To Blush (Verb)

Reflections on gardening shortcomings.

Show shyness, embarrassment, or shame by becoming red in the face. (Google "to blush meaning.")

Literary: be or become pink or pale red.

[1] Autumn sedum - in an empty, soilless, broken transporting pot, several weeks after relocation from the Mother Garden, its bare roots having the benefit of rainwater accumulated on the lid of the plastic bin on top of which it is set that is meant to neatly corral the bags of soil - none of which have actually been emptied into said bin.

[2] Tomatoes on the vine - from seeds of fruits eaten last year at the Mother Ship, then haphazardly tossed into a pot there, where they grew and crowded each other, but yielded starts when I was too late in the season to begin, and Mama Hen was looking to thin out.

[3] Mophead hydrangea - the only healthy one this year, all the others having suffered from overcrowding by shiso or amaranth due to a plant mommy who has been very neglectful this year.

[4] Teardrop grape tomatoes - sweet, fruit of a volunteer that came up in the hydrangea planter, helping to salvage tomato season, even if it came in incredibly leggy from a late in season relocation. Sis and I partook of a couple of ripe red ones today, and they were tasty! But we forgot to save seeds. Well, a few more are on the vine for that To Do.

Still just trying the best I can. Despite the years of conditioned embarrassment at achieving less than perfection, I am concertedly attempting to embrace that there is no shame in making the effort and endeavoring to do. Some level of doneness is better than never having embarked. If repeated enough, this becomes a mantra, and then maybe, a belief, perhaps someday graduating into a perception of truth - and grace of forgiveness of oneself.

To Let Be or Not To Let Be

To be or not to be may be the question of life; whether to let be is the question of the gardener on flora and fauna life. 

This year's profile photosake hibiscus - the first.

A gardener is like God in some ways; the gardener decides what stays or goes. It's a heavy responsibility. 

Of the Olsen Twins Hibiscuses rescued from the tree pit last year and resettled into the catmint planter, neither seemed to have buds all season; their foliage isn't all that much to look at through the summer, they aren't edible... the chopping block is a possibility. And then I glanced through the rain the other day and one - let's call her Mary Kate - was in full bloom! I just hadn't noticed the buds. Her companion fraternal twin - Ashley, though, might still be at risk of forcible eviction by yours truly. On the other hand, the lead hibiscus succumbed to something last Winter - wind? spotted lanternflies? So there might be space for Ashley The Hardy Hibiscus to continue in the Jardin yet.

And speaking of that planter where Mary Kate and Ashley live: Their catmint companions were exceedingly weak this year. It's one of the inherited plants from the previous tenant, so I want to hold on to it. Need to propagate it somehow. The weeds around it - those need to go - I fear they are the culprits weakening the catmints.

Bee Among The Shiso I.

The the hordes of shiso sure aren't weak. They are, as usual, the bane of the Jardin. So I was planning on neutering them, snipping all the flowers as they appeared. But the bees seem to love those same flowers, so I guess we'll let them be for the bees, but then snip them before the seeds form? Can I manage to get them at that critical juncture post-fertilization and after feeding the bees, but before the seeds are formed and viable? A shiso abortion, so to speak.

Bee Among The Shiso II.

As the bees were buzzing happily about, there was a ladybug too, and I feared scaring off the fauna friends of the Jardin with my anti-lanternfly tactics (soapy water and a fly swatter). The poor spotted lanternflies - they didn't do anything wrong; they just aren't from here (they're from where I'm from). But therefore, they have to go (not me, though - I plan to stay, extremist MAGAts be damned); I can't let them be. I don't like that responsibility at all. But I carry on, and carry them out, and snuff them out. Their red wings make it almost look like they might have blood, and their bodies are "juicy," like they have innards. It makes the act of squishing them rather gruesome. I don't like the task at all.

___

Tangentially, since we are on responsibilities: That most responsible, exemplary carrier of the weight of duty, Queen Elizabeth II, passed, as surely everyone must already know. I can see how providing continuity for a nation and people could be burdensome, being in the public eye all the time truly a burden. At least she didn't have power anymore over weightier matters like executions and the like - like her predecessors (yes, I was watching "The Boleyns" on PBS). It was nice to see Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II's sense of humor in the later years, after she was fully secure in the role - the London Olympics skit, the Platinum Jubilee Paddington Bear skit - adorable, relatable. A nice touch to the close of the "second Elizabethan era," as one of the commentators coined it. (Did you catch my unintentional, but now realized, nod to the great cultural star of the first Elizabethan period in the title of this entry?)

As a kid, I was rather royals obsessed. Maybe the idea of being a princess. In fact, one of my law school admissions essays was a partial truth, and a response to my lingering interest in the royals - the question was about the last book I had read; and I had last read drivel - Andrew Morton's biography of Princess Diana, which I could not, of course, write about. I was in Queens. While pondering how to handle the law school application, I spied an old Nancy Drew, and,  on rereading it as an a college educated adult, was a bit astounded; I turned the quaint, rather racist, terms used in that work into the basis and catalyst for an essay instead, about evolving assessments of fixed text.

So, yes, I have caught some of the pomp and circumstance around the Queen's funeral, pulled up footage of William and Harry's walkabout with hopeful interest in the mending of their fraternal bond. But I do have to say, I think the full time full coverage is a bit MUCH, and a tad unseemly on this side of the Atlantic. And I get Jamaica's stance. Perhaps I've evolved in my assessment of a fixed institution. I still sometimes wish to be treated like a fairytale princess, though, even if I bought my own castle and can buy my own tiara.

Chasing the Moon (and a COVID Vaccine)

 

First Stewards

He Came From Fire

First visit to the National Museum of the American Indian.

After decades of walking past, I visited the National Museum of the American Indian - New York (right - not the term we use today, but that remains the name of the institution) for the first time, on an outing with old friends. (Footnote 1)

Abstraction After Wakapana

One of the current exhibits is of works by Oscar Howe, who is an artist who is Native American. The works are gorgeous. The images here are the ones I was most drawn to.

Cunka Wakan (Dakota Horse)

The gallery spaces are just fantastic. And the building itself is beautiful, in that architectural style of old municipal buildings and institutions.

A gardener (of which I fancy myself one) is but a steward of the land. And this patch of dirt on which I live, where I tend to my garden in the sky, was first tended by the Lenape, and then taken from them. That from the trauma of generations such amazing artwork can still emanate is at once surprising, and not - the human spirit is enduring and astoundingly resilient. That said, even it has limits. Same for the earth.

Skylight in dome of the Alexander Hamilton Custom House, which also houses the federal Bankruptcy Court.

There is so very much for us to learn.

Painted ceiling, columns, adornments inside the Alexander Hamilton Custom House.

___

Footnote 1: I am practicing the art of always saying yes to invitations from dear old friends - the ones who see you through the lows and share the highs, through all of your stages. This outing was pulled together on one day's notice. We all used to see each other often, before kids, before COVID. We used to all live near each other on the Upper Eastside, a long, long time ago. Now there are nap schedules, family schedules, travel time, babies that have become teens and surpassed you in height. But, also, with littles about, excuses to visit playgrounds, go down big and tall slides - even for, especially for, adults! Reasons to get in out of the sun into air conditioned museums, ones that used to be walked past. Reasons to go to the top of old teenage hangouts and get introduced to delightful rooftop vantage points that either were not open in the Big Bad 80s, or that as a youngster from modest means appeared closed off and unattainable. 

Reasons to hold on to dear old friends and seize the day.

[Edited September 6, 2022 to add links and captions.]