Garden And Poetry

April: The Most Poetic Month

I find April to be a very uplifting and romantic month for me. Leaves sprout and start to unfurl, seedlings are pushing themselves through the soil to the surface and early flowers are blossoming. Birds sing loudly to make their territory known and start their courtship. Some birds have already built their nests. Aside from these life-affirming activities, the Academy of American Poets also designated April as a Poetry Month beginning in 1996.

Many great writers and poets have taken an interest in nature. Many of them are favorites of mine such as Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson, John Donne and who could forget Shakespeare and Rumi. There was even a book on Shakespeare’s Gardens published last year that I immediately ran out and bought.

The Poetry month also reminds me of my mother. We would go out to the market on the weekend in search of plants invoked in poetry to add to our garden. I still do now but mostly the most fragrant ones. What flower is more apt for the Poetry month than the Poet’s Jasmine (Jasminum grandiflorum).

Poet’s Jasmine buds just about to unfurl in the evening

Fully open Poet’s Jasmine that perfumes our garden at night but lasts only a couple of hours after sunrise

I grow them in pots because, as tropicals, I can bring them in the basement during winter

And the ode to it by Thomas Moore (1779-1852)*

Twas midnight-through the lattice, wreath’d

With woodbine, many a perfume breath’d

From plants that wake when others sleep,

From timid jasmine buds, that keep

Their odour to themselves all day,

But, when the sun-light dies away,

Let the delicious secret out

To every breeze that roams about.

Walking through a garden, any garden, relaxes me and raises my sense of marvel and my envy of nature. Nothing can duplicate what one has seen at that moment even just an hour after. Nature gives us art, poetry, philosophy and most of all is life sustaining. Those who understand these facts will always try their best to preserve nature, but those who don’t will always try their best to destroy nature for profit.

Ruining the environment doesn’t stop at the border and the effort to slow this self-destruction rests on our shoulders, the ones who love nature and see poetry in every path we take through nature. As Shakespeare put it ‘One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.’ (Troilus and Cressida, Act 3 scene 3)**

Have a Happy gardening and reading in the garden.

*From Ode to Flowers: A celebration of the poetry of flowers by Samuel Carr, 2013

**From Shakespeare’s Gardens by Jackie Bennet, 2016

April 4, 2017 2

Basement Garden

Still Blooming

What’s left blooming in our garden now are just some hardy roses, calendula and the broccoli that we let bloom for the bees (though technically a vegetable). The re-blooming iris are just producing flower buds which may or may not bloom. The weather has been staying around 50º F during the day and drops down below 40º F at night. Last week it dropped below 30º F for a couple of nights and that stunted the growth. The iris will bloom again if the weather stays above a frost. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

There may not be much left in the garden but down in the basement where the tropical plants reside in winter there is still activity. I can smell perfume wafting up the basement stairs from a variety of jasmines every time I open the door. I’m thinking of taking a table and chair from the garden and putting them down there so I can continue the joy of being in a tropical garden in winter.

Night Blooming jasmines continue to bloom

The Night Blooming jasmine (Cestrum nocturnum) are doing well this year. I re-potted the largest one to its benefit. I also propagated a few plants from the main one and gave some to friends. They perfume the basement now, competing with the Orange jasmine (Murraya paniculata).

Jasmine ‘Poet’ (Jasminum grandiflorum) loves cooler temperatures and started to bloom profusely outside, but it continues to bloom down in the basement.

One of the Christmas cactus (Schlumbergera hybrid) bloomed as soon as it got inside. This is a hard to kill plant. No matter how negligent the treatment I give them they never miss producing flowers year after year.

I took this Orange jasmine (Murraya paniculata) photo back in June when it enjoyed sunlight outside. It still blooms here and there until sometime in the middle of winter when it will bloom heavily again.

November 8, 2013 2

Later Summer For Tropical Plants

About Time To Go Back To Winter Camp

It’s a little bit too cold for mid-September this year. Some nights the temperature has gone down below 40°F and hovered around mid 50°F during the day. But it has gone up to 70°F during in the last two days. The thirty degree gap between high and low temperatures makes it difficult for me to decide whether to move the tropical plants back down to the basement. Although it’s not yet freezing, these plants don’t like to stay in a temperature below 50°F, but I do want them to get real sunlight as long as possible. I think I’ll move them this weekend if it doesn’t rain. Better safe than sorry since many of them have been with me for many years. They have been putting up with confinement (in a pot) all these years so I shouldn’t discomfit them further. The weather may not have been on their side this summer but they still offered fragrant flowers throughout the summer and some of them are still pushing to bloom even when it’s a little bit too cold for them.

‘Azores’ jasmines (Jasminum azoricum) have just produced new flower buds that will blossom when they’re already in the basement. They flowered through mid-winter while residing in our basement last year.

‘Poet’ Jasmine (Jasminum grandiflorum) seems to like cold weather. It started to bloom more when the temperature dropped and is still blooming.

‘Belle of India’ jasmine (Jasminum sambac) really struggled this year. Its’ leaves dropped at one point when it had been raining for a several days and it was forced to sit in water for a bit. It managed to produce a couple of flowers anyway.

I repotted, changed the soil and trimmed the roots of the ‘Maid of Orleans’ jasmine (Jasminum sambac) this year. I gave them a close pruning as well. It’s a ritual I do every couple of years for all the potted plants so they can have fresh dirt and more leg room. They respond well by producing bigger flowers abundantly.

Almond verbena (Aloysia virgata) is happy after receiving a crew cut early this spring. It can grow pretty lanky and floppy when it doesn’t get enough sunlight. Now it’s a little more compact and blooming better too.

Orange Jasmine (Murraya paniculata) produced a lot of flowers earlier this summer and is still flowering here and there. Their three inch tall offspring seems to want to flower as well. Maybe because they are closer to the house and warmer.

September 20, 2013 3

Poet Jasmine

The Poet

Yes, someone named this jasmine ‘Poet’ or ‘French Perfume’ (Jasminum grandiflorum). I’m not sure I like the name or the scent best. I can see why it get this name. One whiff of its scent and you can write a few lovely lines of poetry. If you keep sniffing it, you may be able to pull a Robert Frost act.

It’s a lovely vine with very dark green leaves and 1.5 inch white flowers. Its fragrance is a little bit sweeter than the Jasminum sambac and seems to do well when the weather gets a little colder. The temperature has been hovering around 50 degrees or lower at night and gone up to 60 or 70 during the day here. It started to bloom as soon as the temperature dropped and blooms profusely now while the Jasminum sambac like Maid of Orleans and Grand Duke of Tuscany are producing less and smaller flowers than in the heat of summer. The Poet flowers also last longer than a day, but are not as fragrant when picked and taken into the house. So, using it as an air-freshener like the Jasminum sambac is out. Well, at this time of year we can sit and enjoy it outside longer since it is too cold for mosquitoes to fly around. Maybe that was nature’s intent.

October 1, 2012 2