Hello,
February is quirky — any month that occasionally throws you an additional day obviously has a mind of its own. Which is fine by me, it keeps us guessing and on our toes. February 1st was Imbolc, a traditional Gaelic festival marking the halfway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox and an unofficial, and frankly rather optimistic beginning of spring. Hope is at the very heart of most gardeners: This will be the year the rabbits leave my garden alone, the tomatoes will crop heavily, and my sweet peas will climb to new heights. On the flip side, this is the year when I discovered that my hellebores all seem to have Black Death, which can’t be good. Nevertheless, there is an upwelling energy to the month. The witch hazel is blooming, as is the daphne. The viburnum has bounced back from the deep freeze and is already putting out a new crop of sweetly fragrant pink blossoms. The earliest tiny daffodils, snowdrops and the weedy grape hyacinths are showing. And my hellebores have Black Death. To hope, a wise gardener might add resilience. Meanwhile, I’m over here brewing garden tea harvested from the garden last year. It’s like sipping on summer.
I’m so glad you’re here.
xo Lorene
What’s new
Garden Journaling, my next class with Creativebug launches on March 20th. We’ll look at how to decide what you want to track and some fun ways to do so without overwhelm, from scrapbooking, to garden sketches, to logging the weather and stash-and-dash plant tags. Until then, follow the link below to explore Cultivate a Colorful Life, a collection of 10 classes that I’ve brought together on all things color, including my Color In and Out of the Garden daily practice series. Pro tip: the link to the class collection includes an offer for a 60-day free trial on Creativebug. You’ll have all that time to explore everything on the site and be right where you need to be when Garden Journaling arrives on the first full day of spring!
*as a Creativebug instructor I receive a small commission when you use my links — feel free to share with others!
Recent reading: Growing Bulbs in the Natural Garden by Jacqueline van der Kloet is a fresh take on integrating bulbs and perennials in dreamy meadow-like plantings.
Recent writing: Spring Essentials, Every garden/gardener could use a colorful burst of anemone and ranunculus blooms in The Seattle Times. As grower Anne Long says, “These are luxury blooms for busy people.” I couldn’t agree more.
Let’s Color
January 31, 2024
Scrappy little ribbons of sunshine and fragrant besides. A gift (?) of those ridiculously warm days last week — it should NOT be 60 F in January.
One day nothing but lichen-encrusted bare branches, the next day this! Thank you to past me for planting the witch hazel where I could clip twigs from the little deck without having to climb the tree.
February 1, 2024
Yup, more shells. Maybe you’re a little under the weather. A bit off center. Discouraged by an uneven recovery. Bored. Cooped up. Taxes — say no more. Anyway, just know that you’re not alone.
February 2, 2024
For about three months in the spring of 2020, it would have been longer if I’d had my way, my husband and I woke up to Sonny and Cher singing “I got you Babe” on the house speakers —every single day.
In those early Groundhog-like days of the gathering pandemic, that silly song and the movie’s reference to a life of never-ending redundancy and redemption put a smile on my face during a fearful and unsettled time. If you haven’t seen Groundhog Day featuring the wise and wonderful Bill Murray, I implore you to do so. Your life will be enriched.
Ever since, and probably because we’re still toiling with recurring circumstances, Feb 2nd has become a bit of a holy day for me.
February 3, 2024
This is the face of resilience. A little over 2 weeks ago we had an extended freeze, a dry deep freeze, the worst kind for damaging plants. I take that back, ice storms, like what my garden friends in PDX saw was more physically damaging.
This winter-blooming viburnum flowers from November to early April. The freeze blackened every bloom on the large shrub in the back garden — the not-very-attractive evidence still hangs on its branches. But, right along side those sad casualties, fresh flowers are showing up as if nothing happened. tra la la. And the fragrance is just as potent!
It’s nothing less than astonishing and instructive, once again the garden shows me how to live.
February 4, 2024
I’m pretty sure nearly every last one of my hellebores is unwell. A virus? A bacterial infection? Black spotting on the leaves creeps into the blooms as well. I would love advice.
February 5, 2024
In only a matter of days. It was just a few days ago that I pointed out the first tiny shreds of golden bloom on the witch hazel in the front garden — I may have yelped in delight.
Within days I picked a little sprig for its inaugural portrait. (see 1/31.) I put that twig in a bud vase on my desk to keep me company while I’m working (or trying to organize taxes). The budded fists unfurled and exhaled an amazing fragrance.
January 6, 2024
Celestial blue — like Giotto’s fresco ceiling of the chapel in Padua, which I visited a lifetime ago. In the garden it’s grape hyacinth (Muscari armeniacum) — the weedy one. More, more, more please!
The rabbits are doing a good (?) job at keeping the foliage shorn, but so far, they’ve left the flowers alone. But honestly, can you blame them? Yes, yes, I blame them. This is just a moment of charity and mutual appreciation.
Love Apples
This recipe means the world to me and very likely is special to cooks and their loved ones the world over. The original is from the inimitable Marcella Hazan and is readily found all over the internet.
This is my take on what has become a way to serve up "love on a plate.” Because narrative recipes are on my 2024 list of delights, I thought I’d share the following in the form of a story. I hope you’ll join me, all you need is an open heart, tomatoes, butter, and a single onion.
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