Zinnias pictured in the Home page

I visited this farmer in rural Pawling and he had grown (on a complete whim) a small field of Zinnias.  No intention of selling them but rather enjoying them all summer long and they were stunning.

John

I am re-reading The Wild Braid - a poet reflects on a century in the garden.

Stanley Kunitz (see poem below) had a long and fruitful career becoming poet laureate at 96.  In The Wild Braid e muses on the role gardening had in his life and how it shaped him personally and as an artist.

A really lovely book and well worth seeking.

John

The Snakes of September
Stanley Kunitz 1905-2006

All summer I heard them
rustling in the shrubbery,
outracing me from tier
to tier in my garden,
a whisper among the viburnums,
a signal flashed from the hedgerow,
a shadow pulsing
in the barberry thicket.
Now that the nights are chill
and the annuals spent,
I should have thought them gone,
in a torpor of blood
slipped to the nether world
before the sickle frost.
Not so. In the deceptive balm
of noon, as if defiant of the curse
that spoiled another garden,
these two appear on show
through a narrow slit
in the dense green brocade
of a north-country spruce,
dangling head-down, entwined
in a brazen love-knot.
I put out my hand and stroke
the fine, dry grit of their skins.
After all,
we are partners in this land,
co-signers of a covenant.
At my touch the wild
braid of creation
trembles.

Digging a Pizza Slice of earth

I put in a small winter Potager for my dear friend Martha Rose Shulman.  Its a pizza slice of earth between two sections of her building where she lives.  it is amazing how much you can grow in a small patch of earth if you amend the soil correctly and get a good depth and tilth going.

We planted fava beans "Broad Windsor" English peas "Little Marvel" and "Green Arrow", sweetpeas "Royal Family", various lettuces, mizuna, radish "French Blush", "Correnta" spinach, violas , cilantro, chard "Bright Lights", and Legion of Honour red poppies.

Gardening in  Southern CA is the best.

John

Gardening as a meditation.

I often think of my late mother Maura Austin Lyons (1923 - 1994) when I am knee high in weeds in a garden digging them out.  She would wander in from the garden and announce as she walked through the kitchen door "I was thinking in the garden..." and proceed to tell us something that she remembered, an idea she had, a solution to a problem or simply something she had neglected to say in an earlier conversation.  I now find myself doing the same thing and realize that we do our best thinking and creative problem solving while in a meditative state in our garden plots.

Lathyrus odoratus 'Cupani' from my garden Spring 2008

Eddies farm Pawling NY

I went to vist my friends Sally and Karl in Pawling last August.  One evening we went on a hayride to their friend Eddies farm.  Someday I might live in Pawling...you can see why.

Los Angeles Arboretum

I had one of those magical days that sort of happened by accident.  I went to the Arboretum to meet Tim Phillips, the acting CEO to chat about the Los Angeles Garden Show next year and met someone who I was introduced to online who is the artist in residence.  Leigh Adams is a breath of fresh air.  She took me to a few of her hide outs and special installations that are a delight.  The snake path that winds its way through the Australian Garden is lovely as is the garden itself.  The weather was divine and after lunch I stayed 2 more hours looking at the herb garden, rose garden and the horse stables which were amazing.

Visit the Arboretum.  Its a wonderful place and easy to get to.  Take the 210 past Pasadena and a right exit off Baldwin, and within a 1 /4 mile you are there.

http://www.arboretum.org/

John