Gardening: A Plant Wardrobe, Plant One - Honorine Jobert

In the perfume world, my other major area of obsession, it's common to discuss the idea of a fragrance wardrobe. An essential part of this concept is that it's a limited fragrance wardrobe. It would probably consist of more bottles than the average person owns (two? three? none?), but not so many that that average person would eye me worriedly and back slowly away. So, less than a hundred. One common figure is ten. I recently posted about this concept, and listed nine perfumes.

So if we're limiting perfumes, if only theoretically, why not go through the same mental exercise for plants? The obvious "why not" is because people don't think that you're crazy if you have a few hundred different plants. But all the same, all the brave talk about simplicity and limiting choices and appreciating what's left could, in theory, also apply to gardening.

So if I were to limit myself to...

OK, I can't limit myself to nine plants. In the whole plant world, from ground cover to trees, only nine different kinds? No. Very funny.

So if I were to limit myself to nine different perennial flowers, what would they be? Nine cultivars - no fair cheating by including "roses" as just one plant.

The first one is obvious: Japanese Anemone Honorine Jobert. The most beautiful flower on the face of the earth. Period. Look. Just look. Could anything be better?

Yes, yes, I understand that no doubt you have a plant that you think is better. In fact, I'm continually surprised that this flower is my favorite. I would have expected myself to pick some dripping, quartered rose, or an exploding peony. When did I become a minimalist?

But there it is. Nothing is more beautiful than Honorine Jobert. No doubt the exploding petals will be represented further down the list.

What about you? Got a favorite?

Image: Mine

Rant? Ramble? Blogging: It's about voice

I hang around on a forum about blogging. It's partly a forum about making money through blogging, so there's a fair bit of discussion about moneymaking, rather than pure blogging, strategies. (Moneymaking, as you can no doubt guess, is not part of the agenda for my blogs.) Some of these discussions make me a little crazy.

The most crazymaking are the posts about getting "content for your blog". There are cheerful discussions about where you can get "free content!" and how you can find the "best article directories" and other ways to solve that pesky, pesky problem of having, you know, posts in your blog.

When I read these discussions, I find myself shaking my head and moaning, no, no, you don't get it.

But I've been a little puzzled about exactly how to phrase what they "don't get". I know that it has to do with writing your own blog and producing your own content, but that doesn't seem like enough of an explanation. Because how does the reader know that you lovingly wrote and polished every word in your blog, as opposed to briskly selecting those words from an article directory and writing a check?

I've also been doing a lot of reading about writing, and that's where I finally found a way to express the idea:

It's about voice.

"Voice", in writing, is about the way that the writer translates his personality to the page. It's about word choices, and phrases, and mood, and structure. It's how you can distinguish a paragraph written by your very favorite author from one written by the person who wrote the history textbook that you passionately hated in eleventh grade, even if the two writers are writing about precisely the same thing.

Voice is what makes you chuckle and drive your companions mad by your insistence on reading the good parts aloud. Voice is what makes you buy the whole series and put yourself on the waiting list for the next book. And voice is what makes you come back to a website or blog, over and over.

I read writers for their voice.

I don't read the garden books of the late Henry Mitchell, long-time gardening columnist for the Washington Post, because he knows about, say, tulips. I read them because I want to "hear" Henry Mitchell talk about tulips.  I want to read Henry Mitchell's musing about how tulips are "reminiscent of brisk terriers, except better behaved" and his discussion of "the high delight of examining the bulbs" of species tulips. Anyone can tell me about tulip varieties, and how to plant the things, and how to keep them alive. But only Henry Mitchell can be Henry Mitchell.

I don't read Calvin Trillin because he knows where to eat; I read to hear, in his words, what he thinks about the food. I read to hear him dismiss rotating restaurants with "I never eat in a restaurant that's over a hundred feet off the ground and won't stand still." I read him because every moment of reading his work is a moment of sheer enjoyment.

In the same way, I read websites and blogs not for information, not for facts, not for statistics, not for how-tos, but for voice. And when I find a voice that I love, I want to return to that voice again and again.

Information is cheap. Voice is priceless. And that's what people crying "buy content for your blog heeeeeere!" just don't get.

Image: By Glide. Wikimedia Commons.

Gardening: The Last Square inches

Did I mention that the garden is full?

It is. Full. There will be no new, expansive plantings anytime soon.

In fact, to point to just one sample spot, there are bearded irises, a buddleia, a rose, an oakleaf hydrangea, a few lilies, some hardy geraniums, and some creeping thyme in a spot that's really only adequately roomy for the buddleia.

So far, this problem has been solved by cruelly pruning back the buddleia and convincing myself that the rose and the hydrangea are perfectly happy waving their leafy arms in the same airspace. And it does all look nice. Lush. Enthusiastic. Leafy-flowery and all that.

The problem with all of this is that my interest in the garden is triggered mostly by planting. No matter how gorgeously leafy-flowery the garden may be, there's something missing if I can't plant at all.

These are the times that I hunt for tiny unplanted or underplanted spaces, and plot what I might do with them. With similarly tiny plants. Microplants.

Violets, for example. We already have a lot of violets, but they're the sort of plant where near-infinite variety is just fine. I still haven't found true fragrant sweet violets, for example; I keep searching for these, and I keep finding lovely blossoms but no fragrance to speak of.

And Corsican mint. Low to the ground, barely thicker than paint, and incredibly fragrant. And creeping thyme, already flowing all over the garden.

And species tulips, in the fall when it comes time to plant them. Itty bitty often-perennial plants, like the little clown-striped Clusiana ones. And blue Siberian squills. And crocuses.

And nasturtiums. No, they're not actually small, but you can plant the fat little seeds in the smallest of spaces, and watch the resulting lily-pad leaves politely negotiate their way into any available space.

And... I'm sure that there are more. Lots more. I'll be posting again.

Tulip photo: By Scott. Wikimedia Commons.

Gardening: Peonies! And celebrating nursery errors.

Two or three years ago, I planted some peonies that were supposed to be red, according to the packaging.

Then I waited two or three years for them to bloom, because we remodeled things and some trampling was unavoidable.

And during those years, I wondered if red was really the right choice. I'm very picky about my reds. I don't like them too magenta, and I really don't like them orange. I slowly came to the conclusion that red was a mistake.

One of them finally bloomed. And as you can see from the photo, the packaging was utterly mistaken. About the redness.

Woohoo!

Photo: Mine.

Gardening: The benefits (for a plant) of being first in line

So, I've often wondered why one plant thrives, and another, perhaps only a few feet away, experiencing the same care and light and soil and fertilizer, languishes or flat-out dies.

Today, a couple of hours spent with lettuce seedlings gave me part of the answer: The plants that I put in first are the ones that are destined to do well.

When I start planting, I do it right. I gently and apologetically loosen the rootbound. I pull away the mulch. I dig good generous holes. I space the plants in nice little triangular patterns. I get the hole depth just right, test-fitting and adding or removing soil. I firm the plant down and pull the mulch back, up to but not quite touching the stem. I water every few new plants in with a soft mist.

As the planting progresses, mulch preservation is abandoned. Holes are less carefully tailored. Correction of the rootbound is less a massage than an attack. Spacing is adjusted to cram in those last few plants.  Watering is delayed and then emphatic.

The shift today was sudden. I lovingly pulled the mulch over the previous perfectly-planted lettuce, dug the hole for the new one, and placed the tiny seedling in the hole. It was half a centimeter too high. I... encouraged it to fit.

That was, of course the moment when I should have stopped planting. I know this. But my enthusiasm for getting all the plants in the ground seems to last longer than my enthusiasm for getting them in right. I finished planting all the lettuce.

So if I'm wondering, in a few weeks, why the Salad Bowl lettuce isn't doing as well as the Speckled Baby Red? Remind me.

Image: By TalkingITGlobal. Wikimedia Commons.

Rambling: Rambling

So, it's been a while.

I haven't really done a lot to write about. I haven't fried any chickens. I haven't planted any plants. I haven't written any fiction. I haven't taken any great photographs. I haven't seen any movies that drove me to post. I read some books, but I just logged those into my 100+ post.

I wore some perfume, but I talked about that on the Other Blog. I did some decluttering, but I talked about that over on the Other Other Blog. I read a book that made me think about my wardrobe and becoming the sort of person that pays at least a little bit of attention to how I dress, but that seemed go along with perfume, so I posted it over there.

I have gawked at the garden. Stuff is blooming. Some of it smells good. So I may return with photos or rambling about that.

So, well, today I'm just dropping by to say hello.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Links: Declutter Posts

My recent posting inspiration is turning toward posts on Declutter Of The Day. So I thought I'd point that way to the posts from yesterday and today.

Image: By Holly. Wikimedia Commons.