The Smallest of Things

"Sometimes," said Pooh, "the smallest things 

take up the most room in your heart."

AA Milne

It has been a very long, very dark, very cold winter here. I don't like long, cold, dark. I am always trying to think of some way to get thru that slide down the last months of the year and past the early ones of the next. This year, I was given the gift of  a good reason to stay engaged.

 

Oscar came to us as a completely feral kitten, foraging for bits of food we left on the tops of the barn shelves, or bits fallen from the suet bird feeders off our deck. We found that he had figured out how to climb up and over into the insulated rafters of the office as his beloved predecessor Zoey had done. He seemed a lost but very industrious little tyke, and we determined to make him ours.

Oscar

From the painful first days he spent in the bathroom of the office to the wild, playful, and very snuggly mornings we routinely spend now, it has been all about the little things. For the first month I never saw the guy.....didn't even know if it WAS a guy! But I faithfully changed litter, left all sorts of food and treats, warm kitty bed, lights, soft covers to hide in. I spent some portion of everyday sitting on the closed top of the toilet talking to a cat who did not want me there. I read about steps he and I would make towards bonding and stuck to the program no matter how hard it was to go slow. As I focused on our little fellow, I looked hard for the slightest behavior that would indicate I was making a dent. And with each tiny step toward tame, he has also tamed my hard winter heart.

Keteleeria davidiana pollen cones

All of a sudden, I see that spring is about to bust out!! But before it does, I am still enjoying the tiniest of things that will lead, step by step, to the dogwood and azalea blowout most acknowledge to be the advent of spring. Every hour, every day that goes by gives me many small things to savor.

Pollen cones are colorful and interesting structures on conifers; early blooming flowering trees have paved the way; emerging seedling and foliage reveal the magic process behind spring.

Pseudolarix amabilis pollen cones

Magnolia flower

Platycladus orientalis 'Morgan'

Seedling Keteleerias emerging

Picea abies seedling

Abies firma seedling

Lindera reflexa flowers

Asarum maximum 'Ling Ling'

Buxus sempervirens 'Pyramidalis' flowers

I spent two hours in warm sun day before yesterday looking and photographing the miracle unfolding. I recommend a dose of this for any one who's been plagued by long or cold or dark. This treatment will fill those empty corners with a new, light perspective, and open up room in your heart for what is really important.

“It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

With Pleasure

One of the very best things about working with plants is other people who work with plants. I could spend a lot of time theorizing about what makes this true but the theories don't matter. Plant people are just great, and that's a fact.
This year's rain has rejuvenated gardens and gardeners alike. In the last few weeks, I have had the great pleasure to visit some great gardeners, and to enjoy their gardens with them. For me, this is the ultimate plant experience. Out of doors in the late Georgia spring, fabulous settings, incredible collections of magnificent plants all come together to teach me how much I have to learn, and how much I will look forward to it. Walking through Willis Harden's garden in Commerce with him was like walking back in time in every sense. To be sure, his garden has some age and stature to it. He has been carefully crafting it for 50 years, and it shows. He knows every plant. No, not just the name of every plant, but the actual plant: where he got it, how he got it, when he planted it, what the weather was like when he planted it, when it first bloomed, how it fared in ice and snow..... From the specimen Windmill Palms (Trachycarpus fortunei) to the large drifts of Pachysandra procumbens;
from Magnolia sieboldii to the largest collection of
Rhododendron I have ever seen; great care has gone into assembling the garden as a perfect companion to the glorious setting that Homeplace Garden occupies.
On a completely different level, when I immersed myself in the garden, I lost track of the tick of my internal clock: my daily routines, the things that distract and nag at me, the things I need to do or have done poorly. We spent the day tromping and strolling, and tucked a heavenly lakeside picnic in between. Time to digest good food, and the delicious bites of wit and wisdom this group could offer. It just doesn't get any better than this. This was a day well spent, and each moment cherished.
One of my favorite poems comes to mind when I think about this wonderful experience.

The Summer Day
by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?


Can't wait.... Ozzie's garden tomorrow.......