WHEN DOES THE CHANGE OCCUR?

                          "There is the constant rhythm of day and night, the lunar cycle, and the yearly cycle of the sun. The significant aspect of these ocurrences within which we are constantly immersed is that they are rhythmical. Rhythm is the essence of the world as feeling."
                              "Love and Soul" by Robert Sardello



      The season and we ourselves are progressing to the nadir of the year, the winter solstice December 22, when sunlight will be at its minimum in terms of hours. So, when does the actual change occur, the tipping of the balance from one side to the other, the nanosecond when we are no longer in days that are shorter, when the light is ascendent? Or, is the shift too subtle for us to perceive. However, it is reassuring to realize that the days are getting longer and that the eternal rhythm is evident in an upward direction.
   I am fascinated with changes happening in Nature, so I watch for them very focusedly with attentiveness that requires on my part reason, feeling, sensitivity, patience, and most of all as Sardello says, Love and Soul. But, in Nature, seeing the change is truly difficult. All that we think we will see, or do see, is a result. But, if we are open in our observence, in the moment and the experience, we can see It. Then, we are a part of It. There is no separation between us and what we see, and yes, I agree, this is hard to do sometimes. I suppose this is what Krishnamurti means where he says that intelligence is borne of Compassion. There can be no intelligence without compassion.
   The garden chores are easy and enjoyable now, as I collect as many leaves as possible to spread in the plant island beds. And, there is calm and meditation as I prune trees and shrubs and slowly cut up the trimmings with hand clippers into one inche or less pieces, spreading them in the plant islands. This takes time, but what is that in contrast to the eternal, eternity? Trimming and cutting is like writing with pen and ink--it slows down the mind to an idle like a finely tuned engine so that an essence can emerge. Lawrence said he could write only with his fountain pen, and Shelby Foote wrote his six volume history of the American Civil War with a dip pen.  That is why I write all my first drafts with pen and ink. There is a magic in the ink, a magic in the dark depths of the liquid ink as I dip into it. I'll bet there are a lot of pen dippers among us out there.
  As I rake, sometimes I find a type of leaf , like thousands of it I've seen before, but this Liquidambar leaf is mysteriously new, its reds bleeding out into halos of amber, yellows, oranges and brown at it perimeters--it is all new, I cannot explain! The leaf in it richness of color is like a crystalline lens of burgandy and amber. And if you hold it up to the sunlight, that is exactly how it is, like a piece of stained glass. I stand there and stare--who cares whether I get the leaf raking job finished? The leaves, the birds, the wind strummed branches don't care.
   Season is also ritual. I go to my favorite, family owned nursery to buy onion sets. I've gone there for thirty-five years now, and I've noticed, (have you?) that the nursery clerks and I are all getting old. The son owner, a Swede, now looks exactly like his father looked of years ago. This stuns me for a moment, as I remember his father well after all these years, standing tall and serious in his usual blue jeans and brown shirt.  He had that Nordic calm,  a little distant as was his way, but certainly a kind man and a lover of plants who always warmed to plant-talk.  I liked him and miss him. There is a certain rhythm to all of this.
    My thoughts wander---'this  December will they have yellow, white, and red Italian onions, and will they still be $2.99 a scoop and will they be plump and ready for planting and will there be a few of my gardener-clerk-friends milling about with whom I may "chat-kibitiz"  as I go about the heady business of onion purchase'?  "Yea, we gotta buy these onion sets before they all get sold out and the weather warms too much, then where the hell will we be for green onions, eh? There's time yet, but we gotta get on with it".  "you're right man, just what the wife has been tellin' me". These questions, like the ritual, are always the same, almost.
   When I get home, the onion area in my vegetable garden is ready; I sit on the same wooden stool, poke  holes into the fecund earth with a treasured, old olive wood dibble, much like the ones my grandfathers and father used. I have a great sense of continuity. Will my children and grandchildren do this one day? Each hole---each earth-moist little receptive womb of darkness welcomes its charge of germinative life as I drop each bulb in place. I smooth the earth into the holes and the ritual is almost complete; I pause for some moments and feelingly worry  about the sleeping onion bulbs; when has the change from so-called dormancy to the quickening of life occurred in the secrecy of earth's darkness which I must  trust--when I first bought the bulbs, when the bulbs first touched the earth?  I don't know. I must await another rhythm; the pointed leaf spears penetrating upward from the earth, and growing, thrusting out into the sun like burning, curved green swords.

NOVEMBER, the MONTH for PRUNING and CLEAN UP

It is true, I have been working steadily on the trees and shrubs, working over the branches, making sure that they are structurally in good shape for the rains and winds that may be coming. It is so important to have them opened up so that there will not be broken branches, and even branches that are too long and insecure that have the possibility of breaking and falling onto the house.
   I started with my palms, especially the Queen palms because the fronds do not fall off cleanly from the main trunk. The long pole cutter with a combo sharp saw and cutter-pruner at the end is a wonderful tool and it has saved me countless dollars. I can reach high up into the palm fronds and cut them off. Sometimes I use the saw fixture on fronds that are in postions  too awkward for the pruner. I like to have all my palms pruned so that the winds will not lash them about. There is someting nerve-wracking about not having them secured as the winds mount while I try to sleep.
   And then, after I've done the pruning, I spend a puttering-morning caring for my tools; sharpening the blades razor sharp, oiling the pulleys and chains, replacing worn ropes. I cannot live with poorly cared for tools, of any kind. I think you can know a lot about a person by how he or she cares for tools. My daughter-in-law is the best beautician I know, and she lays out her tools on a clean white clothe as would a surgeon. And, my carving tools, some from my grandfathers, are always razor sharp, oiled with camillia oil, and stored in individual sectioned drawers. The handles have the patina of old leather. I can hear the comments now, but that's how I care for tools, and that is why I shall pass them on to my children.
   Also, the non-palm trees have gotten my pruning efforts. I have cleared out all of those wispy, crossing inner-tree brances that can bring a tree down in heavy winds. It is hard work, but I feel good at the end of the day. You,ve heard it before; "I didn't realize that tree had grown so large". Now the tree is broken, or worse, down, and one has to call the tree trimmers at some big expense, when all this could have been avoided with some care.
   Actually, a garden that is well pruned has an incomparable, special living Form. The most beautiful garden that I have ever seen, structurally, is the Butchart Garden in Vancouver, British Columbia in the dead of winter. Butch-art, eh? as the Canadians would say. The Gardeners there have the aesthetics of paintings and woodcuts by the English mystics Samuel Palmer and  John Craxton. The Butchart pruner-artists know how to bring out the line, texture, and structure of old tree trunks, making them beautiful in themselves and also setting off the overall structure of the garden geography and its confines.  Winter light is never so lovely as it is on those carefully pruned tree branches and trunks; a winter light so very bright but without warmth. The great English potter Michael Cardew said that is how old age is.But today, many of our gardens do not possess trees of age because we pop 'em in and pop 'em out. The oldest trees in my neighborhood are only 30-35 years old, except for the olives which are probably 60-70 years because they were moved in.  I've seen countless trees in my neighborhood sacrificed to the so-called gods of progress, remodels, and renovations,  what "they" call "moving on up". For a few weeks, I cannot bear to walk by those places where trees I have loved for years have been cut to the base of their trunks.  Still, no excuse. Any tree or shrub can be pruned with care, concern for natural beauty, and love. It all depends on whether or not one cares about such things.

OCTOBER INSOUCIANCE

                                                              To Autumn
                                       Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness
                                            Close-bosom friend of the maturing sun;
                                        Conspiring with him how to load and bless
                                             With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eve run. . . .
                                                                    John Keats, 1819

This October, the figs of various varieties are ripening: "Tiger Panache" like yellow and green stripped minarets; "Green Genoa" of opulent form; "The Grande Ilse" of my wife's ancestors' fig tree from Louisiana and Mississippi. Yet, as these figs come our way, the leaves of the trees that bear them are yellowing, falling one by one to the ground around their trunks bringing a promise of earthy decompostion and renewal. I think that the fallen layered leaves are as sensuous to my eyes as are the figs to my tongue and palate. Both have a delicious scent of Autumn.

 

   October is our 10th month according to the Gregorian calendar, but it was the 8th month for the ancient Romans, and it still is for me. The Romans tried to rename it after emperors and prominent families, but none of the names ever stuck. Perhaps this is because October as 8th month carries with it the potentia of the number 8, the symbol of the Lemniscus which is a figure eight of pointed or connected circles touching each other. A lemniscus is defined as a bundle bands or fibers located in the brain. It is composed of a fascia, bands. Leminiscate forms are ribbon-like bands that look exactly like a rubber band that is twisted once in the middle. It is the symbol for infinity. Once one gets the image in the mind, in the imagination, it pops up all over the place and is seen everywhere. I see it all the time in vines, clouds, streams, and especially in
snakes.

. 

   It is thought that the Lemniscus derived from a very ancient symbol-form known as the Ouroboros; the Lemniscus is a kind of double Ouroboros.  The etymology of Ouroboros is that "uro" means tail, and "ors" or "os' means mouth, (both from Greek); that is, a tail devourer. So, an Ouroboros is that wonderful ring image of the serpent devouring it own tail. Metaphorically, the serpent devours itself so that it can be reborn. I always encounter shed snake skins on my walks, and I say, "that snake has been reborn, it has a new skin, a new life". We do exactly the same thing when we cast off old mental-emotional chains. Like the Lemniscus, the Ouroboros is an image of spontaneous, continuous flow, one curve flowing with energy into another, and that is October; one time or season flowing into another season. October brings fruits, figs, and the falling of leaves to enrich the earth for the next season's "mellow fruitfulness."

   But the Lemniscus with its two connected, touching circles has a more profound meaning. The two circles are the two worlds--this one and the Spirit world. They meet up or touch each other at All Saints' Eve and at All Souls' Eve. The point at which the two orbs touch is magical! You know, it's that time of year when there is other worldly magic in the red, oranges, and yellows of fallen leaves, and there is that moist, earthy evening smell of dew kissed fallen leaves and sheaves of straw, all with more than a hint of cold, even with perhaps a whiting of frost. All Hallows Eve, is my favorite time of year partly because it conjours up polarities of orange sunsets and frosty nights.
   Halloween in its non-commercialized version is All Saints' Eve which falls on the night of October 31rst, and All Saints' Day is November 1rst, one of the ten days of Holy Obligation in the Church. All Souls' Day is November 2nd and is called the Day of the Dead. It is the day for honoring the recently dead and all the dead, and prayers are offered so that their Souls may reach heaven. It is also a day to remember them--they should not be forgotten.
    All Hallow's Eve or Halloween incorporated many traditions from pagan (paganus simply means farmer, as in paesano) harvest festivals and of those honoring the dead. People believed, and still do, that it was a time when the material and supernatural worlds are closest and magical things would happen. The Lemniscus again. They believed that a Faery Host of the Souls of the dead was flying through the sky. People dressed up in frightening costumes to scare off the evil spirits. and the lit huge bonfires as well. I always associate Halloween with smells of burning leaves, flames, smoke and flickering figures and shadows. Modern popular society thinks of Halloween in terms of  a holiday of horror and of the sales accrued from "halloween stuff'" sold in stores.
    In reality, Halloween resides deeply seated as an archetype in the human psyche because the seasons are still with us! They have not left us. I don't think they can package a piece of the sky and put a price tag on it.
   These special seasonal days have a tight grip on many people and rightly so; people love the magical, the mysterious jutaposition of the two worlds in Autumn, and even though they are unaware of the traditional antecedents,  the mystique still exists. And, I assure you, not to worry--there will not be a quiz on the scholarly antecedents and traditions. I no longer do that sort of thing.
   So, my garden proceeds into a mild and gentle stasis. Plants need to be watered properly during this extremely dry time before the rains come, but only enough to keep the roots alive. It is also a time of cleaning up, pruning, opening up the trees so that the winter rains and winds (when they come) can breathe freely through the branches. I watch and enjoy this gentle October seasonal mood. I become an observant dawdler, a flaneur. October--a delectable time of Insouciance.
                                                                                                             

SEPTEMBER--THE MONTH THAT DIVIDES

". . .we earn the right to enter into the spring season of growth only if we can also enter into the time when summer wans and autumn draws on: the season of sinking down and dying that comes with winter."   From the book "The Archangel Michael"  by Rudolph Steiner.

                                                              A September Essay
                                                                  
September is the turning point month that divides summer from fall.  The astrological change occurs with the Autumnal Equinox beginning with September 23rd or so. Right now, even well before the 23rd, the days are hotter in the afternoons because the sun's angle is more oblique, and the evenings and nights are cooler by contrast. The hues and tones of the late afternoon light are already of a definite orange, yellow cast.
   September is the 9th month of the Gregorian calendar, but it is the 7th month of the Roman calendar, and is named "September"  after the Latin for seven, 'septem'. I wonder if the similar sounding word 'septum' from Latin saeptum, a thin dividing membrane that is a partition as in the nose and other tissues would provide a better etymology? With its Autumnal Equinox, isn't September the month of the balance sign of Libra, and the balance that Saint Michael carries at his belt? Why not? This etymology (septem and saeptum) is more fun, and being linguistically correct isn't everything, even though the word September does derive from the Latin seven, 'septem'.
   The heat loving plants of my garden have absorbed all of the sun's energy that they need in order to bloom before the the heat subsides. Gardenia japonica is is full bloom now, scenting the air with inimitable ambiant fragrance. Gardenia japonica var. "Augusta" blooms and grows stronger if it is grafted on Gardenia thunberbgia stock. When "Augusta" grows on its own roots it doesn't flourish. I have made it a point to get some Gardenia thunbergias; I grafted a G. japonica on one, and I have allowed the other plant to grow freely. So, my Gardenia thunbergia is a very large shrub now and in a few more years it will be be a small tree. If you want to see a good specimen of G. thunbergia, visit  Walter Andersen's Nursery in Point Loma. Go into the back yard by the fish ponds against the left wall, and there it grows as it has for many years. It is the only one that I know of in this area.
    My G. thunbergia produces three inch, nine-petalled flowers of the most delicate scent. The morning scent lasts until the sun gets hot, and the flowers last only one day, and there is a definite dividing line for their lives, and they don't even know it.  Why cannot the gardenia  perfumes ever replicate the exact scent of the actual flowers? Easy--they are chemical concoctions, imitations. They are like embalmed scents, beautiful as they are, but nevetheless artificial. It is for the same reason that sopranos such as the great Beverly Sills, who has beautiful overtones to her voice, never sounds the same on disk as she did in an actual concert setting. So, grasp the flower, (and the voice) and its scent before the balance shifts and it is gone.
   The music of my night garden tells me that a great seasonal change is about to happen. I hear the musical chirping of the crickets--they are exuberant in their singing. Moreover they are antiphonal. I hear one singing close by my window, and then I hear another one (sometimes others) singing at a distance. The two pulses of sound start off as separate sounds, but then they gradually synchronize or merge, finally becoming one sound of a chordal nature, and then they gradually separate or divide again into two sounds; the one chirping near and the other chirping far away. This phenomenon, that I first discovered for myself, is what Gaston Bachelard talks about in "L'intuition de l'instant". He says that all Nature is a constant flowing of "inward and outward", "back and forth", "far and near," of  "retreat and expansion" and of a spiral, vortex quality at that. Lucio Alberto Pinheiro dos Santos, a Brazilian philospher, (1889-1950) says the same thing in slightly different words. And Henri Lefebfre says that the so-called noises of the world are not noises at all. All the murmurs (reumers) have meaning, and he implores us not to forget to listen to the Silences between the notes: isn't that really what music is? These Silences are what I listen to or for as they happen between the far and near,  among the alternate and simultaneous singing of the crickets. What beautiful, varied silences they are, and they soothe my Spirit as I lay in my bed. The Silences, like the negative spaces in sculptures, are lovely and mysterious.
   My own living experiences, the explanations of Bachelard,  Lucio Pinheiros, and Henri Lefebre give credence (from perhaps more intellectual statements than mine)  to the September sounds of Silence in my own little garden, and in all of Nature. And, the cricket chirps change! As the season cools down to early winter, when ther are fewer flowers, the crickets' singing  notes will assume descending cadence becoming slower as well. And finally, they will, one night, cease. As W. H. Auden says in his poem about gardens, "Their Lonely Betters", all of Nature thrives without knowing that it is dying; this insight is only reserved for the existence of "Their Lonely Betters", we self conscious, self aggrandizing humans. But we can be like the flowers and the crickets if we dwell entirely in the experiential moment, sans talking or naming.
   The sun enters Libra on the very moment of the Autumnal Equinox, The Scales, and that is another
energy laden change. The Earth and its creatures, plant and animal, have received the sun's powerful energy. They have taken in all they can accomodate. So now it is time for the earth to slow down. Now the Earth needs for the plants to give back, to return the nourishment--what has been taken will now be given back, and that is the deep significance of the scales that Saint Michael the archangel always carries at his belt. His feast day Michaelmas is celebrated on September 29. The season has changed; energies will balance out. The sign Libra is named 'bilancio' in Italian, so symbolic of Michael and the turning season.
   Michael is the leader of the angels, and he serves and defends all of those who are in dire distress. He is sometimes shown in paintings and sculptures brandishing his sword, vanquishing the demon, and carrying the scales at his belt. His name, Michael or Micah means "he who is like God". He is the true guardian of the limen or threshold, the doors of change, and the initiator of a new and compassionate relationship between man and the Divine.

   A depiction of Saint Michael and the demon dragon by William Blake   1757-1827. Here, Blake shows Michael binding the devil in chain as he holds a very large key in his right hand. The background is that of the ocean waters with birds flying at the left in the sky. The over all depiction is like a mandala of a vortex.

THE AUGUST MONTH

August is a curious month here in the Southern California clime near the coast. Our gardens are in what the English term late "High Summer", and so "Summer's time is finished/ diffused across a path of indifference ", as one poet puts it. It is hot and the air has a subtle rustle of dried leaves that is the harbinger of fall, a fall not yet here but certainly ambiant in the heaviness and fulness of plant being---the flowers are "too heavy with the weight of their own being." They sing queitly to themselves in the morning air. How refreshing.

   August is the eighth month of the Gregorian Calendar, named after the Roman emperor Augustus. Here in Southern California the weather is august, but dry, so we need to water if the garden is to flourish and grow and look good. A low water, low maintenance garden is suitable for our rainless clime, but if one wants to savor a beautifully green, flowering garden, one must work hard, be sensitive, and of course,  water. What's the use of having a garden that is low maintenance and sterile? The ones that I see in my suburban proper neighborhood are all so fittingly presentable and thusly, depressingly boring or 'noioso' as the Italians so aply put it. I want to walk out into the garden in the morning and observe the emergent leaves, the tiny meristematic buds of growth, and the flower scented atmosphere. If I want low maintenance, I'll go to some corporate office, glassed in entry-way-planting. I want Borodin's Oriental maidens of lovely feet stepping out into gardens of evening cool. But, like all of us, they must step carefully, watching out for poisonous serpents, rattlesnakes. It's their garden too.
   The August garden here on the coast is a Mediterranean one of "almost-goodbyes." It is only one degree away from what Giuseppe Lampedusa calls a "garden of partched scents" in his epic nostalgic novel of a lost Sicily "The Leopard". What else can I say--the poets say it so well! Such gardens of heavy roses have the scent and color of Mahler's convalescent slow movements. I experienced this one August in a public garden in Vienna. The roses floated in bloom, their petals in fully opened balls, and the air was warm and sunny of a morning as people strolled on the leaf strewn lawns and walked their dogs among blotches of warm shades, and then the very next morn the cold was there with its final chill, like a stiletto. It was finished; 'Abschied' the  farewell until spring,  as Mahler says in "Das Lied von der Erde"--"The Song of the Earth".  Such  gardens have an imploring music all their own  singing "wait one minute more before I say goodbye," and that is the essence of Mahler and of August.
   We are not quite yet at the season's 'Abschied'-farewell. We will need to wait until late October or perhaps early November for that, and then there is the promise of the Eternal Return.

Man the Forager--Plants and Wood

It is rewarding to read an outstanding book about plants and one that is so well written as is John Wright's Hedgerow, number 7 in the River Cottage series published by Bloomsbury, London and New York. This 'Hedgerow' book has fine color photographs of the plants that are edible, and has excellent writing: intelligent, knowledgeable, and informative without being stuffy. He is a true a writer, not a 'garden writer.' Wright's book demonstates a long familiarity with the plants he describes. There are plant-fruit recipes, and even a short section on poisonous plants (no recipes) so that we will not get ourselves poisoned or sent to ER, and Wright understands how crucial this information is for children; I having had five, and he three, and he dedicates the book to his three daughters.
   But most of all, I like Wright's book for its Voice.  It don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that Voice (i.e. swing), as Ella Fitzgerald sings. Voice is the heart and soul of  good writing. Otherwise one might as well read directions for assembling a bicycle.  You feel that you know Wright as a living person as you read his work. He has a vast reading background and includes allusions from English herbals which create a varied texture to his plant pages.  Best of all though is his wit and sense of humor, his subtle sarcasm that never hurts or stings, never belittles, and there are the funny, down to earth images, like how mallow soup looks like 'grass-cutting soup.' And, he dislikes herbal teas--a man after my own heart. If it ain't got that caffein, it ain't worth a thing. I think that only the English can pull off such witty sarcasm with aplomb (not a plum).  He praises various plants and fruits, but calls it honestly when he feels the stuff is insipid or over rated by know-it-alls. I only wish I could take one of his foraging outings on a clear, lovely English day.
   He emphasizes that man was first a forager. Homo forager, not homo faber. I suppose. He had to forage in order to survive. He got his food by wandering around, picking and collecting plants and fruits and learning the hard way. It is a very primitive (in the best sense of the word), simple, way of life. And, the finds are there for the taking (with permission nowadays of course). I got called a vulgar name only once (after asking permission) for collecting thrown away plants in a dumpster, and  even if you get that treatment you will be just fine.  Consider the source. I suppose early man had to keep an eye out for unpredictable, nasty animals. Anyway, foraging is so very rewarding, getting valuable things and getting them for free. Today, we checkout the cans on trash day or prowl bull dozed yards in suburbia. I have a small collection of orchids and many other plants retrieved from the "green" trash. Some of the plants and small trees are now moderately big shade trees.
   More significant to my collecting zeal, I forage for wood that I turn into carvings and sculptures that I create. That big one in the back yard was lifted as a giant log into my pickup by my kind wife and me. It is of Monterey cedar. One can find special woods that cannot ever be bought; olive, avocado, acacia, liquid ambar, orange, lemon, kumquat, macadamia, just to name a very few. The man down the street, Bob Diehl, a very accomplished wood craftsman and wood turner artist-friend finds all of his wood, and turns beautiful bowls from it. Now that the neighbors know of his talent, I and others are all always there (with ear plugs) at the wretched sound of a chain saw. He takes those savaged olive trees and "turns" them into fine formed bowls. They are exquisite.
   Another friend, Jim Gigler, has a lovely, paradisal garden barely a block away from me. It is a pleasure to see how much he truly loves and enjoys growing plants and trees. When he has to cut off a tree limb or take down a tree that just isn't doing well at all, he sends the wood over to my house via his son.  "Oh Dad, to La Rosa's place again?" I paint-seal the ends of the logs, date and name them with a tags, and I let them sit there to cure, all the while I meditate upon what mystery is in that log. Gigler also leaves plants that he doesn't want anymore out on the curb, which feeds my need for plants and satisfys my early-man,  foraging want. It's a terrific feeling to get a free plant. And, when I find damaged plants that some far less scrupulous others leave for the trash, I feel like a plant resurrector; after a while--weeks, months--or years--I feel a bit inflated that "I saved That!"
   So don't pooh-pooh it if you haven't actually experienced it, eh? Have you seen what foragers bring to The Antiques Roadshow? And some of them get it on trash day.
   Well, I only collect what I need or can use. It's like fishing. My wife keeps me in check there as well. But I must assert firmly, there is something authentic connecting me with my ancient ancestor of the deep forest that really gives me satisfaction and a thrill when I take off with a plant or a choice piece of wood. So there.

Grow-Blossom-Prune and Clip-Return to the Earth

Apropos of my last blog, I want to add some more comments on mulching. But first, I must say without being  too prissy that the word "blog" is an unfortunate one, vulgar sounding, as though connotative of some blockage for which one calls the rotorooter man.  Elemental, Eh? That said, however, without blogs, neither I nor you would be participating in this creative interchange.
   If you hear the sound of my clippers clicking off in my garden, it is a signal that I am grooming plants and shrubs and trees, and clipping up the twigs and branches into little piece that I in turn spread on the earth of the plant-island beds. I see now, in the midst of summer, that the beds are being fertilized naturally and holding water as a result of this. That which grows, blossoms and dies was nourished by water, fertilizer, and care, and why should the plant leafiage and such be dumped in the landfill?  It shoudn't! It is a Naural cycle that it be returned to the earth as the nourishing Mater that will always sprout grasses and flowers in spring, even after atomic disasters as occurred at Chernobyl and Fukushima. Have you seen the wonderful TV documentary about the vibrant (yet  still relatively radioactive) life that is returning ever more vigorously to the environs of Chernobyl?  Eight foot catfish breeding in radioactive sediment ponds and birds singing and raising young. It is a reassuring thing to see this ressurrection, and may we all hope and pray that mankind gets his act in order and that such destruction does not happen again. A lot remains to be seen in the future at these sites, but at least Nature is healing itself within the rich detritus of plant and animal life.
   Nature has a way of decomposing and regenerating itself into a fecundating substrate that helps seeds to sprout, and in the case of Chernobyl, for wolves to frolic and breed pups; a less chemical path than that of Miracle-Gro. This is the quintessential Eternal Return that I stand in awe of. It will take a very long time for all of Nature to heal at these places, and for mankind to return but in our own gardens we can mitigate the polluting dusts and gases and toxins by growing "Our Own Gardens" as Voltaire, that smiling philospher of wit, intelligence, insight and joyful irascibilty stated in the last sentences of "Candide." Both Voltaire's "Candide" and Leonard Bernstein's "Candide" are required for a possible but not probable short quizz on my next  ----.
  

The Forest Creates Mulch All Year Long

Creating and spreading mulches in our gardens is a continual all year-long process. Trees and shrubs in forests are continuously losing branches and twigs, and  shedding leaves. This process creates a mat or layer, a matrix (from the Latin for mother, 'mater,' as in alma mater) that holds in moisture, provides a substrate for germinating seeds, and decomposes into nutrients for existing plants. What will Mother N. think of next, eh? Well, the best part of it is that Mother N. doesn't think about it at all! No more than the birds do when they sing.
   In our gardens, we need first to lay down a layer of coarse mulch; twigs, rough-cut stuff, and rather short pieces of small branches. As you are pruning bushes and shrubs have a garbage can next to you into which you throw the cut up stuff which should be short, 3-4 inch pieces. Don't cut your fingers off--it is  easy to do with sharp pruners, so be sure that you know where the ER is in case of necessary stitches. Mine is only three miles away and I've never had to use it so far (for that), thank God.  After you have cut the twigs and branches into small pieces, which takes some time during which you can listen to the sweet birds, smell the flowers, and keep an eye out for rattlers (I killed one last week so please don't report me to the bleeding hearts--it was only 3 feet from an adjacent  day care center), then you can take this cut up stuff, detritus, and spread it very evenly in your plant bed and garden islands. Even, careful spreading is paramont. Next, take your grass clippings and spread those over the rough-cut stuff. Because I no longer have lawn, I get my clippings from friendly gardeners who cut my neighbor's lush, over watered lawns. It's good to chat with the gardeners and say "Ciao." As you spread these clippings, and some small leaves, this mixture will fall into the voids or interstitial spaces created by the rough-cut stuff. It will decompose and create molds and fungi which will in turn help to decompose the coarser stuff. You can even sprinkle on a bit of earth from time to time to create more bacteria.  Keep it all moist. It is suprising seeing how quickly ("quick" as in living, not dead) the coarse stuff and the finer detritus will create a lovely bed of mulch that holds in moisture, provides nutients, and smells good. Good mulch always smells good, like a forest floor. And if you have all of your fingers, the process will need to be started all over again when you have plant stuff, clipping and leaves. Several layers of this kind of mulching are needed to create a beautiful, green garden. People always ask me why my garden is so green and beautifully lush, and I say it is because the mulch that I help to create holds in the water longer than neatly raked up, hard earth upon which the water simply runs off pretty fast.
   I realize that chopping or cutting up that stuff takes time, but I feel that I would rather be outside for a couple hours than sitting indoors eating snacks, watching insipid-TV programs, or whatever. Now that I've told you about making great mulch and how cool I am, you can go into a forest somewhere and see exactly what I have described.
   The water scientists tell us that not one drop of water, like energy, is never lost. The planet has now all the water it ever had, and will ever have. So they say. I trust the mystics and poets (read Shelley's "Clouds") who have said this for many centuries. Because we are about 60% water, or thereabouts, I wonder if we humans get recycled into the watery universe of living things and water resources as do other living creatues. It is reassuring to me to think of myself as water, especially when I am contemplating the mighty Mississippi or the Sea. As Thoreau put it, fish are merely animalized water; is it that way with us?




  

Plant-Lovers All

I have watched a house remodel job for about a month or so now. All the former garden is bulldozed except for one sixty-year old (at least ) heavily-laden orange tree about fifteen feet tall. I managed to salvage some really attractive day-lilies, after asking permission of course. In about a month, if the orange tree doesn't get water, it will be either dead or beyond recovery. With August, September, October, and a little of November ahead of us, it will not make it to spring and blossom as it has for at least fifty years. Such a noble act for the powers that be to chuck all the rest of the garden and leave this token tree. Nice alliteration, eh? Being a true plant activist, or whatever, I've asked the workers several times to give it a soak from their on the premises hose, but they say "we don't know what THEY want to do with it." I keep wondering, who are THEY? And, can't you (plural) see what is happening above your heads, especially since you all sit under this tree (the only shade) while you eat your (plural) lunches? Well, if and when this tree dies, THEY can pop in another one. Only $23.95 plus tax and fifty years, at Home Depot!

Paradisal Plant Islands---La Rosa and Bloom

Almost everything we do as humans has its prototype in Nature, whether we want to admit it or not. And, prototypes are certainly relevant to our gardens. Of course, the mystics, poets, and artist-observers all know this. They saw reality as a continuum comprising the lowest and the highest levels of the cosmos.
   In our arid climate we need to effectively use every drop of water that we are given, and this is especially possible with the creation of Plant Islands in our gardens. A Plant Island exists in Nature as an ecological unit of flora and fauna. The best examples of Plant Islands are Pacific coral atolls and the hammocks of the Florida Everglades. We all know those Pacific atolls lushly ringed to the edge of the sea with clumps of breeze waving palm trees. And within these tree-ringed islands are plants and animals of a wide variety.
   The same ecological unit exists within the vast marshes of the Everglades, and they are called hammocks, not to be equated with those slings of summer sloughing-off. Hammocks are patches of land only a few inches higher than the surrounding marshes, appearing from a distance as green dots of trees, or, as islands; they are tear-drop shaped because of the flow of the Everglades, "the great river of grass," the seasonal waters that flow toward the south and ultimately reach the sea. I well remember walking a few miles out to those magical islands. Once I stepped inside the hammock,  I felt as though in another world; there was a sacred silence, a spell. My ears were deafened and had to adjust, and new sights and sounds emerged. The thick, black water moccasins were silent, basking in the mottled sun, emerging slowly into my sight and awareness.  Birds waited and sang. The hammock-island-home was their hidden, secret sanctuary: there were large mammals such as deer, (I saw only their foot prints) and smaller ones--possums and racoons; reptiles--snakes, frogs, lizards turtles, and gators only to mention a few; and there were a myriad of insects and crustaceans. The orchids clung to the trees and offered no challenge. Within a very small island area, plants and animal life created an ambiance richer than I have ever experienced in any zoo inclosure. It is this ambiance that zoo-keepers use as an archetype and try to create. Walking out of the hammock was like returning to another world, the world of bright sunlight and vast marshes of wind-driven grass and a kind of surface reality. Now it was time for the mile or two walk back to the roadway, hear the occasional  traffic and drive away in my car.
   So what does this all have to do with our own gardens? Well, in a "vast" area of  suburban lawn or dry substrate, we also can create Plant Islands. This is nothing new as Alan Bloom (1906-2005) created islands of perennials at his Dell Garden and nursery around his home called Bressingham in Norfolk, England. Bloom created 170 new varieties of perennials, and wrote over thirty books, his most known being "Island Beds," Faber and Faber, Ltd. His plant-island-concept fertilized the gardening world like a great swarm of honey bees.  Bloom popularized a garden feature that had been waiting to burgeon into full bloom. Just a brief addendum: Bloom quit school at fifteen, read books, and loved propagating plants. His sons still administer Dell Garden which thrives to this day.

   My own Plant Islands are ringed with mortared bricks, one or two courses high. Or, when cobbles were free for the picking, I mortared those together. The stones or bricks were shaped into circles or free forms. Gradually, over time, detritus, mulches, and added good earth have raised their interior levels two or three inches above the lawn (I am chopping it all out gradually), and now I have Plant Islands of plants. Each island contains plants of a similar kind, and I even have an island near the green house and in the back near the canyon for cacti and succulents.
   So, here it is. Plant Islands make an ecological (from the Greek, oikos, for home) environment that builds  up rich earth, retains water, and contains plants suited to each other--plant communities or neighborhoods. And, the butterflies, lizards, insects such as beautiful fig beetles, and birds find sanctuary. Oh, those beautiful birds, my favorite being the Black-Headed Grosbeak, and the many others, about fifteen varieties which include Orioles and Tanagers and Hummingbirds. I call them  my "constituents" because I love and take care them and they always vote for me, without any pressure or leaning from me of any kind! If Nature is respected with Work, Intelligence, and Sensitivity, there is no need to lean---it will take its own course, be itself, like the meander of a living river.
   I believe that our garden Plant Islands are the microcosmic mirrored images of the cosmic galaxies that Hubble observed night after night in the skies. In Nature everything is similar, but at a different level.

 

DO WHAT YOU LOVE---JOEL GREY at EIGHTY

Saturday, June 9th, 2012
I heard Joel Grey say on KUSC that tomorrow he will be Eighty! When asked where he derives the energy to perform six times a week now at 80 in a Broadway show, he said, "It's what I love to do. When I don't like it anymore, I'll quit." I feel the same way about a lot of things that I do every single day, especially tending my garden. Tending garden is both an art and a dharma for me. Tending is actually caring; what the existentialists like Heidegger call "Sorge"----tending; care for, concern for in the face of universal mortality. I find  a great joy in doing what I like to do, having the energy and intentionality to do it. Intentionality comes from the word "tend."  Grey is one of the most brilliant artists, and he has given us all so much. What Grey did in "Cabaret" is the same as what George Gershwin did in "Rhapsody in Blue", an uncompromising caring. What wonderful artists to be proud of, and Americans at that! We would be abject,  impoverished, without them or their work. Which leads me to the observation that each of us doesn't have to be a great anything (whatever that is). John Keats said it best---it is not important to be a great writer, but to be a Writer! Love the art, and do it with the best that one is. That is enough.
    The late Saturday afternoon air is ambiant with gently, cool breezes from the sea now. The Light is lovely but fading ever so slowly.There is that quality of afternoon light (composed of light and darkness in shadows, actually)  so glowing and rich, one could almost eat it. It makes one weep to see it on buildings and trees as James McLaughlin once said on his wonderful NPR music program, St Paul Sunday.

Gardening Grandparents, 2 June, 2012

Most people today have a very difficult time recalling who their grandparents were, not to mention their great-grandparents. It is all a sign of our disaffected times, or perhaps people exist in a cozy, mindless, comfortable vacuum. My gardening grandparents, like my artistic grandparents, have influenced me quite a bit in my gardening interests as well as in gardening in general. On the distaff side, the Carusos always had  gardens in Sicily and also in America. My grandfather Sam Caruso had a backyard nursery in Miami. He had a primitive, natural touch for propagating and growing plants---I think that our earliest primitive ancestors had the same touch. He is credited with being the first to grow and sell lots of Fig trees in South Florida. As a young boy, I helped him in his nursery, making cuttings, planting-up cans of plants, and best of all, going around to the housing sub-divisions on Saturday mornings with a truck load of plants to sell. Best of all, I loved sprouting the Coconuts that we sold later as young trees; there is an epiphany in seeing a coconut sprouting--such a powerful life force. We always returned home with our supply of plants sold out, and I can say that he loved propagating plants as much as selling them. He loved cutting a deal with people, "turning a buck" as he said, which I also like and do to this day. After all, he was a retired produce trucker for A and P; he had owned produce trucks and was in the midst of it all down at "the yards."
   My father's family, the La Rosa-Mazzas, always had gardens, as well. They dropped the Mazza when they came to America, but in some instances I retain Mazza which means mallet or hammer, the same Indo-European root as martel, as in Charles Martel. My grandfather had a Fig tree in Pittsburgh that he dug up every fall and wintered  in his cellar. Later, when the Fig had grown too large, he wrapped it in old sheets and rugs and covered in layers of straw. It looked like a real mummiform tree that any ancient Egyptian would respect. I suppose that is what the ancient Egyptians meant about resurrection, the afterlife. It always survived through to Spring, spread its light-green, delicate ourant leaves to the sky, and produced i Figi. He also grew rich, tasty, succulent tomatoes, not like the wretched "things" sold in the supermarkets today. Neither he, la famiglia, nor I would have  condescended to put such things in our mouths; kind of like eating canned Chef Boyardy spaghetti, something real Italians and any lovers of good food don't do. To this very day, my children Angela, Andrew, Marianna, and Charles La Rosa grow exquisite pomedori every summer, and that's why we don't have to eat "cardboard" tomatoes to this day. My son Joseph really knows how to cook with them, too. Mi piace la sua pasta! Also, my grandmother Lucia La Rosa once gave me a big pocketful of Four O'Clock (Mirabilis jalapa) seeds from her garden which she called "Fourclocksa." That got me started on my great love of germinating seeds as I've written about in a previous numerous times---writing, words, and seeds.
   Well, the upshot of all this is that I learned the essential gardening skill from my grandparents. It is all about Observation; watching what a plant or any other living creature does on a day-to-day, even on an hourly basis, when they are growing, especially when they are ill or suffering. Plants are wonderful, non-demanding living beings. Observation and Focus add up to Attentiveness, or LOVE. Attentiveness is love. You do not give much Attention to a person who you think you do not Love. That is why I have no favorite plant. My grandparents observed and knew what plants were doing as much as Goethe did in his essays and in his  perfect little book The Life of Plants, proving that it is not what you think you know, (that gets in the way) but instead, how well you you Watch with sacred calm,  with a kind of "empty mind," to quote Krishnamurti. The opposite of course is being "full of oneself," what the English aptly call being a Nosey Parker in "BBC Gardening."
   Well, I could go on to my Artistic Grandparents (some ancient, of the past, contemporary, some of blood) which also have taught me Care, Focus, and Love, but that will be a Gardening-Art Blog of another sort, and for another day.

COOL WEATHER IRRIGATION

Friday, 25th May, 2012, overcast, cool, a bit windy. Watering plants during cool, cloudy weather, the kind we are now having, especially near or on the coast, is very effective. The earth will hold the water longer than in dry, hot weather, thusly enabling the plant to absorb more water and hydrate its plant tissues. Also, if you add fertilizer to your plants, in situ or in pots, the plants will have more time and moisture to absorb the nutriments, slowly and more gently. Fertilizing plants on a hot day is like giving them a double shot of coffee. It hits the plant's tissues hard and could cause burning to the roots and leaves. They get wired so to speak. So, spend some time watering the plants in this cool weather. Just because the plants are alive doesn't mean that they can't be helped by deep gentle waterings which will last longer and benefit the plants longer. When we water slowly, "drop upon slow drop" as I heard one intelligent woman gardener say, we waste less water, do the plants "lots of good,"  and have time to observe what's happening in the garden. When I do this slow watering, (sometimes I let the hose drip very, very, very slowly over night at the plant's base), I can actually see the plant leaves becoming turgid and alive looking. It's as though the plant has awakened, and actually it has; the way plants awaken after a Spring rain. And don't forget that roots are not the only plant tissues that absorb water.
   Actually plants absorb water through the atmosphere. That is why my Spanish Moss and airplants flourish. They get their pores cleansed, the stoma, and they get the filthy pollutants and chemicals washed off their leaves, and of course their plant tissues suck in tremendous amounts of water. The plants become upright, I would say attentive, because they have water in their tissues.
   The only thing that bothers me about watering is that we live in a clime of very few rains. Almost everything survives and grows at the end of a hose. I've heard all the chatter about drought resistant plants, and there is something to that. However most drought resistant plants look exactly like our chaparal clothed hills.
   The inflated, water-drought-resistant-plant-types have gone too far. If all gardeners would water effectively and be careful about that vital life "juice" allowed to run right off the lawns into the gutters and drains, a varied plant garden would be possible. I installed a special valve at our bath-shower head to drain that pre-hot, water, cold water, out side to a holding tank. We waste one and a half gallons of water before the hot water comes out! Every time we take a shower!  That does add up in a year. You can buy the valve at Home-Depot for about 7 dollars, and it's easy to set up. If you have any questions, let me know.Also, developers put in mile after mile of trees and ground cover, all of which needs, you got it, water! Look at the new developments and you will see nice, lush, verges of trees and ground cover. And, I mean verges of 50, 60, 70 feet wide. Being a believer in Balance, I think that a great amount of water could be saved if we gardeners learned how to water our plants effectively. It's not that we want to be too cheap with water; we want to water effectively.
I was once told by a bonsai master, a real one in Japan, that it takes a very long time to learn how to water bonsai, and bonsai being a microcosm of the world at large are a fitting example for learning how to water our gardens effectively.
  

WRITING IS LIKE SEEDS SPROUTING, it's an individual's discovery

For me, writing is like seeds sprouting---like the primal energy of the Cosmos appearing in plant life. I never really, completely know what will emerge from the tip of my ink pen---I write with a pen and ink, yes. It requires patience and skill. I'm sure that the egoic, materialistic types think that they can explain what happens, to a degree, when a seeds sprouts, but actually they cannot, anymore than they can explain the birth of a new human baby-soul into the world. The acorns from Pincio Park grounds, the Borghese Palace and Gardens in my beloved Roma, sprouted today! They bring the Borghese again to my mind once again; the museum that has the marvelous Bernini sculpture of Daphne being chased by Apollo, as she sprouts into leaf, into a tree rather than to submit to his demands. The tiny leaf sprouts are actually visible emerging from her finger tips.
   I feel a great Security when I see a seed sprouting, especially those for whom (yes, 'for whom') I've been waiting a long time for them  to come up. Seeing that first glimpse of the turgid leaf stem as it heaves its  leaf-shoulders, breaking the earth's surface, is a Satisfaction for me that makes the rest of the day, even life itself, worthwhile! The Sprouting of Seeds, pushing and heaving their shoulders to the LIGHT is a magical, even a mystical encounter, and I mean 'mystical' as a person's experience of God, not an atmospheric weather condition (remember, my blog my turf?). An individual's encounter with spiritual can't be completely explained, but I am feebly and honestly trying here anyway; that's the work that real writers do. The seed's moving to the Light is an encounter with life energies, both in itself and outside itself, the Life energies, the etheric energies of the Cosmos which we all share. I did have to spread some snail poison on the cucumber seed area this morning---sometimes seeds need a little help from their friends the gardeners. Such is life in the real world. Why be squeamish?

The Cactus Green Man

EMILY DICKINSON and HER GARDEN

Emily Dickinson, (1830-1886) poet of my heart and devoted gardener wrote some beautiful observations about her garden, both the one out doors and  the one in her conservatory which exists to this day in her homestead in Amherst, Massachusetts. The N. Y. Botanical Garden now has an exhibit of her garden complete with the plants that she grew and with some of her poems. From "The Gentian Weaves Her Purple Fringes" we get;
                                                            In the name of the bee--
                                                           And of the Butterfly---
                                                           And of the Breeze---Amen!


She always capitalized nouns and words she wanted to emphasize. I see every Flower in my garden in the early morning with her words, "Every Flower a Resurrection." Try looking at a flower with pure attention, without naming it, without even describing it. Can you do that for even 5 seconds? Can you do that? It's hard for me too. You see it's difficult, but you just might SEE the flower.
That' why she was able to write poems---she could See, and she had writing skills that she developed through constant use.
        Here she is on bees, again;

   Bees are Black, with Gilt Surcingles--
   Buccaneers of Buzz.
   Ride about in ostentation
   And subsist on Fuzz.

Amazing--Buccaneers of Buzz! Amazing! Who of us could say that? Surcingles, means a girth that binds, all proof that Dickinson had a vocabulary, could use words, and had an imaginative mind primarily because she was not "on fire" with the distracting minutia of daily, distractive illusion. She lived right through the American Civil War as her dates show. She felt it, but almost never mentioned it. And, she never read Buddha's "Fire Sermon," but she had it carved somewhere in her Soul.
   "Every flower a resurrection." The hybrid daylilies that my wife and I planted a few years ago are blooming now. What can I say? They neither toil nor spin? They will surely outlast the burning politicians,  You would have to SEE them to appreciate them, the lilies not the politicians. The bees never name them, as far as I know. They simply suck their nectars and buzz on.
   The exhibition of her garden, her only extant dress and her poems is a wonderful show at the NY Botanical Garden, seen by millions on  The Lehrer News Hour, and by Millions daily at the the NYB Garden. Also, her poems, one of them, are on all the adds in the NY City Busses. You know, those add-venues that you sit across from and mindlessly read about wireless phone adds. Pretty good for a girl who got only Five ( 5 out of her 1,300 ) poems published in her lifetime! Yes, five out of 1,300. And, the editor, although very supportive of her work, was a bit afraid or reluctant to publish those five. He said they were too different in diction and rhyme from what his readers expected. (The readers might not understand, nor not like them.) And, Dickinson really didn't care whether they were published or not. She only cared, and was grateful, that she had the poetic apercu that enabled her to write, and so be it. That was her Power.And, she came to realize that, precisely, late in life.
   Also, I am sure that had Emily Dickinson "achieved" Fame she would have gone on living every 'particle' of her life as she always had; caring for her mother, for her brother Austin, for her father, for nephew Nat prior to his tragic early death, being devoted to her sis-in-law Susan next door at "The Evergreens", and of course there was her garden, poetry, and the utterance of witty remarks. One day an officious stranger came to her door and asked if she knew of a place where the rent in town was cheap. Without missing a beat she said to Him, try at the Cemetery, it's for Eternity.

BE GENTLE TO THE EARTH__KEEP THE TEACHING PURE Sat.,12.5.'12

It is time to set out basil seedlings. You can grow many varieties of basil from seed if you plant seed late in the summer; this is necessay because basil seedlings damp off especially near our foggy, moist coast. So, for now, buy pots or six-packs of Basil (you know where I'm sure), divide the seedlings and set them out into pots, and then into the garden, as the weather gets warmer. Basil are members of the mint or lamiaceae/labiate family, and basil's genus is Oncimum, hence Oncimum basilicum.
   The word  'basil', the dictionary tells us, has a first pronunciation 'basil',  short a as in pat; and, a second way with long a as in base. One egoic so-called cook carped with me and said his way was the right way, and of course he never cracked a dictionary to look up the word. I wonder if he smells the roses---"a rose by any other name . . . ." I do look up words because I was a professor and scholar for 34 years. And I owed it to myself, and my students, and people in general to have integrity, I suppose.
   However, all this doesn't matter diddley, except for intellectual integrity, and when I smell that basil aroma on tomato dishes, I don't care how the word is said. Basil is the 'King of Herbs'. In Italian we say 'basilico' (accent on the o)which is very close to the original Greek word, as we shall see.
   Yes, the word 'basil' comes from the Greek 'basilikos' which means king or royal Our words 'basilica', the Roman building, and 'basilica' the Christian Church, come from 'basilikos'. Basil is of Indian origin the Hindus adoe it as tulsi the holy basil, and of S.E. Asia, perhaps, and it is highly revered. A basil leaf is put in the mouth or on the chest of a corpse to speed it on its way back into the arms of the Cosmos. Also, orators in Rome used to put a basil leaf in their mouths to speak eloquently and honestly. I think think that all world leaders, and senators, representatives, and politicians in the U. S. should grow basil and remember this cultural usage of ancient standing.Perhaps they would be more gentle and keep the teachings pure. It would keep their mouths sweet.  It's my blog, so it is my take to comment as I wish.
   There are so many varieties of basil. 'Genovese' or the big leafed var. is excellent and the most often sold in nurseries. Then, there are the purple leaved kinds, delicious. The S.E.Asian kinds are sold a lot nowadays--check out Home Depot. They have 'Thai' and 'African Blue' both of which are almost perennials, the latter growing to four feet tall and  being very pretty. Then there is 'Basilco fine verde' what the Sicilians and Italians call 'The Good Basil.' Well, we all have our opinions, I suppose. But, I think they are right! It has tiny pointed leaves and is hard to grow near the the "mystified", foggy coast. "Johnney"s seed catalogue has the most varieties, photos, and cultural instructions I've seen in print. Check it out. On line or send for the catalogue. Johnney is a true plant lover and teacher.
   Always put the basil in the cooking food at the very end of of the cooking. Basil is fugitive, fugacious, so you don't want  to cook out its flavor. Also, when putting it on hot food at the table, like pasta con sugo di pomedori, let the pasta cool a little bit so the basil won't burn and turn black.
   Basil has several true medicinal properties that I will not go into here, but I have to say that its main effect is that of calming. Again, good for the pundits and politicians.
   Well, enjoy basil. It, believe me, doesn't give a thought as to what you call it.  What' in a name, Gertrude Stein on roses,  I think. Simply grow it if you want to, buy it at the grocery and appreciate its leaf color, its succulence, it lovely aroma and taste. Boun'appetite! 
  

MANURE,that word from the Latin for Manus, HAND or by HAND

Sunday, 6th May2012.     A Jeremiad Upon Wasteful Lawns.    Most people think of manure as nasty, smelly stuff, and some of it is But, In reality the word manure comes from the Latin  'manu' or 'manuopere meaning by hand or to work by hand. Manure is that which is worked or spread by hand. Remember that the brilliant Oscar Wilde said that money was like manure; it was a great asset or fertilizer if it was spread around thinly, but in great heaps it stinks! Yes, I concur.
   In affluent suburbia I see those lovely green lawns. How back East they are. Proper looking and all that. I have a neighbor who has a fine vegetable garden in her front yard, (it really is amazing and all organic) and when she was complimented by me she said "ABUNDANCE!" But, this is not the East, at least climate wise. The affluent pay thousands to keep up these lawns with water, a lot of which trickles into the gutters and goes down the drains to the sea. That is another problem. And, they fertilized heavily to "green up" the lawns, and they pay the gardener to come regularly and mow it. This is where it gets bad. Then, the gardener takes the clippings to the land fill---I've asked them where they dump the cans of clippings; "in the landfill". I ask them to give me the clippings. They gladly and kindly do that. This save them gas money to the dump, and we get to talk for a few minutes, something that is anathema to the affluent, entitled folk.
    The grass clipping are so rich, that if left in the cans for only one day they begin to heat up and ferment. It really gets hot, hot! You could bake a ham in it; one group of students in London did exactly that, except they used Sycamore leaves, very English indeed, eh? I might cook hotdogs. This plant generated heat kills weed seeds and gets the clippings ready to spread. This now called "green manure." All that nitrogen fertilizer and water are ready to spread by hand, to MANURE on my garden beds. I use gloves, sometimes if I'm playing the master gardener role. The vegetables such as tomatoes thrive on it. After I immediately wash in the "green manure" with very little water, releasing nitrogen, enzymes, trace elements, the tomatoes respond immediately. That nice, thin Oscar Wildian layer of decomposed plant matter makes the tomatoes (and other plants really perk up).
   So, the "Affluent in Paradise" are running their money straight down the drain, and then they lament at cocktail parties how we, "Oh yes, should be more conscious of water usage because one day we won't have any for our grandchildren." All grandchildren, or only theirs? I don't really know.
   I wonder why they don't go out on gardening day and trash pick up day, see what the gardeners are doing, (they always do a good job),  look at the fertilizer and pesticide rich morning "juice" going down the drains, and get a clue. It's not the gardeners' faults. There's a profound Hebrew  saying that I like, maybe like too much; "the fish stinks from head down."

Thurs. May 3rd 2012  cloudy, overcast, but warm. Some plants love that, like my giant, thriving artichokes--carciofi in Italian--isn't that a beautiful word?  I'm firing my gas kiln today. It's great to see that heat surging out of the kiln. Sort of like the heat and steam that is generated by compost. It is magical, even alchemical in the true sense of the word's meaning; physical and spiritual. Heat is a great catalyst of inert compounds and of all relationships.  With pottery you take clay and make it permanent--it will last 2000 years or more. Some times I can detect the fingerprints of ancient potters on their pots. Immortality? I often wonder how the ancient peoples discovered that fire makes clay permanent (sintered), water resistent. With people you give openness and compassion, and responsiveness (eschewing ego power trips), and you create lasting relationships.

The Green Lady, The Gardening Spirit

Today, I want to explain the photograph of my ceramic Green Lady. I sculpted her of clay as a consort to my Green Man. I have made many greenmen that can be planted with all manner of plants, or, they can simply be positioned in other places in the home and garden. The greenman-woman is such an ancient symbol of the Natural Forces that drive the lives of plants and of all living creatures, so I have incorporated these ceramic images throughout my garden. The greenlady-man are the earth's healers. Others have placed these green faces in their gardens as well. I have sold many green planter-masks at the San Diego Horticultural Society and at other venues. As a living, green force, the greenman-woman is expressed so beautifully and powerfully by the great poet Dylan Thomas as the "green fuse" that drives the plant. The GREEN FUSE, how powerful! There must be a powerful, essential Force, or as the Taoists express it, a TE, in all living being, and who knows,  perhaps even in all existence? I  highly recommend "Green Man" by William Anderson and Clive Hicks, Harper Collins, a 'fantstically' complete work of greenman information and images of all times. 
   Please feel free to send questions or comments to this blog or to my email, larosamazza@gmail.com.

A little note to composting: have you ever walked in the forest and thrust your hands  into the leafmulch-compost on the forest floor? Well, this is what I meant by a "Veneer" of compost, and this is what we want to create as a layer of compost in our garden beds, and, as you may know, the forest mulch smells good. Sprinkling water on the top of the veneer regularly will help it to decompose pretty fast. As in the forest, your veneer layer of compost will help to replenish the earth. Ciao, Frank

franksgarden blog

MAY DAY, 2012, A PLEA TO RENEW THE EARTH It's a wretched shame that people spend thousands on water and fertilizer that create plants that are "in turn," dumped into the landfills. What a shameful waste. Chop up all that green matter and  and spread it REGULARLY in you garden beds. Over time (what is made with time, time respects), a rich layer of nutritive  (from the Latin nutrire,  to suckle) mulch and soil is built up. The layer should be started at 6" thick with cut -up green matter, leaves, and grass clippings. Add this stuff regularly so that in reality you will have a layer of "layers;" a veneer, an integrated system of organic matters. You will have the bottom layer of decomposed detritus, the middle of decomposing matter, and the top layer of newly sprinkled on plant clippings. And, eschew being a dilettante, trendy, gardener in suburbia. Do it regularly and with skill.  There is not enough SKILL and application of WORK among trendy home gardeners. Yes, it takes some time but "what is made with time, time respects"! I don't see how a person can claim to be an accomplished gardener when he or she buys compost at the supermarket, has the "gardener' spread it on, and has the "gardener" stack out the cans at the curb on trash day. This is the essence of  waste and incompleteness. Real Hands on, EH? I posit that what is made of the earth should be returned to earth, not to the toxic landfill. That rich, chocolate-cake composted earth grows the the best, delicious fruits and vegetables. The proof is in the "fruits." Ciao from Frank on MAY DAY, and good gardening!