A bit of a walk about town, gray day, what spoke. First some yellow buttercups in a creek

then some orange lichen very vivid on a gravestone Fern flowers – if that’s what they are or more like spore bearing fronds – I think it’s a cinnamon fern – of course baby grapes on honeysuckle – where has our mythology gone, there certainly should be a story about this A furry resident   Some chinkapin oak leaves – I favor this tree because I planted it as an acorn and it’s not exactly native but it’s thriving and the leaves are lovely.   Some ginseng I rescued from an Asian supermarket – the roots looked so like they wanted to grow, and indeed four of them now do. and lastly some hops that are overrunning the back end of the garden – I need do something about them

In Loiusville Kentucky late in August of the year 2000 I remember the thistles as being very large and lush, as thistles go, so much so that I took several clumps of their seeds home.  I scattered them in a wild-ish area and they persist till this day, almost fourteen years later.

Here now are platycodons just emerging.  Note the palette, very subtle and rich

Another wonder of tone, false indigo arising.

and staying in the the blue green family, hosta, followed by grape hyacinth.

Here’s another subtle palette picture – baby bamboo shoots – you may have to click on the picture – look carefully, but most of all notice the rich and nuanced tones at the ground.

Varieties of pink tulip

purple tulip and Van Gogh tulip.

This pink one is not a rose of Sharon, but the name is escaping me.

Chinkapin oak bark and buds

Peony

Blue spruce buds

Plus tubular bells!

Ganesh, in the Hindu tradition, is known as the remover of obstacles.  I have a garden for him within which are many exotic stones and plants.  This also is the memorial garden for my father passed almost ten years now.  It’s a chaos of rocks and plants and themes. I want it to be so chock full of disparate elements that new possibilities are created.

Last year I set Ganesh a challenge I thought he had a chance at, described (here).  Well, it was a very cold winter.  It was so cold it killed even some of the mega cold-hardy bamboo I have.  The eucalyptus in question was covered in snow most of the winter and even as the snow receded it looked like it may have made it.

but that was quite the bit of wishful thinking, like how green a vegetable might look coming out of the freezer before it realizes it’s dead.  The aftermath (aftermath, I like that connotation) of the challenge follows.

Now the question is whether obstacles were removed.  This may be the subtlety of Ganesh.  I thought that the obstacle to be removed was the seemingly necessary death of this plant staying outside in so cold a winter.  Apparently the obstacle to be removed was my thinking that it would live.  What an effective removal of an obstacle!  A great magic indeed.

Now of course my ignorance is deep and persistent.  I have another such Eucalyptus and I think it fair to believe another winter will come.  Surely it cannot be that death must befall it, surely.  Surely?  We will see, of course.

When something refuses to die, and not counting Bruce Springsteen’s question ‘Is a dream alive that didn’t die, or is it something worse?’, I usually am impressed.  Tenacity in nature.  One such is the pepino below.

Not speaking of the orange thing either, which never (I sincerely hope) was alive, notice those leaves at 1 o’clock.  Late in the summer of 2012 I planted the seed that became this pepino.  It wintered uneventfully and may have attained 10 leaves before spring 2013 came.  That summer it showed that the stalks really wanted to re-root, and it did so majorly and all of ten stalks arose – no flowers though.  Brought in with the autumn, it throve till March or so – even flowered, but no pollinators were around.  Then the eviscerating bugs got a jump it, those with wings and webs, so I put it outside a few days in April, taking it in at night to protect it from frost.  One night I goofed and it just could not take 30 degrees.  Sure looked dead.  Hard no to believe in this one though, especially knowing it had some very vibrant rooting tendencies, so I watered the dead thing for a few weeks, just until the chance of frost had passed, and out it went.  Not ten days later, up comes the green.

The heroic micro-drama, aye.

When the last update was given on the great journey our protagonists were a trifle chilled and moldy, not exactly comfortable but going unabashed down the road of great promise.

Today they are just not sure they are going to make it to that hallowed state of permanent things.  Indeed, one of them was remarking to me about Ozymandias and sphinxes and that really that there are no permanent things and that it’s a farce to go for that and that they should go to Hollywood or better Vegas and bill themselves as the Five Swans and see how it goes, that they have at least as good a chance of making it there as they do in the quest for permanence.

Some gourd enthusiast was telling me that for a gourd to cure properly it needs to have had 120 days of 80 degree temperatures.  These guys are lucky if they got seventy days of eighty degree temperatures.  There is only one where the body or neck does not have a crack and the walls are not at all substantial as compared to most of the gourds I’ve gotten from the American heartland.  Hearing that they might not have what it takes made this group of gourds agitated.  Made them question the meaning of being.  They are turning into angry philosophers on their way back to the earth.  ‘Ozymandias!’, one keeps muttering, over and over, as if there was something that must be understood by the listener.

April 17th, in particular

Budding hyacinths

A crocus –

And best of all, lilies ambush a brick paver.  Notice how they have surrounded it.  I am not sure if they plan to lift it up and throw it or to break it into little pieces, but they are clearly on the march this April.