Starting Over...Again

I catch it every year. No, not spring fever. It's much too early for that. Or is it?

This is, rather, a sort of prequel to spring fever that I get every year about this time. The holidays are blessedly behind me again, and then there is that gap during which there is nothing at all to celebrate. So, I start celebrating the slow approach of the next season.

Unlike fall, which I also love, spring offers me more options. I can start browsing through seed catalogs and planning what I'm going to order, which isn't much anymore, as all I do now is grow things in containers. But still, it fulfills that need to grow SOMETHING, anything, that has never left me no matter where I've lived. I can also start thinking along the lines of starting some plants indoors. My options here are once again few, as I get sunlight only through the kitchen windows. Whereas my cat loves to perch on the table to look out the window, setting some pots up there is not an option. Not only are they in both our ways, but she loves to dig in the dirt. As an indoor cat, that's quite a treat for her, as is nibbling on the first few green things that appear above the soil once the seeds have germinated.

My only viable option to get things going on is the counter that spans the space beneath my other kitchen window. The window itself isn't high, but it is long, and the sill is wide enough to support a row of small pots. It does entail removing my decorative cobalt blue and clear glass collectibles. But it's a trade-off, as most things in life worth doing are. I can also perch small pots on top of storage canisters where they will also benefit from the bright sunlight. There, I can pretty safely get things going and keep them going long enough for them to be ready to put outside once the weather warms above 40 degrees F. at nights. Not only am I getting my garden ready, I also have signs of new life to enjoy inside until April. And the cat seems not to have discovered that cache or is just not interested.

It'll probably be my old reliables again this year: marigolds (of course), zinnias, and nasturtiums. Some parsley and maybe some basic...I saved lots of seeds from last year's plants, so that will save me a little money. Otherwise, I'll shop the dollar stores and treat myself to one extravagant purchase from a company like Burpee or Gurney's. That kind of makes it official that the growing season is once again off to a start. And as the old saying goes, "There is no time like the present!"

Indeed, there is not!

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Layers

There's an intriguing quality to woodlands that I like to call the layered effect. It's most obvious when staring into a forested area that spans a large area and is composed of many different species of trees and other growth. Those in the foreground appear, of course, the clearest and offer the most detail. Pine needles, branches and leaves are all visible, distinct one from the other. But as the eye moves more deeply into the denser growth, images begin to blur, until they appear as layer upon layer of subtly different shades of greens and browns.

There, the edges of distinguishable shapes like leaves and branches blur, and smaller objects, such as individual pine needles, join to produce a tufted look when framed by the more delineated shapes of large boughs and trunks. Colors soften, and from that distance, pine boughs take on a bluish tint depending the slant of the light, becoming the stuff that woodland fantasies are made of.

This so-called layering process extends to all of life, from the air masses that exist above us to the ground we walk on. From its core outward, the planet we call home is a series of mineral masses that have continued to build on top of each other over billions of years. The uppermost layers, called plates, move constantly, releasing some of the intense pressure trapped beneath them in the form of earthquakes and volcanoes.

The oceans are composed of layers of water that start out relatively warm at the surface and get progressively colder toward the bottom. Clouds are layered masses of moisture, the air we breathe is just one layer in what we call our atmosphere, and in winter, snow accumulates in layers between storms. As all things grow, they do so by a process of new growth covering, or being covered by, old growth, as illustrated most distinctly in trees, whose new tissues emerge as rings that can be counted once they are cut down. As smaller plants grow, they do so as layers of new tissue displacing the old, snakes shed old skins to make room for the new, and even we humans evolve through growth that involves a layering process that takes place within and without.

Stylists speak of hair layering, painters apply pigment in layers toward the perfect finish, and masons put down stacks of foundational materials. We polish our nails with multiple coatings, we dress in layers against the cold, and even our lives could be said to be layers of experiences, one following another, each resting upon those that came before it.

Physically or philosophically, much of life evolves by degrees that often manifest themselves as shapes, objects, events or outcomes superimposed one upon the other. And the woods mirror that, in the detail they show us up close and layered against blurred masses of color and substance that act as backdrops, lending perspective and assigning meaning to what we are seeing. In this sense, nature is forever making connections between all forms of life, between the real and the abstract, between the clear and the hazy, between the lives of woodlands and wild creatures and our very own.

Looking deeply into the woods is an exercise for the mind and the eye, as both take in the myriad shapes, planes, surfaces and configurations that work together to produce what we see. And at some point in the farthest reaches, clarity dims as does reality and the imagination takes over. What is that over there, I often ask myself, when some shape, shade or shadow in the distance is too vague to identify. It could be nothing, I answer, or then again, it could be everything.


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Flowers

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





What is there to say about flowers that hasn't already been said? That they are beautiful and dazzling and provide the perfect accent in an anotherwise dull space? That they fill the world with fragrance, or that their colors mesmerize and defy characterization? Flowers are "all of the above," and then some. What sort of nature writer would I be were I to forget that they are the end to the means that millions of plants undertake to produce them?

Before fruit, there must necessarily be a flower, and before the light fades, their is often the last color we see amidst the interminable green of summer. It is the first color in spring and the last in fall as the year creeps again toward winter, dwarfed only by the changing of the leaves and defying the mornings when frost has claimed the less stalwart among them.

They drape our vales and hillsides, brighten our small hollows and ditches, and pop up in our lawns and along our woodland edges. They cascade from window boxes and baskets, paint bold swatches across fields, drip from rock walls and arbors and imbue the ocean air with a fragrance that can only be described as heaven-sent. On a more practical note, they provide us with a tangible means of celebrating certain traditions and, ideally, they make more glorious the last journey we all take from this world to the next. What else can I add that will give flowers their just due, to assign them, once and for all, the status they deserve as one of the most joyfully indispensible blessings that nature has bestowed upon us?

Like so much else, flowers came into this world, to this Earth, slowly and deliberately. Their purpose was to add a final and glorious touch to the vegetation that predated much of what we know today as annuals and perennials, as vines and shrubs, as weed and wanted plant, displaying an intricacy of color and texture not seen in other living things. They loom large or small in the landscape, from the enormous blooms of tropical flowers to the tiny blossoms of ground-cover plants so small that they escape our notice and are often trampled underfoot in our rush to get on with the processes of living.

Yet who among us does not love flowers? Who among us could find anything negative to say once we know of the miraculous journey they undertake to get here and, in some instances, such as the daylily's brief stint, to grace our lives for but a day? A morning glory opens at the first touch of sunlight then fades with the light, while a moonflower blossoms at day's end and fades with the dawn. Lady slippers appear in shady wet places in late spring and johnny jump-ups live up to their names by producing more of their own kind each year without any effort on anyone's part. Jonquils, crocuses, hyacinths and tulips usher in spring while brown-eyed Susans and Queen Anne's lace save their graces for later when the summer's heat distracts and dismays. As fall extends the year's bridge toward winter, chrysanthemums, both domesticated and wild, share their own late glory with us in field and garden when the rest have called it good for another year.

What would our lives be without flowers? Our tables, nightstands and sideboards would be bare, our yards and lawns one endless unbroken ribbon of green. Our winter holidays would be devoid of the reds and greens of poinsettias and amaryllis, while our spring festivities would take place without the lily's pure and gentle touch. From the bouquests of carnations and freesias in supermarket garden shops to the goldenrod and forget-me-nots along roadsides, flowers persist as an easily accessible source of beauty and comfort. They are small quiet blessings, appearing often in our lives when we least expect them and when we need them most.


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The Wonder of Plants

Once again, the haze and humidity have cleared, and I am left with a sharper brighter image, as though nature washed her windows clean. Every growing thing is renewed, and the early morning light smiles in bright yellow-green on the leaves of every tree and shrub.

Plants are remarkable things, and I've learned so much about them lately from all the research I've done for various online content articles. Here, in these woods, I'm literally surrounded by more varieties than I can count, and I doubt I'd be able to discover them all, considering how playful nature is in forever introducing new varieties into the landscape. From the tomato plants that I myself so lovingly put into the ground each year to the tallest pine that grows up on the ridge, all share growth characteristics all the while possessing features that are unique to each species.

Plants grow from the roots up, with the first cells originating beneath the soil, and it is almost magical the way they just seem to know to grow downward while the aerial parts of a plant know to grow upward. When a seed germinates, it simultaneously sends out both a fledgling rootlet and a pair of false leaves known as cotyledons. The root orients itself in the soil to seek out as much as moisture and as many nutrients as possible, while above the soil, the cotyledons eventually give way to the true leaves whose job it will be, with the sun's help, to manufacture food that the entire plant will need. Both parts of the new plant work in unison to support it toward the eventual goal of flower, fruit and seed production.

As I sat today looking at one of the tomato plants I have in a pot on the porch, I tried to imagine what is going on inside it. Is the process of cell development and enlargement actually visible, or does it happen in such infinitesimal degrees that it cannot be observed, and like so much else in nature, we simply have to believe that it's happening? For with each passing day, the plant's leaves are a bit higher against the railing and soon, they will surpass it entirely, at which point I'll have to tie it a little higher along the vine so it doesn't topple over. And then, without warning, I'll look one day and there will be the characteristic yellow blossoms indicating the spots where tiny green tomatoes will eventually appear, much to my eternal delight.

A plant grows in much the same way as do other living organisms-by cell production and enlargement. As new cells are formed, they fill with water drawn up into the plant through the roots. As they swell, they push the cells above them higher, causing the stem to elongate and grow. Some cells store water and others starches, and it is water that gives a plant its ability to stand upright and not keel over, a characteristic known in botanical circles as turgor or turgidity, which is the pressure the engorged cells exert on each other and on the stem walls. That's why a wilting plant seems to magically right itself once it's been given a drink, as the water floods the cells deep within the stem.

From the tiniest moss plant to the gigantic California redwoods, all plants follow this pattern of growth and development, each according to its own genetic code. Here, in these humble woods, I am reminded of that fact each time I look outside at my tomato plant and at the trees beyond, that never cease to amaze me in their variety, their tenacity and their eternal capacity to look ever upward.


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