210. If you really want to draw close to your garden, you must remember first of all that you are dealing with a being that lives and dies…One will not always see it dressed up for a ball, manicured and immaculate. ~Fernand Lequenme

December 8, 2013 by nataliescarberry

I love people,
I love my family,
my children…
but inside myself
is a place where I live all alone
and that’s where you
renew your springs
that never dry up.
~Pearl S. Buck

Last week’s frigid winds and pelting sleet so punished the late blooming roses and perennials that their flowers, hips, and leaves were left hanging like the heads of mourners as they perished on nights too cold to sustain fragile life. But usually when our area endures an arctic storm such as this one, it’s not too long before the temps warm back up enough to melt the snow and/or ice. This assault, however, lowered temperatures so far below the freezing mark and the cloud cover has stayed in place so long that it may be a week or more before the temps rise high enough to rid us of the treacherous frozen remains. On those warmer days, whenever they do come, I’ll be chomping at the bit, as usual, to “draw close” to my beloved garden and dispose of the flowery carnage left in the storm’s wake. I like to do that so that when next I’m in that place “where I live all alone” like Buck and am unable to get outside, I can look out the window at the garden’s “ball gown” without it looking quite so tattered and torn.

The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs…strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. ~Isaiah 58:11

135. As for marigolds, poppies, hollyhocks, and valorous sunflowers, we shall never have a garden without them… ~Henry Ward Beecher

September 19, 2013 by nataliescarberry

Eagle of flowers! I see thee stand
And on the sun’s noon-glory gaze;
With eye like his, thy lids expand,
And fringe their disk with golden rays:
Though fix’d on earth, in darkness rooted there
Light is thy element, thy dwelling air
Thy prospect heaven.
~The Sunflower by James Montgomery, British editor and poet

The sunflower with its “gaudy crown of gold” courts the heavenly expanse in search of the sun. But is that iconic golden spectacle seeking to be prospered by the sun a single flower? No, each sunflower is actually a cluster of sometimes more than 2,000 small flowers all growing together to mimic the sun and harvest its light. Amazingly, at maturity some flower heads of the sunflower measure 2 feet across while the plants that hold them up sometimes grow as high as 18 feet. Henry Ward Beecher additionally said all flowers “have an expression of countenance as much as men or animals. Some of them seem to smile; some have a sad expression; some are pensive and diffident; others again are plain, honest, and upright, like the broad-faced sunflower. . .” I agree and adore the plain honesty and uprightness of the sunflower, but in them I also see a touch of elegance in their statuesque stance in the landscape.

This is what the Lord says to me: “I will remain quiet and will look on from my dwelling place, like shimmering heat in the sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.” ~Isaiah 18:4 ✝

12. Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, the flying cloud, the frosty light. . . ~Alfred Lord Tennyson

December 2, 2012 by nataliescarberry

Yet a few sunny days, in which the bee
Shall murmur by the hedge that skirts the way,
The cricket chirp upon the russet lea,
And man delight to linger in thy ray.
Yet one rich smile, and we’ll try to bear
The piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened air.
~William Cullen Bryant

With every north wind that blows the landscape unravels more and more; after each assault the downed foliage leaves in its wake mounting numbers of skeletons bracing themselves for winter’s icy blasts. In addition the ornamental grasses are drying out and taking on their a wild and tattered look, and yet a few touches of color remain in the leaves and flowers that have yet to be exiled. Still audible in the “honey’d leavings” of warm afternoons are their faint renditions of the lusty songs of life, but regardless of how sweet the sound of that is, the sands in autumn’s hourglass are running out. Like all things, it too will come at last to its Sabbath and therein rest until its next appointed hour upon life’s stage.