Musings

Once again, my ignorance is revealed as vast. Magnolia grandiflora, and I think this is a specimen, is native to southeastern North America, although perhaps south of this actual location. [Or is it Magnolia virginiana; I get confused.] Still, it’s generally local and native. But perhaps that qualification means that it is an ornamental and non-local. Ah, horticultural fine points.

Posted at 8:50 PM | Comments Off on Floral debate

I especially enjoy evergreens; they are so bold through the winter blahs. I am pleasantly surprised to see the berries this early in the season. Or maybe I’m just ignorant of the pacing of the juniper growth patterns.

Posted at 6:58 PM | Comments Off on 👀

Yeah, I know, this peony’s past its prime. It’s still stunning. And I quite enjoy the juxtaposition of the petal-pink with the distinctive green of the lichens.

Posted at 9:53 PM | Comments Off on Shades of nature

Variation on the bramble and the rose? Yucca and roses?

Posted at 9:27 PM | Comments Off on Not the same ring

Glory in this late dogwood bloom, still hanging on…as temps climb to crest in the 80s each day this week. Yikes.

H&W = humid and warm

Posted at 6:42 PM | Comments Off on H&W

I’m trying to expand my horizons. It’s a new year’s resolution-level intention.

Still, I have a hard time with this, Cornus kousa. I can easily accept that it’s a dogwood, yet it still looks off to me. I’m attuned to the rounded bracts of Cornus florida.

I’m working on being more accepting of “new” things and ideas.

Posted at 9:37 PM | Comments Off on I’m trying

I believe I have posted photos of blooms from this plant at least twice before…and it could be five or six times….

Posted at 8:08 PM | Comments Off on On repeat

Today, I finished the second of two back-to-back novels: Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield (1850), and Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead (2022) crafted as Dickens’s story in a modern setting.

Dickens’s autobiographical tale highlights child poverty in the England of his childhood, and Kingsolver addresses both poverty and drug-addiction, using Purdue Pharma opiate-saturated Appalachia as her setting. Despite humorous conversations and observations, both portray underlying situations that are rather grim.

I’m glad I read both books, although I tend to dislike obviously derivative works, often without a real reason to do so…one of my quirks—I may have to rethink that bias. I give Kingsolver huge points for reframing David Copperfield so cleverly and successfully. She uses some fabulous turns of phrase and imagery; I am in awe of such skill.

Weakly, the photo is a form of reframing. I took it two years ago today. Yay, 25 April.

Posted at 9:32 PM | Comments Off on Reframing

The Botanist once described the result of this type of horticultural distortion as frustrated plants. The golden color, a nice contrast to the original green of other garden plants (and its parents), shows the plant has seriously diminished levels of chlorophyll, and thus reduced healthiness.

Posted at 9:21 PM | Comments Off on Phyto-frustration

Off the cuff in my personally distorted sensibilities, it seems early for the peonies to be open here…my read on the season is probably distorted by being in snow country within the last two weeks….

Posted at 9:03 PM | Comments Off on Time (non)sense