Spring flowers – Page 3

A Good Home, Flowers, Gardening, Life in canada, Poem, Poetry, Seasons Change, Winter's End

A Winter’s Tail

March 13, 2015March 24, 2015 Cynthia Reyes

The birds are back with songs of Spring

Their tunes incite imagining

That Winter’s end will soon arrive

And living things shall haste to thrive

Via vitalxrecognition.wordpress.com/ — Image Thanks to: vitalxrecognition.wordpress.com/

A Winter’s Tail, how bittersweet!

Today it’s sun, tomorrow sleet

And wind to stop us in our tracks

And cold to freeze Spring-hungry backs

One day we feel a wave of hope

Warmed by our thoughts that we can cope

And then come gales of Winter still

And blizzards coat the windowsill

Ho, Winter! Do your level best

Your time is near to take a rest

For Lady Spring prepares to rule

She’ll thaw your ice and warm your cool

She’ll rout you, kick your icy tail

She’ll make you wish you’d stopped at hail

Who’s mighty now, oh Freezer Guy

Who rules the roost? Oh my, oh my!

Spring wakes the earth; the gardens flower

She turns grass green and makes you cower

She strips away your winter clothes

And sprinkles sunshine up your nose

She brings new life to garden trail

She gives new strength to plants so frail

To stand up ‘gainst your mighty storm

And so defy your freezing form

Ho! Winter’s Tail, I kid you not

Pick up your snow and off you trot

Break down your ice and melt away

See you around, when skies are grey

See you next time, oh Frigid One

But not too soon, for Spring’s begun

And three great seasons I shall see

Before you’re back to torment me.

Thanks to Hamlin Grange for all original photos.

Dedicated to my friends Lisa E. and Marion W: Spring is near.

A Good Home, Flowers, Garden, Gardening, Gardens, Home, Writers

The Guilty Gardener

July 17, 2014July 20, 2014 Cynthia Reyes

I love gardening.

But for a smart person, I can be really stupid.

A pain-filled fall and winter got worse as we headed toward spring: the few times I went out, I caught something.

Flu.

Bronchitis.

A cough that wouldn’t end.

Worn out and afraid of falling, I rarely even went into the garden.

Stuck in bed, I tried to write my way back to sanity and health.

Spring came.

And then.

“You’ve relapsed,” the specialist said flatly during my hospital visit.

“Guilty,” I replied. “Sorry.”

“Do NOT feel guilty,” she answered. “It was an awful winter. All my patients with complex injuries had a very tough time.”

“But your immune system is also weak,” she warned. “Be very careful this spring.”

I listened.

I promised.

And I was. And then.

It was gardening season.

Day after day, my husband worked hard in the garden.

I watched, feeling entirely useless.

He left, on an errand.

And then.

I spied a large crop of forget-me-not growing into the lawn from the garden beds. I know they bug him, and I know they’re easy to dig with a trowel. And so I thought I’d help.

A small thing.

A good thing.

I could do this. I crouched over the lawn and started digging, feeling useful. When the back and leg pain intensified, I lay on my front, face just above the grass.

I dug, sneezing as dust went into my nose.

Then I spied a few dandelions nearby. Now I crouched over them, trowel engaged.

“Stop!” said my wiser self.

I listened.

I meant to.

In just a few seconds.

And then.

My sense of time did not kick in. It rarely does.

When I got up, the pain almost knocked me out. I staggered. Stumbled. Fought against falling, my cane desperately trying to find purchase in the ground.

“Cynthia! Cynthia!” came the panicked shout.

I had not heard my husband return.

I ask you: which is worse?

To watch your partner struggle to do the gardening duties that you loved doing — on top of everything else on his plate? Or risk even worse pain — and his distress — by doing a few small gardening things to help? Some days, I’m almost used to the pain. It’s with me all the bloody time.

But the guilt? I never get used to the guilt of watching him do all the gardening work. It drives me nuts.

“Why do you do this?” He shook his head, frustrated and angry. “You know better!”

Yes I do.

So I’m obeying the doctor. Again.

Sparing my husband distress. Again.

Trying to cope with guilt. Again.

All stuff that requires a person to be not just smart, but wise.

So far, so good.

Wish me luck.

Dedicated to all gardeners who are struggling due to age, illness or pain. And to the caring people who help us: thank you.

A Good Home, Decorating skills, Domestic Divas, Flower Arranging, Flowers, Gardening, Gardens, Interior Design

Inferior Design — A Natural Talent

June 28, 2014June 28, 2014 Cynthia Reyes

If I call to invite close relatives to supper, their reply goes like this:

“Oh! How nice…”

A long pause follows.

Then:

“Er… Who’s cooking?”

So — naturally — I reply: “You have nothing to fear. Husband is cooking.”

Joyful sounds erupt from the telephone.

Me, take offense? No way.

I’m the untalented one in a family of creatively gifted domestic divas and I know it.

My mother, sisters, cousins and daughters — all are fabulous cooks and bakers.

All were born knowing how to arrange a room artfully.

Clothes and hair? Fabulously stylish. Floral arrangements? To sigh for.

And then there’s me. I have to work really, really hard at all these things – with surprisingly strange results.

An expert at inferior design, is what I am.

My greatest talent was in designing and planting our gardens. Really nice gardens — if you like the lush, exuberant kind. There, I seem to know instinctively what flowers and colours go together.

But, these days, I mostly pick the flowers, not plant them.

So — naturally — I recently decided to try floral arranging.

You may remember that I once ruined a very simple Christmas arrangement.

But hope springs eternal.

So — naturally — I decided to channel my inner Christiane, and Karen B. – two wonderfully creative, flower-loving women. I love their blogs.

I stuck some flowers in a vase. Peonies and Solomon’s seal.

“Beautiful”, said my sister.

Shocking.

So — naturally — the next arrangement was — hmmm…..

Friends Lydia and her daughter Sarah kindly gave me a book on floral arranging.

The designs seemed so simple that only an idiot could fail to grasp them.

So — naturally — I failed to grasp them.

I’ve been hiding from Lydia and Sarah ever since.

Along comes my daughter, to shore up my confidence.

I’ll cut the flowers, we agree. She’ll take the lead on arranging them in vases.

They were all very pretty.

So — naturally — I went and stuck allium heads into one of them and ruined her creation. (See the sixth photo from the top.)

But all she said was: “Nice, Mom.“

Encouraged, I stuck another allium head into a few flowers in a thin vase.

And all of that explains why this post is full of flowers in vases.

The nice ones are my daughter’s.

In case you were wondering.

Dedicated to my creative relatives, and Lydia and Sarah. And to creative divas Christiane and Karen B.

A Good Home, Family, Family Matriarch, Gardening, Gratitude, Home, Inspiration, Life in canada, Lifestyle, Mothering, Mothers, Non-fiction writing, Parents, Raising Children, Relationships, Spring Bulbs, Thanks, Tulips

Mother’s Day in the Garden

May 11, 2014May 12, 2014 Cynthia Reyes

One garden here at the old farmhouse is extra-special.

Partly shaded by a large red maple, it has two dogwood trees, two purple lilacs, a Japanese maple and a forsythia shrub. The Japanese maple was stuck there “temporarily” but was somehow forgotten and has outgrown its spot.

“One of these days, I’ll have to move it,” my husband says. But that tree is so big now that I suspect it’s not going anywhere.

Hydrangea shrubs and tree peonies also flourish here.

In front of them are smaller plants: Solomon’s seal; ferns; the intriguingly shaped “Jack-in the Pulpit”; the occasional trillium (Ontario’s official flower); may apples and another woodland plant whose name I never learned.

Pink tulips come up every spring, as do daffodils, astilbe, and hosta. It’s the only garden bed that’s home to such a variety of characters: woodland, shade, and sun-loving plants.

No wonder it’s called “Mama’s Garden”. The children she mothered are a variety of characters too.

Throughout the spring, pink lamium borders one side of Mama’s Garden, while blue forget-me-nots border the other. Recently, though, they’ve both strayed into the path.

“Your garden would look better if I could weed the path regularly”, I apologize to Mama.

And I can hear her voice saying: “Ah, m’dear. It’ll get done. Right now, there are more important things on your plate.”

My husband named the garden in tribute to Mama’s great love of gardening.

My mother died several years ago.

On every Mother’s Day since, I head out to Mama’s Garden, no matter what the weather, no matter what condition I’m in. I bring a sturdy mug of coffee, walk through the entrance arbour and down the short pathway, looking at the growing things around me.

I sit on the stone bench at the back of the garden.

“Thank you, Mama,” I say.

There are so many things to thank her for.

So I thank her and I thank God for her, and sometimes the talk with Mama gets mixed in with the prayer and it feels like the beings I am talking to are one and the same, but I don’t think either Mama or God would mind.

I give thanks.

For a mother who loved and tended her family. For a mother who taught us the importance of growing things. And for a mother whose love and faith live on in our hearts.

Garden photos by Hamlin Grange. Photos of Cynthia by Dale Ratcliffe.

This post is dedicated to my mother and mother-in-law, who mothered not just their own children, but all our cousins and friends when they needed mothering too.

Happy Mother’s day, and happy belated Mothering Sunday, to all women who tend and care for children.