Breathe

the sweet smells of the garden...

Hello,

I don’t know about you but every day I have to remind myself to take a deep breath to calm my anxious nervous system. For a clarifying dose of head clearing oxygen try box breathing: inhale to the count of 4, hold breath to the count of 4, exhale to the count of 8. Repeat 3 times. There, better?

Fortunately, even here in the middle of winter my garden is serving up delicious fragrances to further motivate my breathing. As I write this newsletter I’ve got a tiny tangle of faded and drying sweet violets picked from the February garden beside me on my desk. Every few moments I catch a seductive whiff of their perfume even though the plants themselves look very sad. I love sweet violets. So much so that I once named my calico cat Violet. I collect sentimental (scent-imental?) old prints and images of the hardy perennial, and I wrote an essay for my book entitled “Mud and Magic” (see below). However, let me be perfectly clear — there will be no candying of violets on my watch.

In other faith-in-the-future news, inspired by Brenna Estrada’s lovely new book (out next month) I sowed a collection of fancy pants pansies last weekend in my garden room. I cut a small but powerfully fragrant posey of Daphne odora from the back garden. It sits on my bedside table where it is sweetening my dreams. I’m so glad you’re here.

xo Lorene

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Let’s Connect

To tend a garden is to believe in tomorrow and I can’t think of a more optimistic act than sowing seeds. As I wrote in Color In and Out of the Garden:

A seed is living history. A time capsule of every growing season that came before this one. It is also a bridge from here to there; from right this minute to all that comes next.

Cultivated attentively, a seed is both a love letter and a field guide to place, a record of global maneuverings, and a biography of passion, or maybe just infatuation.

So let’s get planting!

If you’re in the greater Puget Sound region on March 22, 2025, you’re invited to attend a free seed swap honoring the launch of the 2nd edition of Grow Cook Eat, written by my friend Willi Galloway. The event, which will be held at the super cool Filson Flagship Store, features Willi along with a group of local garden writers, cookbook authors, and artists for a fun, laid-back community event where people can come together to talk gardening, swap seeds, discover something new to grow, and share their love for foraging, cultivating beautiful food and flowers, and being outside!

I’ll be there talking color and signing books, along with watercolor artist Sarah Simon, cook & forager extraordinaire Ashley Rodriguez, and floral maven and founder of the Slow Flowers Society, Debra Prinzing.

You’ll find complete details here. The event is free but having an estimate of the number of people coming helps with planning. You won’t need your Eventbrite ticket for entry, and everyone is welcome to bring friends.

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Let’s Color

Oh thank goodness! It’s daphne season. A shrub that blooms in winter with the promise of spring.

Last week’s topiary workshop at the Northwest Flower & Garden Festival with Mike Gibson was a delight. That said, my juvenile lemon cypress topiary—needs time to grow into itself.

Before —> uh, after. Me and Mike, look at that smile. Mike worked as an artist in residence to help restore the personal landscape of Pearl Fryar, a hero of mine and a damn fine gentleman.

Spicy arugula fresh from the garden, just in time to make a bracing, peppery salad with citrus.

Sometimes you have to paint the shadows. Garden snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis)

Making the most of sweet violet season. Can’t stop, won’t stop.