Tag Archives: Greenhouse

251. More than anything, I must have flowers, always, and always. ~Claude Monet

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When we look deeply into the heart of a flower,
we see clouds, sunshine, minerals, time, the earth,
and everything else in the cosmos in it.
~Thich Nhat Hanh

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 Color is my daylong obsession, joy, and torment.  ~Claude Monet

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 The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration.  ~Claude Monet

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I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.  ~Claude Monet

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Like Monet, I must always, always have flowers, and I’ve discovered that cut flowers do little to satisfy that hunger.  I need to have flowers that, as in nature, are alive and growing, and to that end my greenhouse is a godsend.  From my chair in our family room I have a clear shot at the back shelf through the window in its door, and so that space is reserved during the winter months for potted flowers that aren’t suited to our Texas climate except as cool weather annuals.  Also like Monet, I must have color, lots and lots of color, and so the more bright and colorful the flowers are the better.  And again, like Monet I wanted to become a painter, but that’s where the likeness between us ends.  I may have found a way to have flowers and color but not the talent to translate that beauty onto a canvas.  However, the Lord in His gracious goodness did not let it end there.  During my years as a teacher I was asked at one time to sponsor the high school’s yearbook.  During that 5 year period I learned from the book’s professional publisher how to take photos,  how to edit and crop them, and how to lay them out on a page in an eye-appealing manner.  Then after I retired, with that training still in place, I discovered the amazing technology of digital photography, and voila, who’s to say an artist of sorts wasn’t born.

For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work; at the works of your hands I sing for joy.  Psalm 92:4   ✝

 

 

246. The flower is the poetry of reproduction. It is an example of the eternal seductiveness of life. ~Jean Giraudoux

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I am a symbol of love and immortality.
I have been around since the time of Confucius.
My name came from a Persian word.
At one time I was more expensive than precious metals.
I can be used in the place of an onion in cooking.
I am in the same family as a lily.

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Do you know who I am?  I am a native of Central Asia, and I am the world’s most planted flower.  When I arrived from Turkey in the mid-16th century, I was a gift from the Ottoman Empire that took Western Europe by storm.  But I did not come to the United States until the 1800’s.  There are about 3,000 varieties of me grown around the world, some that originated in the seventeenth century.  My petals come in every shade of the rainbow as well as black, but my most popular color is red.  And I can be forced into blooming after I have been stored in a refrigerator for 12-16 weeks.

A tulip doesn’t strive to impress anyone.
It doesn’t struggle to be different than a rose.
It doesn’t have to.
It is different.
And there’s room in the garden for every flower.
~Marianne Williamson

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I’ve never had much luck with growing tulips in the ground.  So this year I decided to try forcing them in containers.  Two weeks ago after the bulbs had spent the required amount of time in my refrigerator, I planted some in soil and some in glass containers partially filled with pebbles and water.  As of today I’m proud to report that I have tulips sprouting in both types of containers.  Though it be only the 12th of January, springtime has sprung at least in my greenhouse.  One of the most seductive things in life I know is the thrill of the first spark of life in a garden.  Every time I experience it I feel as if a time machine has transported me back to Eden on the third day when creation was “born of the Spirit in the womb of the universe.”  On that day the first seeds were planted in the earth and their roots reached down for the waters that would sustain them.  Then and now such as this is clearly a manifestation of the goodness of God.

I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.  ~Psalm 27:13  ✝

240. …everyone wants to be excited by something magical and wondrous – to be reminded of how they once saw the world… ~John Geddes

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“I watched bulls bred to cows, watched mares foal, I saw life come from the egg and the multiplicative wonders of mudholes and ponds, the jell and slime of life shimmering in gravid expectation. Everywhere I looked, life sprang from something not life, insects unfolded from sacs on the surface of still waters and were instantly on prowl for their dinner, everything that came into being knew at once what to do and did it, unastonished that it was what it was, unimpressed by where it was, the great earth heaving up bloodied newborns from every pore, every cell, bearing the variousness of itself from every conceivable substance which it contained in itself, sprouting life that flew or waved in the wind or blew from the mountains or stuck to the damp black underside of rocks, or swam or suckled or bellowed or silently separated in two.”  ~E. L. Doctorow

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Life!  Life I say!  Life-sacred and mysterious–I’ve had a hand in creating life again!  And as usual, it is ever so magical and wondrous!  Since early last week I’ve been setting bulbs in containers in the greenhouse, and even as cold as it has been today, I made my daily visit out there to see if anything had started happening.   And as tiny a start as it was, life had indeed begun!  Actor Mike Dolan once said, you should “anticipate the day as if it were your birthday and you were turning six.”  I did and it was and I responded like any normal 6 year old, with a dropping of my jaw and squeals of joy.  The photos aren’t great but you can see where roots have started forming on the bottom of a hyacinth bulb and the tiny green emergence of a ranunculus bulb.

You garden because you need
to make a profound connection with the Earth.
It’s your birthright.
A primordial longing to experience
and participate in the magic of nature.
The deep knowing that ultimately nature is your teacher.
Your guide.
You’re a participant. A cog in the wheel. Not in charge.
~Fran Sorin, Gardening Gone Wild,  http://www.gardeninggonewild.com/

My garden and my greenhouse are my classrooms, and the Lord is my teacher and facilitator.  “See, God exalted in His power; who is a teacher like Him?”  ~Job 36:22

209. Bad weather always looks worse through a window. ~Author Unknown

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Spooky wild and gusty;
swirling dervishes of rattling leaves race by,
fleeing the wildflung deadwood
that cracks and thumps behind.
~Dave Beard

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White, the world is still white, very white and very frozen!  And the only movements I see out my window this morning are leaves fluttering to the ground and birds coming to the feeders for breakfast and the bird baths for water.  Sadly all the birdbaths are so frozen that no matter how hard they peck at the ice, there’s no water beneath it to be had.  So after putting in enough chair time to be fully awake, I braved the cold and took them a bowl of water.  As I inched along on the frozen ground, I noticed that some of the fallen leaves from the red oak were striking lovely poses wherever they’d fallen.  One of them had even lodged itself quite prettily inside a large ceramic pot I’d emptied of its greenhouse-bound contents.  Once back inside after my errand of mercy and a few snaps of the camera, I heard on the news that there was a 30% chance of more sleet today and that the temperature would remain well under the freezing mark.  It really didn’t feel all that bad while I was out, but it seems we are in for another forced stay-at-home day.  I won’t complain though for like the birds I have much for which to be thankful.  The birds too have warmth and safety?  Indeed they do, for the ones who are cavity nesters, I’ve put in place plenty of birdhouses around the yard and for the others several kinds of evergreens have been planted.  If God stewards and provides for me, and he does so well, how can I not in turn steward and provide for all that He has given me?

For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!  ~Romans 5:17  ✝

199. Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering down from the autumn tree… ~Emily Brontë

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How silently they tumble down
And come to rest upon the ground
To lay a carpet, rich and rare,
Beneath the trees without a care,
Content to sleep, their work well done,
Colors gleaming in the sun.
~Elsie N. Brady

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Pat.  Pat, pat.  Pat, pat, pat.  Pat.  Pat, pat.  Pat.  Pat, pat, pat.  “Listen to the falling rain; listen to it fall.”  A remembered lyric from an old José Feliciano song ran through my mind.  But wait, I didn’t feel anything wet and the afternoon sun was shining in a cloudless sky.  So if it wasn’t rain, what on earth had I heard behind me.  As I turned to investigate, I saw that it was indeed raining, but not in the way I expected.  November’s gusting winds were letting loose hundreds of colored leaves from their woody perches.  The ones not already brought down by the rains of recent days were not tumbling down silently as Brady suggests; they were pelting the shed, the greenhouse, the birdbaths, and the ground so forcefully that they sounded like huge raindrops.  So it was pouring all right; it was raining leaf after leaf after leaf, pretty autumn tinted leaves, and the air in which they were dancing was made gold and red and ripe.

For You make me glad by Your deeds, Lord; I sing for joy at what Your hands have done.  ~Psalm 92:4  ✝

 

190. Listen! the wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves… ~Humbert Wolfe

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Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun!
One mellow smile through the soft vapory air. . .
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 will try to bear
The piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened air.
~William Cullen Bryant

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What a season of contrasts autumn is!  Many of its striking contradistinctions and “mellow smiles” can be seen on a single day, and yesterday was a fascinating example of Fall’s many faces.  Early in the morning the sky was a clear, brilliant blue, and as I wandered the yard I found a butterfly prettily perched on the leaves of a climbing rose.  Then the winds picked up and threatening clouds blew in.  About 30 minutes later, a narrow band of rain clouds passed over us leaving not a single drop, however, in their wake.  Afterwards the sun sat smiling again in the sapphire sky, but it was streaked with a few bands of Cirrus clouds.  Not too long after that the stormy/clear scenario repeated itself.  Finally late in the afternoon a blustery wind blew down like rain more of the yellow leaves off the willow tree as it chased the sun away for good.  What had been an almost balmy day in the mid-70‘s had rapidly changed, and the bite of the chilling north wind stung my unsuitably-clad body when I went out to unplug the fountain and close up the greenhouse.

He(God) wraps us the waters in his clouds, yet the clouds do not burst under their weight.  ~Job 26:8  ✝