News from the Garden

I've been away from the blog too long again. It isn't difficult to write a bit of something once a week, and if I had the discipline to set aside a dedicated time, well then, I'd have a weekly entry. And also, I'd be someone else!

Deciding hour to hour and day to day whether my next action should be grocery shopping, finishing up the kitchen clean-up, taking the dog out to the garden, researching future home maintenance needs or calling to schedule repairs or check-ups, going up to the studio to try and restart my stalled painting, arranging the next play dates or vacations, weeding, pruning, watering, or planting, mulching or fertilizing, running a load of laundry, checking email, doing a blog entry....well, sometimes I have so much trouble prioritizing that I find I choose "none of the above" and end up taking a nap!  Does any of this sound familiar?

Pictured is the rose bush which I've shown in earlier entries.  It's been glorious!  Now it's about done and ready to recharge for another bloom cycle (with some help from the organic fertilizer of course).

Also in the Garden: the frogs filled my pond with eggs which are now tadpoles; this last week a medium-sized ribbon snake and I have mutually startled one another on several occasions; Molly the dog drew my attention to a swarm of newborn praying mantises, fresh from their hidden nest in a rock wall; the lady bugs have decided that the artichoke plant is a fabulous place to make love and babies; the artichoke is showing some buds, and the tomatoes are coming along.  And we need rain!

When it gets too dark to garden, and I'm all chored-out, I've been enjoying a book I received recently.  It's called The Backyard Parables by Margaret Roach.  Margaret gardens in the Northeast, so her particulars are not transferable to central Texas gardening (except for the advice that the only way to really deer-proof is to fence).  But her meditations and the glimpses into her development as a gardener are universal.

  

Things Done and Left Undone

The phrase I've used for today's title popped into my head this morning, but it comes from the Confession of Sins we say every Sunday in our liturgy at The Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd.gsaustin.org

Spring Break is over for us, and the enormity of the "things left undone" in my life is again pressing in on me.  It seems that it is this side of the equation that weighs heaviest as we mature.  As a youth, I would confess my sins "against God and my neighbor" and I would search my heart for wrongs of commission.  In this middle chapter of my life, it's much more about the sins of omission. 

Speaking of which... I'm including a photo of my most recent UNfinished painting.  I started this 24"x24" canvas last month and was sure that I would get back to finish it within a day or two.  

Now, weeks have passed while the energy and vision for the work have drifted away.  Experience tells me that if I just get myself in front of the easel and begin again, I will be able to find my way back in.  If you struggle with picking back up once the trail has gone cold, please send in your examples of what helps you to get going again.  Thanks!
                                        Meanwhile, Nature has kept to her schedule.  See the before and now photos of the rose bush I blogged about last time:  The growth is amazing!     

In my next post, I'll report on the progress of the landscape work I've been doing at Lake Travis (One of the things I've been doing besides painting and everything else!)  Enjoying this lovely
Texas spring,

Laura                                     

 

 

Pruning, Faith, and the Lenten Season

I just finished pruning my three rose bushes the other day, and hats off to you gardeners who have many roses to keep up with!  As I worked, I had the feeling that I had never done this before and that I was going to wind up with ruined plants.  I also kept returning to the idea that there could be no better metaphor for FAITH than that of a gardener pruning her roses. 
 
It is counter intuitive to take a big, healthy rose bush which gave me lovely flowers last season and whack away half of its mass and most of its folliage!  Why would I do such a  thing?  I do it because rosarians who have been doing this crazy pruning thing testify to the miraculous results it brings to their beloved roses, that's why.

As obvious as this is, I wonder why I have such a hard time following the advice and example of Jesus and the holy people who have written or perhaps even spoken to me? You know the kind of wisdom: the first will be last, and the last, first.  Or: one who seeks to save his/her life will lose it, but if that one loses (willingly gives over that life to God's service)  her life, she will save it.

I think that this spiritual pruning is harder for me to follow than the horticultural kind because it takes longer to see the results of the work.  And also, because I am the one to be pruned and that doesn't feel good!  I want to let myself grow in chaotic, random ways like an uncultivated plant in the garden! 
So I wish you good luck in whatever type of "gardening" you do this lent.

Valentine's Gift

This Valentine's Day I gave my children and my God-children and their sibs the book pictured right.  I stumbled on it while browsing The Paper Place, a fun store which I felt would have some special find for me that day.  I am so excited to have found this book: it's full of great advice of the sort which has taken me years and years to collect on my own!  How did Austin Kleon (working and blogging from Austin, TX)  get so smart about creativity?  Well, I don't have the answer to that question yet, but I bet he was paying attention. He was wide awake AND he was taking notes - as he advises in his little book. http://www.austinkleon.com/blog/ 

If you're interested in being encouraged in your creativity, whether you think of yourself as an artist or not, please put this book on your list of valuable resources! 

It's Alive!

This morning I discovered a visitor to the pond when I opened the skimmer filter box.

It's exciting to see my recently created pond (November 2012) coming to life bit by bit. First, the algae, then mysterious swimming bugs, then those water-walking bugs.  The few minnows I put in several weeks ago are surviving, and today... my froggie friend!

Here's a view of the pond as it is now.  When the weather warms a bit more I will complete the rock work on the waterfall and pond ledges.

A recent painting from Ingram, TX

Here is an image of one of the paintings that I’ve just completed as a result of my recent painting weekend with Plein Air Austin. http://www.pleinairaustin.org/calendar.htm#june This is the first time that I have joined the group on a weekend trip, and we had a lovely time painting along the Guadalupe River at Camp Mystic, and at this pond on the grounds where we stayed.

My process this time was to paint quickly on site, after completing the initial sketch.  I liked my start and was able to stop painting before I had over-worked it.  Later, I got out a fresh canvas and did the painting you see in this blog, working only from my sketch and first painting.  I like the level of abstraction that remains.

A Snake in the Wall

May 6, 2011

This evening I headed over to the garden after dinner for (I thought) some recreational hedge trimming (yes, I said recreational).  But before I had even swung open the iron and cedar gate on the 4ft stone wall surrounding much of the hillside, my eye was drawn to a larger-than-normal opening in the dry stack wall.  15 minutes later, intently engaged in a completely unexpected, unplanned activity (more about that in a minute), I was struck –again- by how much gardening is a metaphor for life’s larger arena:  We head out with certain expectations in our heads and tools in our hands, only to find ourselves engaging in a completely different activity than we’d anticipated.  Furthermore, the tools we brought along aren’t the ones we need for this new task.  And in fact if we’d foreseen what we’d really be doing, we might not have ventured forth at all.  This is so often true for me in tending my garden, and I think it’s also true for much of life’s twists and turns.  (Is it an African proverb that says God made the earth curved so that we couldn’t see too far down the path ahead of us… lest the distant vision cause us to stumble or stop our journey??)

But this is getting too heavy, and my little surprise task was not unpleasant, really.  It’s just that as I got down on my hands and knees to better view this opening in my wall, the shapes in the 4-inch square of dark resolved themselves enough to reveal the head of a small snake looking back at me!  His little black tounge flickered as he sensed my heat.  The children came over to get a look, and he responded to the extra heat and movement by backing up and moving deeper  into the labyrinth that is the inside of this two-sided, partially dry-stacked wall.*

So  I did what any modern American mother would do:  I started picking up rocks and stuffing the hole.  It’s when I went inside the garden to check for possible reptile outlets on that side, that I was soon involved in a more lengthy rock-stuffing activity.  The space behind an outlet box in the wall turned out to be very ample… rock after rock slid down effortlessly.  That’s when I had the above micro-meditation about what I intend to do often being abandoned once I step into my garden.  And I think that’s one of the things I like about my relationship with my                                                      garden: surprise.

·        * In case you haven’t picked up on it, I’m kind of crazy about my stone wall.  It was the first big step for me in moving into the financial and physical commitment of my longed-for garden.  It was built by a terrific stone mason, Brit White, a true craftsman who does all his own work.  I was so determined that he was the one to do the job,  that I waited a year with no assurance that he could do the work (he had moved out into the Hill Country) before he had an opening for my project.  Brit, if you ever want to work in Austin again, I want to be first in line!