateful for this. Sundays should be about gratitude.  

If this pretty little plant was more rare, more delicate, or more elusive, it would be highly valued and desired. Instead, its ubiquitousness and hardiness, and its ability to compete in our lawns, as given it the name of weed – and not the fun kind either. This is the common dandelion, with its sunny multi-petaled bloom, bright green serrated foliage, and, later, those whimsical seed-heads waiting for the wind to parachute them away. It’s not entirely ugly, it just gets a bad rap. And maybe part of it is deserved. No one likes an invasive species that doesn’t stay within its prescribed bounds, but where the world be without its rebels and rule-breakers? Maybe the dandelion just needs a better PR rep, a proper promotional campaign illuminating all its desirable qualities. 

The world is turning on its head. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? I shudder to even tempt the powers-that-be to answer that right now. Maybe when the apocalypse comes the only things left will be cockroaches and dandelions. And Cher. There will be beauty in survival, just as there is beauty in the dandelion.

Every year I promise to sprinkle forget-me-not seeds about the backyard, and every year I forget. 

There is a message in such madness, but I’m too tired to figure it out. 

It’s too soon in the week to be so exhausted. 

It’s only fucking Tuesday for fuck’s sake.

And it’s only May.

Maybe the cold nights are getting to me. 

Maybe Tuesdays just suck. 

My first brush with the Kwanzan cherry was a pair of ancient trees near the condo in Boston. I would walk beneath them, coming home on late spring evenings back when I worked in retail and had not a care in the world. I didn’t pay much attention to them, other than a passing glance, mostly because they carried no discernible fragrance. At the time, I wanted everything – beauty and fragrance and ease of cultivation, and anything that lacked one or any of the aforementioned traits got nary a notice. Yeah, I was that bastard. 

The beauty of the Kwanzan eluded me until my first spring with Andy at his old house in Guilderland. Off the wooden deck was a glorious cherry tree, alight with blooms on sunny spring days. It was a perfect posing spot, one that I used for work included in The Talented Trickster Tour: Reflections of a Floating World. That floating world was echoed in the falling petals of the Kwanzan cherry tree. The beauty was transient, making is all the more cherished. 

This year the Kwanzan in our backyard is putting on a spectacular show. Andy thinks it’s one of the best and I would agree. We posed under it for an anniversary photo (come back in a couple days for that post). One of the benefits of the cool spring weather lasting a little longer means that the floral show gets extended too. We’ve had years where our blooms have lasted only a couple of days, wilted beneath a brutal sun or ripped off in a windstorm. Expecting similar catastrophic results in this crazy year, I’ve been making the most of the show while it lasts, taking frequent breaks to walk outside beneath its beauty and soaking in the prettiness as much as possible. 

A super sunny weekend was just what our Kwanzan cherry tree needed to begin its annual show. These happy blooms coincided with the turn of the season – emotionally and weather-wise – even if we are due for rain in a few more days. The roller-coaster of spring rushes onward – up and down and round and round. The buds snuck up on me this year. Our downtrodden state of affairs had given me no reason to raise my head skyward, and on rainy days when I ventured outside, I was mostly hunched over, seeking signs of life on the ground, not in the air.

Thus my surprise was pleasant and immense as the buds swelled seemingly overnight and the first pink blossom unfurled its pretty tutu, dancing and twirling in the wind. Some years the pool has already been opened by this time. Not so this time around, as everything is running a bit behind. We are also due for a new pool liner, which will delay things even more. The only good thing about that is that when the flower petals fall, they won’t be clogging the filter, though I will miss the pretty way they float on the water.

Depending on their stage of development and bloom, cherry blossoms are each distinctive and unique. it is practically impossible to find two twins on the tree, which adds to their allure. Like people, even and sometimes especially twins, every one is an individual, to be compared only to themselves, or maybe the blue of the sky and the abstract notion of beauty. 

Some posts need no words, only beauty and the inspired imagination to conjure spring…

Suzie’s childhood home had grand swaths of these little spring bulbs growing wild at the edge of their property. One Easter Sunday we found ourselves out in the midst of their bloom and it was a sight redolent of spring in its purest form. Their size is such that they require a mass planting to make much of an impact, but when examined up close, just one bloom is a thing of beauty. A lesson that sometimes it’s worth taking a closer look at the world around us. There is so much that’s so easy to miss.

The advantage that this particular bulb has is its right-out-of-the-starting-gate blooming time. Starved for the least sign of life, an actual bloom this early in the season gets roundly celebrated, the hype and hoopla in exact antithesis of its size and eventual impact. In just a month or two it will be all but forgotten, its green straps of leaves tattered and expiring even as they provide the juice and sustenance for next year’s bloom. Nature is ruthless that way, and we would do well to learn by her example. Celebrate the moment at hand. Nothing lasts forever, especially not spring. Though it will come back again…

My love affair with the Beekman Boys continues, as their recent re-release of a former favorite – Aloe and Iris – arrived on my doorstep the other day. Iris is a tricky scent to isolate and convey through soap or toiletries. I’ve yet to find a cologne or perfume that does justice to the spicy, complex floral of a proper bearded iris. With that said, I wasn’t expecting much from my first brush with Aloe & Iris, but I was pleasantly surprised to find my naked, shower-soaked self brought instantly back to a garden in some splendid June day of my childhood. While the Beekman Boys version doesn’t reek of iris in perfect imitation, it carries enough of the notes to conjure that beautiful flower, and in the midst of my evening shower I was instantly transported to a very specific and happy moment of childhood.

I remember only the setting quite clearly. It was the somewhat hidden side-yard garden of Suzie’s house. T0 be honest, I don’t even remember Suzie being there, and if history is any indication, she probably wasn’t. We were raised like sibiings, so when one or the other of us got tired of the other one, we would simply walk somewhere else and go about our day. In one of the enduring hallmarks of our friendship, we could do that without hard feelings or questions.

On that particular day, I recall making my way down the crumbling set of stones that made for a rather rustic staircase leading from the driveway to the lower side yard. Swaths of blooming purple centaurea stretched out on either side of the bank, turning their heads up at the bright midday sun, enjoying the heat as much as the bees that were buzzing about them. Their fragrance was sweet, but it wasn’t the fix I was after.

After carefully climbing down the jagged stairs, I paused before stepping onto a stone path. The Ko house was always a magical place for me, and I stood there taking in all the beauty of a sunny almost-summer day. The gentle hum of bees was the only sound being made. There was warmth but my childhood self was too young to be bothered much by heat yet. Besides, there was a great elm just ahead that offered shade, and an arbor thick with a canopy of grape vines.

I took a few more steps and the bed of bearded iris was before me, rising almost up to my unimpressive height. I could simply lean forward and inhale their spicy perfume, and closely examine the beautiful beards of gold and yellow so brilliantly complementing hoods of purple and burgundy. It was, and remains, a fragrance idyllic and emblematic of summer – and to this day that memory can be conjured even in the unlikely setting of an indulgent shower.

It set off a ripple effect of memories – the beds of peonies, the sun-dial pedestal, a circular path bordered by hostas, and a hidden clump of mockorange unseen, but whose sweet perfume carried in the hot, humid air. Fragrance and memory can be beautifully intertwined.

It came earlier than usual, and perhaps that’s best. Just as we may all be hunkering down for isolation and social distancing, the season of freedom and rebirth has arrived in the nick of time. There will be much work to be done outside in the yard and garden, and I’m anxious to get started. If the weather cooperates, the main yard clean-up will commence shortly. I’ve already procured 40 lawn bags for the undertaking ~ that’s generally the number I fill each year at this time. Some things are still on schedule and going according to loose plan.

It doesn’t really feel like spring though. We cannot deny the darkness that has seeped into our daily lives, and looking at things through rose-tinted glasses has never been my modus operandi. For now, we’ll simply look at yellow roses and hope that eases the tension and worry. I’ve always counted on beauty to act as a balm upon the anxious mind. Working in the garden helps too, and my general countenance has been a wee bit calmer since I started daily meditation. An ancient adage that people repeat in moments of crisis has been, “May you live in interesting times.” I’ve always hated that saying, and its requisite connotations. I do NOT want to live in interesting times. If I need interest, I’ll create my own. Hell, I’ll create yours. I do not like interest to be forced upon me. Yet here we are, and there’s not much we can do to change the interesting times in which we live. All we can do is meet the next minute with our chosen mindset, focusing on what we need to do to get through it. For now, I choose to look at these yellow roses, to inhale their faint perfume, to sit with myself in a little window of quiet. There is beauty and peace here. There is spring, too.