Villa Rustica

That's Mine !! - the big move across the street

2013-07-24T18:54:00.000-07:00

We moved accross the street. It is 82' from our old front door to our new front door. In November we loaded wheel barrows and baskets and carried the furniture. My kids moved their own rooms.

Our old house was growing in abundance and full of life for the 10 years we were there. Those same ten years we watch the house we now own unravelling. Two marriages ended, two cats died (I buried one that's a weird story), two kids went off to college and didn't come home. The owner handed over the nine sets of keys to us with tears.

I am typing this and facing the front yard of my old house. There is still a broken flagstone path I made so the dozens of kids at my stoop wouldn't be roller blading in mud. I see the success of the drought tolerant garden I planted in the raised beds.

We wondered how it would feel to see the old house from this one and thought it would be awkward, strange, and upsetting but wed get used to it. I never imagined feeling what I do now. Honestly, watching the plants that were "mine" come up this Spring and having nothing of "mine" come up here this Spring was asfixiating.

However, presently I'm sitting on the covered front porch surrounded by potted bromeliads and ferns. I love it here in the new Villa. I even love the things I hate like the thirty years worth of weeds. They are literally growing up through the driveway.

I never could of forseen the gift of moving across the street from yourself. If I choose to look I see constant see reminder of my sacred past. Children in the cherry tree, snow men, rain boots and my younger happy and sometimes struggling self in the garden.

...and from the back porch there is a pond. I'm love Villa chapter two.

Tour guide

2011-08-01T13:14:00.000-07:00

I am sitting in my garden like I have been every morning this summer. Drinking coffee that I don't really like. I am too unambitious to search out a new blend.

The locust are humming louder than the birds can chirp. When I squint my eyes I see there is still a calla lily looming in a wild corner of my garden.

I take this time to write in my journal. My journal is large covered in black shredded cloth and the binding is unglued. I have had this particular journal for five years and I am only 3/4 of the way through. Relative to other decades of my life I am writing infrequently. However this journal unlike the others is stuffed awkwardly with copies of poems, personality tests, mood charts, mantras, mudras, writing of general wisdom, even some pages of St Frances De Sales from the church bulletin. I buried these scraps in this bulky book because at some time in the past five years they centered me, calmed me, inspred me or quieted me. I crammed them in my journal as Treasure maps. I thought later these would serve as defined routes to a place within me of peace.

These humid summer mornings while sipping my bitterly roasted coffee in the garden these Treasure maps may get picked up by the wind, smacked into the corner of my yard and lost in the tall unedged grass along the fence line. I would think twice about retrieving them. I feel fussed with them enough. They remind me of where I was years ago and the reasons in relied on them.

The treasure map shows you the way but is not the treasure. I can have the treasure without having the to revisit old journeys because I am the tour guide.

There was a song on a mix tape I listened to over and over when I was twelve. It had a sound bite at the very beginning of a voice saying " I don't know where I'm going but I like it here wherever it is".

I still agree.

Truly a Bearded Iris by any other name is still a Bearded Iris

2010-04-23T15:33:00.000-07:00

I always think of Georgia O'Keefe when I gaze into my Bearded Irises. Who doesn't ? Of course I also think of the Iris from Disney's Alice in Wonderland. She holds up her monocle and says " Aha! Just as I suspected! She's nothing but a common mobile vulgarism...more specifically a weed."

I want to state my firm opinion about the name of this plant. Ewww. In our society cultural mores would require her to shave. It is obvious why the name came about but I feel compelled to find a more fitting feminine way to address this plant. With all the cryptic words in botany I am surprised, that this yellow tuft, meant to attract pollinators, would be so plainly called a beard. The botanist agreed with the "common name" or visa-versa and here we have it. Bearded Iris.
The other parts of the Iris have splendid names. The falls, the standards, the stigmatic lip. If an Iris is of one color it is called a Self. I could on and on about how I love that- "the self".To find the answer I knew I had to consult the Bible of Herbaceous Perennial Plants written by Allan M. Armitage to find the scientific name for the Beard. This is one the most beautiful tales behind a flowers name have I have encountered. Iris was a Greek Goddess. She was a messenger for the Goddess Juno, the Goddess of marriage. It was said that

"Iris walked between heaven and earth over a bridge made by a rainbow. Legend says that wherever she walked, her footprints bore flowers with as many colors as the rainbow."

It is when Armitage is describing his method of teaching this genus that I find the alternative name for the Bearded Iris. He divides the flowers into those with a beard, those with a crest, and those with neither a beard or a crest. The Irises without beards are called Pogon Irises. Eureka.

Here is the catch.

The word Pogon means Beard in Greek.

I do not normally label my plants but maybe while they are in bloom I will. The label should read

" If you please. We prefer the title Pogon Iris."

Where did you come from ? uplanned Spring vignettes

2010-04-15T19:40:00.000-07:00

These first photos are from the South East Side of my house. In this photo nothing obvious is in bloom. It is wild. The real floozies hang out here. Mint, White bearded Irises, and what I call 1950's Sedum. It is debauchery and I secretly love these plants. I let them do what ever they want. Shhh.

This Shasta Daisy and Lily are in a firm

embrace. They are saying "You can't tear us apart !"

and who would?

I really tried to capture what my eye sees in this combination. It is like my grapes are wearing a tutu. You can barely make out how the Aquilegia encircles the rough, woody base of the grape vines.

I never thought you would bloom, Madame Rouge. This is a "Mother's Day" cast off I found it in a grocery cart for 1.50. It was still wrapped in hot pink tin foil.

Okay forget it Myosotis sylvatica. This is not your crowd. Of the woods I am sure. Although, it does look comfortable next to that fluffy, tiny, patch of Spirea. Be Blessed.

These photos are from a more well behaved bed in the front my house. I wanted to get a picture of this dandelion before I dug it up. I never thought of adding yellow to this composition.

I like it.

Cherry Trees-it must of been cold there in my shadow

2010-04-02T17:49:00.000-07:00

The color, texture, and movement in this painting by Edgar Degas "The Four Dancers" reminds me of Spring. One may think of a Magnolia or Cherry tree when they hear of trees in bloom. These trees are well known for their showy flowers an that is often why we choose them for our landscape.

When I started to study woody plants in 2007 I began to look at plant flowers in new detail. I began to notice the inconspicuous flowers on other Spring trees. They are so small, intimate, and complex. The fact that they are withdrawn makes me them even more attractive to me. Amongst the amazing shows of other flowering trees they often go unnoticed.

Acer s.

I notice the Maples early. The grey and blak forest starts to blush red. The buds on the trees in my yard look like retro, red, clip-on ear rings. These are Acer saccharinum. All those buds, bloom and then fruit. Those are a lot of helicopters. Otherwise know as chimera. The winged fruit.

Salix Alba

When I see a Weeping Willow in Spring I anxiously describe it's beauty to whoever is with me. I am frantically trying to get them to see what I see and share in the experience. The branches look like the translucent, plastic, beaded necklaces. The green-yellow ones you buy at the dollar store that come with all the jewelry a little girl could ever need and a tiara.

Cercis canadensis

The Red Buds come next. I fell in love with this native plant while driving through the blue ridge in the Spring. They covered the light green slopes of the mountain sides in an early morning fog. Their color is a unique lilac. I think it looks like cherry sherbet tastes.

Of course I enjoy all the blooms ! When I stand under my cherry tree I get weak in the knees. I dream of having a Southern Magnolia outside my bedroom window.

It is a religious experience to stand in a breeze of cherry petals.

I took this photo at the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C. last year.

Juniperus Orphan

2010-03-25T16:08:00.000-07:00

This evening while having a conversation with my neighbor I noticed a red haired boy walking down the street holding something I could not make out. I said to my neighbor " Who is that red haired kid and what does he have in his hand."

It was my kid. He went to off alone into nature and came back a man.

Well, this 10 year old man was carrying a juniper plant by the branches (ouch!) like he had hunted and killed it for the tribe. He knew I was going to be so excited. A plant. He says "Found this in the pond." It's root ball was exposed but still in the shape of the pot from which it was loosened. My neighbor commented that someone probably just tossed it out. Most people do not take in the plants I do. This one must of over wintered in the pot. The owners thought it looked like crap and threw it back into the pond like a disfigured fish.

Fish. Well that is what it smells like. You can see in the photos that it is covered in sludge. I did not mind working the compost in around it with my hands but the slime I could not touch.

We gave it a great home in full sun. It will grow fast and be happy there. I know it. Welcome home. Juniperus communis.

Spring Hopes Eternal and Hope Springs Eternal

2010-03-20T12:22:00.000-07:00

Hope Springs Eternal.
We plant our seeds and make plans. The idea of color ! and new life ! make me as giddy as a teenage girl getting asked to prom. The excitement, the flattery and then oh my the costume choices.

When touring my yard today I found myself full of hopes. I kept encountering what I hoped for. Was this plant going to return was that one going to live. It is the first day of Spring and things need more time but I had a litany going.

Mother of Sweet Woodruff transplanted into dry shade, Pray for us.
Father of Fothergilla bought on sale, Pray for us.
in Latin
Mater Galium odoratum, ora pro nobis.

My feelings of Hope Springing Eternally had evolved into feelings of Spring Hoping Eternally. My giddy plans were sounding more like a heavy rescue mission.

In difficult situations I hold onto to hope. I surrender with a degree of peace that a difficult situation, beyond my control, will become easier.
I "wait in joyful hope".

WAITING

How do I find peace in waiting. Where is the joy in that ? I know I must surrender. I light a candle and give it to God, the Universe, Spirit, Ether whatever. I let go and I am able to see the things that once upon a time I had wished for and now I have. I even see things I never dreamt of wishing for, like that peculiar Hyacinth on the side of the house or my kids racing downhill in a wheel chair

We perceive flowers as fragile. I found this tulip in my yard. It survived months in the frozen earth and emerged just after the snow had melted. It rose through sticks and mulch and speared through numerous leaves. We do not realize often enough that we are infinitely bigger that our challenges and problems.