My Michigan garden is under five inches of snow. And as I write, the weather folk are reporting heavy snow headed from West to the Midwest. The tree outside our condo is losing its leaves, a golden shower that demands daily incursions with the leaf blower to keep the patio clear. Friends decorated their cacti with Santa hats to protect them from the chillier nights. The days are getting longer again. In my imagination, I am picturing the desert in bloom, the trillium that will eventually carpet the forests in Northern Michigan. In keeping with the white stuff about to blanket large swaths of the Heartland, I went on a hunt for favorite plants with white blossoms in full flower---a reminder that this wintery time too will pass.

Lo, how a rose. Whether literary or literal truth, the story of the baby born in the poorest of circumstances who goes on to become a Rabbi who powerfully influenced how we look at God has continued to resonate across the centuries. Our Muslim neighbor who attended services last night with us for the second year told us her son is planning on being baptized at Easter. She promised to invite us to the Muslim community of Phoenix fellowship. Love and light rule among us if only we recognize and embrace it. I give thanks for the new hip that will allow me to continue to garden in 2019---for loving family and friends who share their lives so generously with us. May health and love and unending opportunities to grow be yours this special season.

 

 

'Tis the season of red and green.

As we anticipate our Christmas Eve celebration---for the second year in a row, we are going to the Cathedral with our Muslim neighbors and their elderly parents who had never been in a Christian church before last Christmas---I am sharing some unusual photos of plants in full-on Christmas color mode.  It was so beautiful for our neighbors to ask to join us.

 

Have a blessed 

Holiday Season, 

each and every one !

In a few hours we will be heading out to Lessons & Carols. In the imagery of that tradition, plantings play a prominent role. Roses, holly and ivy, the Jesse tree appear in glorious music and poetry from across the centuries, amid lots of talk of roots and blooming. I've managed both in New York and Michigan to keep holly going, though on Long Island just before we moved into our 1850s home, a tenant sold and removed an enormous tree-proportioned holly that the neighbors said was spectacular. (Moral of the story: never rent out anything you love.). I can't say I feel the same about roses---my husband's least favorite flower. But the so-called Christmas rose or hellebore definitely gets my vote at this time of year. Another literary favorite, the hellebore appears in a Bronte novel, TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL, when the hero jumps out the window into the winter's snow to pick a 'rose' for the woman he loves. Hellebore also took the growing conditions both in Michigan and New York and after a several-year period of adjustment, showed ever sign of 'naturalizing' like mad. The imagery of light at this time of year may be warranted---with the winter solstice just behind us. But as a gardener, for me those cheery lyrics about green things growing get the vote for Most Timely in what otherwise could be a barren season.

The shortest day of the year, winter solstice, has come and gone. As a gardener, I find the very phrase smacks of turning, the rhythm of the cosmos driving us all, plants and people alike. In Arizona, the event was celebrated with full moon solstice hikes. Daylight may be beginning to lengthen but cactus out at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix---another of my favorite gardens, ever---will be getting their winter 'hats' to cope with possible frost. Freezing rain on the East Coast and less than ideal weather in the Upper Midwest make the passing of the year equally fraught. For everything its season, I tell myself. The desert will bloom. The gold of the palo verde and bottle brush will paint wide swaths across the landscape. Trillium will carpet the woods of Northern Michigan in a magical white. An old year is ending, a new one coming.

I find myself scrolling through our many photos of French gardens after watching that Monty Don BBC series about them. Those at the Tuileries in Paris and at Versailles were so much more interesting than I remembered from a previous visit back in the 1960s, less Addams Family and more country garden. The modern selection and placement of plants appears to be key,  a fascinating marriage of the 'randomness' of the English country garden with classic formal French style beds. Even in sunny Arizona it's chilly right now. The photos warm the heart with precious memories of summers past.

Watching Monty Don's series on French gardens last night, we ran into this comment from him on the significance of gardens. To him, "garden" is "home". As he sees it the sensory experiences connected with a garden inextricably bind personal memories, childhood and other elements of the past together in the here and now, the present. The garden enables us to take a measure of our lives and its meaning.  My husband caught the thoughts and said with excitement in his voice, "That's your novel RANGE OF MOTION in a nutshell."  Personally Monty Don's beautiful BBC series on Italian and French gardens brought back wonderful memories of our travels abroad. He shared images of the massively influential French formal garden at Chenonceau in spring. Husband John and I were privileged to catch them in summer. The lovely cloud-like modern perennial placement (shown here) within those hedge-like  borders will stay with us always.

With the old year limping to a close, I find myself wandering through my smartphone Gallery, enjoying the gardening highlights of 2018. All time favorite was a fall overnight to Mackinac Island.  I had seen posters and ads for the island's gardening festivals, but even so, had no clue how amazing the experience would be even on a random weekend. The colors were spectacular. And even more astounding, around 90 percent of the gardens apparently are all handled by the same professional service. Here's to a job spectacularly done!

I look out my front door watching for the UPS guy and my garden greets me. It has been a real journey to redefine what it means to garden living in a condo association in the Southwest. Digging in the caliche is pretty nigh impossible. To get it to budge, buckets of water are needed to soften the ground first. Drip irrigation is a must. And it makes sense to supplement in-ground plants with strategically placed pots. As a garden owner in Monty Don's wonderful BBC series Italian Gardens says, she owes her success to listening to her plants. They want to be where they want to be. True, it seems, in any climate. Much as I miss my Michigan garden right now, my Tempe garden teaches a precious skill---patience. [In-ground plants shown here: Fairy Dusters, Purple Hopseed, Bougainvillea.]

I was shocked to discover how long it has been since I wrote a post on my blog. My only excuse: after telling my family I was not going to write another novel, I did. In fact, I started it two weeks after that ridiculous announcement. Two years later, it is done. RANGE OF MOTION is the journey of an avid gardener and long-time Northern Michigan cottager, Maggie Aron, who finds herself trapped not just by the physical realities of aging, but with a sense that she also is battling 'sciatica of the soul' that threatens to diminish her life going forward. I am intensely proud of this very personal book. Like Maggie, over the last two years I struggled to help an elderly Mom. Her passing a year-and-a-half ago was difficult and taught me a great deal about the importance of trying to live life to the fullest. When my own sciatica turned out to be a severely deteriorated arthritic hip (how on earth can someone misdiagnose something so  badly?), I feared replacement surgery---which has turned out to be wildly successful, for which I gave profound thanks to my fabulous surgeon. I am going to be able to garden again, something I was afraid would be beyond me. So as I post this entry, it is with deep feelings of joy and gratitude. And I promise, it will not be two years in between posts this time!  Blessed holidays to all!