Gardens

Firsts & Lasts

by Denise Marotta Lopes on Sep 15, 2024 category Gardens, Stories

It’s a quiet Sunday morning. I hear the hum of cars along I-495 though less than a typical rush hour morning. I arrived too late for the church bells announcing 7:00 mass at St. Helena’s. I settle in with coffee and rosary beads. I quiet Ivy as she barks at passing squirrels and rogue cats.

I observe my neighbor’s tulip poplar, filled with yellowing leaves, as it leans heavily toward another neighbor’s house. The back drive is carpeted in the leaves already fallen. I wrap myself in a throw blanket knowing soon I will be wearing coats out here.

Fall contains both beginnings and endings, firsts and lasts. It is particularly true as I watch for the hummingbirds. I saw the first one at my feeder on July 24. Since then, there have been regular visits. I learned only today that males do not show their ruby throats until after the first molt, so the ones I thought were female might well have been young males. I could distinguish between two of them as one would sit on the edge of the feeder and eat slowly and methodically; the other flapped its wings, remaining airborne, slowing only to stick its beak in the hole to gather nectar.

It’s been close to two days since I’ve seen either of them. My neighbor saw a large one yesterday near the white flowers of a blooming bush at the back drive, but my feeder remains empty. I wonder if the two that frequented my feeder all summer have begun their fall migration. I tried to note the last time I saw one. I wanted to write it down, but I didn’t. I expected to see it the next day, but I didn’t. It’s the same with the catbirds. Soon they will be gone, and I will see the first junco.

As my mother aged, I saved the birthday card she sent each year in case it was the last one. I still have that one from April 21, 2022. There is a children’s book that depicts a mother telling her children that if she new it would be the last time, she would have held them longer. When did I stop holding my children’s hands? When did they say, I’m old enough to go alone? And, now I think of that with my grandchildren. I asked the nine-year-old recently if he was too old to sit on my lap. He said yes, and we laughed. But, inside…

I will wait around a bit longer today for my hummingbirds. If they have left, I will think of their long journey. I will welcome others who are passing through from points further north. I will continue to change the nectar until there are no more sightings. I will watch the poplar bury the drive in its leaves. And, soon, I will welcome back the juncos.

Hints of Change

by Denise Marotta Lopes on Sep 2, 2024 category Gardens

There is change in the air. The subtle movement of change—more visceral than comprehensive. It starts with fallen needles under the evergreen. There is no better surface on which to walk than those needles under big, looming trees.

Before the red bud drops a leaf, its pods have browned. I hope the seed-containing pods will feed the Northern Cardinal who spends time in red bud’s branches.

As I walk outside, I observe the changing in the leaf colors. In one way, it seems like a death—the losing of those leaves and the skeleton of the tree remaining. But, I also sense hope and newness and wonder at what the earth will produce after it has rested.

The sedum are late-bloomers. They are beginning to produce salmon-colored flowers. The moon flowers are becoming more and more showy and fragrant near our front door. I have waited for it to have so many blooms that its fragrance would waft from my home and out to the street where dogs and their parents will stop and wonder.

Change is in the air. And, with it comes newness, possibility, but also uncertainty. I have become accustomed to green grass and large leaves and dinner-plate hibiscus. Soon, I will be wearing layers of clothes to keep warm. Kids are back in school and fall sports have started. I want baseball to last and last.

I love autumn, once I get used to it. Once I can walk out of the house and recognize what I see. I like to be surprised, but I need some assurance of the familiar to accompany it. Fall brings its own gifts, beauty special just to this season. Squash, pumpkin, corn stalks, soups, hot drinks. It beckons, subtly, and then it bursts. I’m here for it.

Behold, the Moonflower

by Denise Marotta Lopes on Aug 8, 2024 category Gardens

At this time last year I was facing several life-changing events: my mother had died in January; I was diagnosed with leukemia in May; and I was preparing for a stem cell transplant in October. I spent three weeks and one day in the hospital preparing for and recovering from the transplant which will hopefully prevent the recurrence of cancer. I was isolated in a specially-sealed room. Visitors and staff were masked. I was vulnerable.

I spent a lot of time alone, though I had visitors. But when they left, I remained. My nurses became my caretakers, my confidantes, my friends. I longed for their visits, even if it was for blood draws, infusions, medications, or stats.

Nurse Alicia was one of those nurses. She was tall, strong, and wore crocs. She never seemed in a hurry. She had a son the same age as my grandson. She loved gardening and we spoke a lot about flowers. I had been unable to garden last summer because I was vulnerable to infection from microbes in the soil. I dreamt of what I could plant when I was well. She shared photos of two of her many plants—one being a salmon honeysuckle. The second, the moonflower. I wrote down their names and vowed that I would grow them when I was well.

Seven months later, on Mother’s Day weekend, Joe took me to the garden center to pick out the two plants I had thought about for so long. I still wasn’t able to plant them, but Joe did it for me. The honeysuckle was placed on my back deck in a blue pot where I can watch it wind itself around the railings and the legs of the cafe table.

The moonflower is in the garden near our front door.

What I found remarkable about the moonflower is that it flowers in late summer when the sun goes down. It needs sun most of the day and a trellis on which to climb. It took from May to August to fully engulf the 3-sided wrought-iron trellis. For many of those days, I doubted whether it would fill the space and thought we should have bought two plants instead of one. Seemingly overnight, though, it took off, even wrapping itself around the drain pipe.

Progress had been slow, but it was moving. Something had been happening when it appeared nothing had been. The leaves were large, but there were no flowers—until August 4.

It was evening. We had just returned from meeting my daughter and her family for dinner. It was the first time I had eaten indoors at a restaurant since last summer. It was delightful. And, I was tired. As I made my way up the three stairs to my front door, I saw it. A most magnificent white flower about the size of my palm, displaying itself among the much-larger green leaves. It lives, in all its majesty, for one day and dies. But, oh, while it lives, it is spectacular. Its fragrance is like that of gardenias.

There are more to come. The rain has kept the blooms at bay the last few days, but I will wait patiently for that next arrival. For the next sign that there is more to come. And, I will invite a friend or more to sit with me on my stoop or on lawn chairs and savor the moment.

The Hummer’s Return

by Denise Marotta Lopes on Jul 29, 2024 category Gardens

I had a powerful longing to see the hummingbird return to my feeder this year. This longing crept deep into my soul like a lifeline. Last year, during my illness, I did not keep up with preparing the nectar and thus saw no birds. I felt the loss. This year I’ve been consistent with replacing the nectar so it would be fresh when the hummers returned, but day after day, the feeder remained unattended. On occasion a dove or goldfinch would sit atop the pole that held the feeder. One young bird drank from the water I placed in the well of the red feeder. But still no hummingbirds.

My routine is the same most mornings: feed the dogs and cat; make coffee; pray the Rosary on my back porch; correct Ivy when she barks at the squirrels; and watch the birds. The more I watch, the more familiar I become with their movements, sounds, behaviors. I am so familiar that when an unusual motion is made, it catches my eye. On Saturday morning at 8:20, I finished my coffee and read while the neighborhood was still relatively quiet. I looked up as I often do to see the birds when I caught sight of it. I gasped and whispered, “The hummingbird. The hummingbird.” She hovered near my feeder, stopped to sip the nectar, and just as quickly as she came, she left. I clapped softly in appreciation of the moment.

I’ve seen her twice since then. It’s still not a regular thing, but my heart soars when I see her. I am still recovering from illness and just when the finish line of health is in sight, it seems to move, or I am blocked from seeing it. The birds give me hope. As I waited for this bird to return, I began to have doubts that I ever would see it again. But, I am reminded of all the other times it did return. It always did. Waiting can be physically painful. Loss and emptiness can hurt. But the moments far and few between bring enormous joy and hope.

Until she comes again, I will make myself ready by mixing one cup of boiling water with 1/4 cup of sugar, letting it cool, and pouring it into my freshly cleaned hummingbird feeder. As I wait, I will watch the goldfinch eat the Nyjer thistle and peck at the seeds from the dried cone flowers. I will watch the young cardinal eat from the tray feeder, allowing me close enough for a photo. I will savor the Mourning Dove as it gathers the seeds I dropped while filling the feeders, and smile at the House Finch sporting its orange head and chest. And, while I wait, I will savor the company of my ever-faithful friends: Ivy, Franklin, Stella, and Graycie.

Summer Weeds

by Denise Marotta Lopes on Jul 22, 2024 category Gardens

Summer is a time of extremes: temperature, humidity, overgrowth, length of days. All long and overwhelming. All extreme. Sometimes a haze comes over me and I want to sit and rest while I watch things grow up all around me. Weeds take over the garden. Pathways are reduced by the growth of bushes, the fallen stems of plants and yellow wood sorrel that have overtaken the tidy mulch that had previously distinguished lines of demarcation.

I wonder at what provokes me to want to fix it. To make it orderly again. To show the definitive separation between plants. To trim down the deadened hosta flowers. To discard the potted plant that once sported colorful buds, now replaced by mostly brown. To grasp that creeping Charlie and pull it out by its roots. To control it all and make it manageable.

And, yet, another part of me says it is all too much. I can never keep up. It will only grow back and continue to haunt me. I’ll never be free of it.

This summer I sense another option. One that says I can live with weeds. I feel differently about what’s around me. Maybe because of what I’ve survived this past year, I can appreciate the mess and think of it as controlled chaos. There’s a beauty to it. There’s a freedom in it. The dogs don’t seem to care. The bunny still hops through the yard. The squirrel still lands on the tray feeder. The neighbors still say hello.

And, the birds continue to sing.

Close to Home

by Denise Marotta Lopes on Jul 12, 2024 category Gardens, Stories, Uncategorized

I walked Ivy to Edgemoor Road this morning; really, we walked each other. Prior to the past year, she and I had walked that path each day for over three years, sometimes leaving so early on winter mornings, that the dark would cause us to rush off of Rodman Road to Brandywine Boulevard where we were safe on the sidewalk.

There was a rhythm to those early mornings, a familiarity of buses and sanitation trucks, cars gliding through four-way stop signs, kids waiting on street corners for the school buses. I knew the names of most people and dogs we passed: Bob and Skyler; Joan and Riley; Snoopy and his dad or mom (whose names I never learned) Deb and her daughter’s dog whom she took when she moved out.

When Franklin came to live with us, I would walk Ivy first and then repeat the walk with Franklin. People along the way would ask if this was my first lap or second. I noticed when people stopped walking. The man with the knee wrap; Deb, whose daughter took the dog; Valerie with the very short hair and huge smile who yelled, “Hello, Miss Denise!” when she saw me. I wondered about them. I wonder now.

Along the way I observed who cut down a tree, moved a rose bush, or planted new flowers. Once a man turned on his sprinkler right as Ivy and I were crossing in front of his house and he apologized profusely saying, “I’m mean, but not that mean.” He was not mean. He used to leave cuttings for me from his rose bush, apricot in color. Another woman, a kindergarten teacher at a local Catholic school, has a huge tulip tree on her front lawn. I stand under it in spring and wallow in its fragrance. She told me once that she grew up in that house and has photos of herself under that tree on Easter mornings.

Mr. Winston Black lives in the big ranch on the corner. He speaks with a thick accent and uses a walking stick to navigate the hills. He does not like the cold winters here and often travels to his home country until the weather breaks.

On today’s walk, the weather was warm with rain forecasted. We’ve had a heat wave lately and the thought of temps only reaching 80 degrees, though very humid, was welcome. I thought it would be a good time to try the walk. What used to take me 35 minutes, today took one hour. My steps were small and painful. Still recovering from my year-long illness and side effects from medications made me more like the tortoise than the hare, but I made that walk. Me and Ivy.

We passed all the usual places. Tom’s fig trees were huge, his apple tree dotted with red fruit, his olive tree silver and flowing, so much taller than last year. The man with the rose bush did not seem to be around. His grass was overgrown, the rose bush no longer produced flowers where he had moved it to the side yard. Deb’s house looked empty, though the lawn had been cut. When I waved to the bus drivers, they did not beep as they used to. Things seemed different today.

Maybe people were on vacation or walking at different times of day, but my walk was not as I remembered it. Things had changed over the past year and I wasn’t there to see the gradual movement. I may try again another time, or I may find a new path to walk.

When Ivy and I turned off of Brandywine Boulevard, onto Rodman Road, I saw the man who works on his garden while his Dalmatian runs off-leash. He asked how I was feeling and said it was good to see me out. I waved to the woman in the rental, the one who collects weeds with her mother and makes ink-prints and explained the whole process to me the other day. I am thankful for my neighbor’s full garden and smile thinking of her one-year-old daughter popping cherry tomatoes into her mouth. I appreciate the pots of flowers placed on my front stoop by another neighbor who thought I’d appreciate a pop of color.

It felt like progress to make that long walk, and I sensed a level of success for having achieved it. But, I realize things have changed while I’ve been gone. Sometimes change is good. Maybe. While I write, I watch the familiarity of the flurry of birds at my feeder: the yellow goldfinches, the gray catbirds, the orange house finches amid the pastel pink echinacea, the hot pink hibiscus, the long winding vines of the honeysuckle. Sometimes, the most beautiful things are very close to home. But you have to look for them. Like the inconspicuous flowers of the hedge that surrounds our patio. If you don’t look close enough, you won’t see it.

Early Weeks of Summer

by Denise Marotta Lopes on Jul 4, 2024 category Gardens

The early weeks of summer have proven to be as expected—hot. The hibiscus have sprung from their green and maroon leaves. The bushes are cut back over the winter to mere inches from the ground. It’s a wonder they return to such grandeur by the next summer. It flowers throughout summer, continuing to open as older ones wither and die.

The baby birds are practicing their wing flaps, often staying in one position in the air and then slowly falling back to earth, wings flapping all the way. The babies are easy to spot with their pillowy-heads and odd behaviors. Some will let you approach as they haven’t learned to fear us yet.

Each morning, a pair of woodpeckers find their way to the safflower cylinder. One eats, effectively hammering the packed seed with its beak. The other, with clean markings of black and white, watches the other and attempts to imitate what it sees. After several tries, the more efficient bird approaches the younger and places a seed in its mouth.

I’ve put out a tray feeder to help with crowding around the other feeders, and the squirrel has decided to be a participant, as well. Our English Lab, Ivy, warns us of an intruder with her deep, ferocious bark. I try to explain that we don’t need her protection, but to no avail. The squirrel can share, too.

The birds I long to see most each summer are the hummingbirds. The feeder has fresh nectar and my eyes often fall to that red feeder as I await the arrival of these special birds. It seems they will never come until they do and then it seems that they’ve always been here. I moved the feeder so it’s nearer to the echinacea. Birds like variety, too.

Summer Storm

by Denise Marotta Lopes on Jun 24, 2024 category Gardens, Uncategorized

The forecast for last night called for a severe thunderstorm warning. After numerous days of high humidity and upper-90-degree temperatures, I welcomed the possibility. I watched the sky darken as I sat on the screened porch with my three dogs and one cat. The winds picked up, bending the tall trees, showing the undersides of leaves, and sending the sounds of an oncoming train.

Finally, the skies opened and rain began to fall, delightfully. It rained sideways as the wind carried the rain in sheets across the drive and through the gardens. I wondered at the word “sheets” to describe how rain falls. Was it like bedsheets? Or sheets of paper? There was a white to it and a form that moved as though it had somewhere important to be.

Thunder roared, but I saw no lightning. The dogs were calm, but I saw no birds. I wondered where they had sheltered as the trees were moving with such ferocity, that they didn’t seem a safe place to wait out the storm. The temperature dropped from 91-degrees to 74-degrees and with it a lifting of the oppressive humidity. We could all breath easier.

The morning brought the smell of freshly-washed air, of a breeze sent to absorb the water that had fallen last night. The echinacea looked happy. The large potted flowers seemed a bit water-logged. As I prayed from the same place where I watched last night’s storm, I heard a cacophony of sounds. Birds seemed to be everywhere, singing, chirping, flying, criss-crossing. They reminded me of children being set free of the classroom to head out for recess. Most of the birds were in pairs or groups as they fluttered about. All but one, that is.

One sets itself apart on the railing of my deck and looks up into the sky. I know its name because I see the dark spot on its chest. It conjures up, from its very soul, the sound of heaven. It opens its beak as it releases the melody for all to hear. The song sparrow.

And, all is right with the world.

The Wonders of Mid-June

by Denise Marotta Lopes on Jun 11, 2024 category Gardens

The tiger lilies line the back drive next to my neighbor’s fence. They stand tall and singular, yet together they make a crowd. I am reminded of a parade, people held back by an invisible line, and yet craning their necks for a view of what’s to come, even though it will pass by right in front of them soon enough.

It’s the end of the school year here in the northeast. On the last day, teachers line up in the parking lot and wave to the children as the yellow school buses haul them away for summer vacation. I can visualize both the sigh of relief as well as the tears in the eyes of the staff—and the kids.

The echinacea have blossomed. They’re one of those plants that show every stage of development at the same time. While some of the flowers are tiny, others begin to turn a light pink; older ones are bright, deep pink with petals that have pushed back to look like a shuttlecock or someone sticking their head out of a fast-moving car. They have spread a lot since last year, moving into the territory of the iris greens. I like that they all live together and I prefer the cottage-like freedom to the neat and tidy borders of the more elegant, structured gardens.

The lavender has found its roots, finally, and is growing full and lofty. I run my hand through it just to have the fragrance close by as I move through my day. I have cut it and dried it, but it never has the same smell as when it is still in the ground.

Bright lemon-yellow goldfinches are exuberant about the dry thistle in their freshly-cleaned feeders. Babies of various bird varieties abound and are easy to spot with their bed-head feathers and odd, trusting behaviors. I enjoy watching the downy woodpecker and female cardinal share the safflower cylinder, each eating away on their own side of the white tower, content to share as long as they don’t see each other.

I learned once about closing my eyes and identifying five sounds in nature. It is easy to get to three but then I question myself about the next two. Did I hear that one already? After five, the sounds multiply and I could easily count more. Birds, bugs, rustling leaves, my dog’s snore, my cat’s meow. It all counts.

Even my own sigh.

Windy Days

by Denise Marotta Lopes on May 16, 2024 category Gardens

The wind blows steadily today. I recently told my grandson to take note of windy days following rainy ones. It is still cloudy and overcast, the air is temperate—in the 60s. It is simply beautiful. I watch as the trees yield to the pressure. They bend but keep standing. The leaves blow and I am reminded of those with hair long enough to blow in front of their eyes.

I can see the bottoms of the leaves as well as the tops, the contrasting light (almost white) and light green. The trees are tall and lanky, designed to grow up more than out. The leaves are serrated. The birds have found this tree, now in its third year and find it steady enough to land in, yet not sturdy enough to build a nest there.

While entire tops of trees are moved in the gale-force winds, only one part of my honeysuckle is moving. It’s a vine that has reached beyond the top of my deck railing and has not yet decided where it would like to land. Last week, I wove it through the railings thinking how lovely it would look to have the yellow flowers decorate the side of the deck. In a day, the plant told me this was not a good idea. The leaves had started to wilt and while the rest of the plant looked happy, this one vine did not. I quickly unraveled it and let it go free. When the sun is out, it follows the light from one side of the deck to the other; when the wind blows, it allows itself to be moved.

I realize that I am not the one to decide where it lands. I make sure it has water and sun. I speak kindly to it. I admire it. I call it by name. Where it chooses to wind itself more permanently is up to the honeysuckle itself. In the meantime I enjoy watching it decide.