In praise of trees (Blog Action Day)

Today is the first annual Blog Action Day.

Here is a powerful, moving and beautiful post by one of my blogging friends.  Please take 3-and-1/2  minutes out of your busy day to view it.  (I bet you won't be able to watch it just once.)

A tapestry of vermillion, pomegranite, russet, amber & yellow-green

Fiery Virginia Creeper (10 October 2007, Vancouver, BC)

If you have a very large balcony railing and want some spectacular fall colour, you may want to try growing Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) along it. A few cautions: (1) it grows rapidly (2) its tendrils, if not confined to the railing, trellis or other support structure, can damage a building's structure and (3) it should be considered potentially poisonous. So in other words, this plant is not edible and you also want to think twice about growing it if you have children or pets.

Before publishing this post I checked a few "not all-inclusive" lists (1, 2, 3) of plants that are poisonous to pets and could not find Virginia Creeper listed. This does bring up an important consideration, though. Before you introduce a new plant into your home and garden, do check on its toxicology. Here are a couple of resources: Toxic Plant List, Health Canada pages.

With these caveats in mind, you may still may want to consider it as a tapestry behind a container arrangement of fall and winter greens. (This is an idea I'm filing away for next year.)

You can find helpful growing advice on growing Virginia Creeper here and here.

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Autumn Psalm (excerpt)

by Jacqueline Osherow

A full year passed (the seasons keep me honest)
since I last noticed this same commotion.
Who knew God was an abstract expressionist?

I’m asking myself—the very question
I asked last year, staring out at this array
of racing colors, then set in motion

by the chance invasion of a Steller’s jay
Is this what people mean by speed of light?
My usually levelheaded mulberry tree

hurling arrows everywhere in sight—
its bow: the out-of-control Virginia creeper
my friends say I should do something about,

whose vermilion went at least a full shade deeper
at the provocation of the upstart blue,
the leaves (half green, half gold) suddenly hyper

in savage competition with that red and blue—
tohubohu returned, in living color.
Kandinsky: where were you when I needed you?

(You can read the rest of the poem here.)

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Inspiration for an autumn container

My favourite master urban gardener, Gayla, features a striking combination of edible and inedible plants at You Grow Girl.

Of Autumn Grasses

 

My balcony, autumn night:  Sedge and stones; inspire, reflect, grace.

On this first day of Autumn, I'm taking a brief break from gardening to save and share a meditation I read this morning via Apartment Therapy.

Here are the direct links to the poem, art that inspired its writing and the book, Autumn Grasses, by Margaret Gibson.

I will reread the poem over the next few days, but this morning, the lines that speak to me are:

Who does not savor, and stand open

if only in secret

taking heart in the ripening of the moon?

Just for fun, last night I completed an online quiz that identified my gardening style as Zen. I'm not sure if this is validation, but I am drawn to Japanese art and gardening.

Therapy for my apartment and balcony garden

Photo of the inedible side of my September 2007 balcony garden

Even though I'm having trouble keeping up with all the blogs I regularly read, as part of my fall cleaning, decluttering and simplifying strategy this morning I added another subscription to my Google Reader: Apartment Therapy. I've read this blog occasionally before but I'm now going to commit to reading it regularly and trying some of the ideas.

If I can create a clean, simple, functional interior with stuff and systems that don't deplete my energy (as they are currently doing), I hope to have more time and space for gardening....and reading about gardening....and writing about gardening...and photographing my garden....and planning future gardens.

Today I am reading Apartment Therapy's gardening, PlantTherapy and Flower Box Awards archives.

I love this ingenious, award-winning doggie-proof planter. Fortunately, I don't have to worry about my Westie chewing or digging, although I recently learned to keep the bone-meal out of snout's reach as he wants to snuffle up the container's contents.