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.

Nurturing courage and creativity

Do you need inspiration? Encouragement? Perhaps to create your magnum opus? Or, to try yet again to grow your dream garden?

Look no further than this small and beautiful zine by jen lemen:

I received my eagerly-awaited copy in the mail yesterday. It will occupy the dining room table for some time -- perhaps indefinitely -- so I can read passages throughout the day, whenever I walk by.

I'm hoping jen will write "middles" to help us get through the stage where we get stuck or off track.

You can purchase jen's book on this Etsy page.

What I'm reading

Books and websites such as these (1, 2, 3) have inspired me to try to eat seasonally, locally, mindfully and sustainably by transforming my balcony from an ornamental to an edible garden and myself from a gardener to a farmer (although I think I can be both).

I have so much to learn. In my quest for knowledge and guidance, this week I returned to a trusted source of wisdom on how to live with nature: Orion Magazine. Here are links to a couple of articles I'm reading in the online version:

Stalking the Vegetannual by Barbara Kingsolver
Grace Before Dinner by Deborah Madison