In Canada
Herewith some snaps of plant-life in our garden – enjoying the early summer weather. From what I hear Europe (and the UK) is currently burning up in an unexpected heatwave. Our sympathies. We do feel even more blessed than usual at simply enjoying normal May/June style weather.
I do hope that everyone is doing alright…
“In our frenzied attempts to catch up with life, we run right past it. Once we have run past it, what we are in reality attempting to catch is ourselves.”
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Looking back through the archives for this almanac I note that I have gotten into the habit of posting – during the late spring/early summer of each year – a succinct gallery of photographs taken in our garden here at the southern end of Vancouver Island.
As one might imagine, these analogous offerings look remarkably similar year on years. Given that much of the garden is furnished with mature shrubs, perennials and ancient (relatively speaking!) trees, this should come as no surprise. The true beauty of the garden in spring-time is that it is at once the same as it ever was – whilst also being ever new.
And how cool is that?!
The title of this post, however, is “Playing catch-up” – so there is clearly something going on here other than the mere uploading of a fresh instalment of an old favourite.
As indeed there is…
Those who follow these things closely might notice (should they care to put any effort into the thing) that we are almost at the start of June and – as yet – no garden images have appeared for this year.
Some reasons for this tardiness have been hinted at in earlier posts, but these reflect only a small part of the whole story. Whereas Mother Nature has been powering ahead with her usual vim and vigour, our attempts at getting the grounds of our abode into shape have been running well behind. These factors have been in play:
As you can see – the start of the year has gone considerably less smoothly than we would have hoped and we may be excused if some normally essential tasks have had to be delayed.
I will see what (if any) images I might have to hand from the world outside our windows…
Herewith a follow-up to my last post… on the subject of the recent tree-work that we had carried out ‘chez nous’.
There follows a brief hiatus to allow for the cracking of any lumberjack jokes – as in:
“Paddy and Mick are walking along a logging road in British Columbia…” – and so forth!
All done? Thank you. Onward!…
The photos that I posted last time out should give an idea of just how much extra light we get at the front of the house as a result of the removal of the self-willed spruce. The images also suggest, however, that planting something more to scale is definitely in order to define more appropriately the interface between house and garden at that point. The search for the right arboreal embellishment may well take some time.
These photos show how the raised bed that had accommodated the spruce was left after the felling of the tree.
The photos also give an idea of just how much stump remains in the ground when a tree is removed. In other instances we have left the the protruding stumps as a feature (almost). In this case, because we want to plant another tree in the bed, we were obliged to hire the service of our arborist’s stump grinder, who – in command of his impressive array of machinery – made short work of the remains of the spruce.
This thing is definitely a bit of a beast!
One sizeable hole – tree-planting for the use of…!
“Choose a place where you won’t do very much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine”.
E.M.Foster – ‘A Room with a View’
The Girl and I are fortunate enough to live in a home that is a fair bit more spacious than is strictly necessary for us. Now, it may well prove in the long run that we are no longer able to manage the ‘estate’ and down-sizing will become the order of the age, but in the meantime we are enjoying having the room to pursue our various interests without having to make too many compromises.
Before coming to Canada The Girl and I lived for a decade and a half in average sized apartments (average for the UK, of course) and are thus much relieved at not having to suffer the same constraints now. We have both worked from home a fair bit (particularly during the pandemic) and are most grateful for having the wherewithal so to do.
The Girl has an office at the front of the house which is of a decent size and is reasonably quiet. It faces south west, however, towards Mount Newton, so it doesn’t get the best of the day. The situation was made worse by the presence without of an unfortunately placed pine tree, the which had grown out of proportion whilst resisting all attempts to reign in its over-enthusiasm.
A conversation with our neighbours – who were looking to get some tree work done themselves – planted the idea in our heads that the best thing to do might just be to dispense with this tree entirely. This is not a thing that we do lightly – always endeavouring to honour living things – but in this case it was not possible to preserve this tree in a reasonable form. We will plant some more compact replacement when the works are finished.
Meanwhile – take a look at these ‘before and after’ images…
“Time says hush: by the gong of time you live. Listen and you hear time saying you were silent long before you came to life and you will again be silent long after you leave it, why not be a little silent now? Hush yourself, noisy little man. Time hushes all: the gong of time rang for you to come out of the hush and you were born. The gong of time will ring for you to go back to the same hush you came from. Winners and losers, the weak and the strong, those who say little and try to say it well, and those who babble and prattle their lives away, time hushes all”.
Carl Sandburg
This is my very favourite time of the year. I love how verdant are the woods – how lush is the undergrowth and how still are the trees once the winter winds have abated. These images from Centennial Park in Saanichton here on the peninsula.
I love that someone took the time to turn this fallen tree into a little piece of art. I love that they did so again when the first version slowly decayed and returned to nature.
“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.”
Audrey Hepburn
Well – we didn’t plant this one, though we have been responsible for nurturing it for nearly a decade now.
As to the now…this does feel like an important moment to be believing in tomorrow – no matter how tough it may be so to be doing, given the shape of the world right now.
The Girl and I have been suffering brutal colds this two weeks passed. We have, however, been afflicted by very few such since moving to Canada so we can’t really complain – even though these particular ones have been vicious. We are – it seems – finally on the mend now though…
…just in time to vote carefully in the Canadian Federal election on Monday. We are, surely, all to be held responsible for keeping the bad guys out of office in this good country; this being a vital bulwark against other nations where the same has, sadly, not been the case.
The garden – meanwhile – continues to flourish ‘irregardless’!
Took a while getting here this year – but after the snow, rain, hail, winds, damp, grey skies and general lacklustre demeanor – Spring is finally putting in an appearance. Mother Nature – who has been drumming her fingers on the counter-top for some weeks now – enquires frostily (seemed appropriate):
“What kept you”?
Cue the usual annual photos of Mother Nature doing what she does best…
“I’m here to tell you the tide will never stop coming in. I’m here to tell you whatever you build will be ruined, so make it beautiful.”
Hala Alyan
I find myself sitting here – on a blustery Valentine’s day – gazing from my studio window at the grey, choppy sea and the distant mountains – pondering questions of (im)permanence.
There is no question – regardless of anything that we might do – that this sea and these mountains will exist long enough to register as permanent (certainly by comparison with our measly four score and ten)… whereas the cherry blossom which is just starting to bloom on the tree at the bottom of our garden will be gone in a few short days (weeks at most).
A few years back – shortly after we came to Canada – I wrote a song which bore the title – ‘Cascadia‘. The lyric started thus:
Where I come from we are rooted in the land
Sinking where we stand in the slow sand
We know who we are – we’ve been here for so long
That even when we’re wrong we don’t care
In new found lands – where cities tremble on the brink
Closer than they think to Armageddon
Machines turn to rust and tremors shake the crust
Dominions of dust are blown away
The song came about because I was fascinated – having just moved to Canada – that in a country in which everything was considerably inflated by comparison with its north European counterparts (distances greater, climate more extreme, animals wilder, terrain more difficult) and subject to all manner of extreme events (snow storms, earthquakes, heat domes, avalanches, wildfires, arctic outflows, etc, etc) – domestic construction is, as far as one can tell, a good deal less robust than that to which we ‘old-worlders’ are accustomed.
Back in the UK I owned – at various times – portions of several houses constructed in the 1740s. Such buildings may have their short-comings by modern standards but they were clearly intended to last and tend to be fairly firmly embedded in the dark soils upon which they are erected.
Here in British Columbia most residential properties are constructed primarily of wood (no surprise there) and sit lightly upon the land. They are also considerably less valuable than are the plots of land upon which they are built. In many instances – should one see a house of maybe thirty or forty years of age for sale – one is not surprised when the purchasers simply tear it down and build a new one.
Even the fabric and fittings of these buildings seem destined not to be long for this world. Our house dates from the late 1970s and is thus positively ancient by Canadian standards. We were advised upon purchase that it had had its roof replaced some twelve years before our purchase – the which was therefore around halfway through its expected life (the shingles at least). The slate roof of our apartment in Buckinghamshire in the UK dated was back to sometime in the 19th century! The hot water tank here (powered in Canada by what we Brits would call an immersion heater) was replaced (cheaply!) when the house was put on the market in 2015. The Girl assures me that it is thus nearing the end of its useful life and must needs be exchanged for something more robust. I am sure that she is not wrong!
I am not entirely sure why I am musing upon such matters at this point – though the long wait for spring might have something to do with it. Yesterday and today have been particularly blustery and we were without power for a number of hours overnight – though fortunately all was restored by the time we awoke (thanks BC Hydro!).
Anyway – I feel that it will not be long until the news here, at least, takes a turn for the better.
The deep roots never doubt spring will come
Marti Rubin
American author Lionel Shriver wrote:
“February is for curmudgeons, whinge-bags, and misanthropes. You can’t begrudge us one month of the year or blame us for being even crabbier, it’s so short. There is nothing good about it, which is why it’s so great”.
Ah – ha! Not so short this year… this being a leap year!
That aside it is not altogether difficult to agree with Ms Schriver. By the time one has finished exhaustively cataloging all the reasons why February in so darn cheerless (Six Nations Rugby aside) it is almost over.
Hmmm!
However, what we all know – of course – is that under the forbiddingly dark, dank, semi-frozen soil, all of the tender young shoots are working out – gathering their strength ready to burst forth just as soon as spring gets the go-ahead. It may not look as though too much is happening right now – but it is all just waiting for the call to arms.
Now – as it happens this is not too bad an analogy for how things appear chez The Girl and I. To the casual observer nothing much might seem to be happening – but that would be misleading. We are currently both working (so much for retirement!) from home.
Having spent a considerable amount of time (and money) over the last few post-COVID years, driving into one or other of the College’s Victoria campuses, I find myself this year co-ordinating an online course from the comfort of my studio. I say co-ordinating – rather than teaching – because this course is entirely asynchronous… which means that I prepare course materials, make little videos, post all manner of resources on our learning platform and wait for assignments to roll in for marking. It is a not altogether unpleasant way of going about things, though I do miss the face to face teaching a little. It does seem to be – however – what the students require nowadays.
The Girl is also beavering away in her home office, on the project that cannot yet be named. Her endeavours actually also involve some travel (concerning which I am less keen) – but she does have a sparkle in her eye, which is good to see. Let’s hope that it stays there!
So – for now we just ‘sit back’ and wait. Spring will soon be here!
Time for some photos of plants growing in our garden. I know that I do this every year, but the garden is not the same from one year to the next so I don’t suppose that the images are either. Anyway – the nature of this journal is that there will always be something else along in a moment and there are no penalties for skipping ahead (I wanted there to be but couldn’t figure out how to do it!)…
The reason for my somewhat incredulous byline is that – no matter how much a part of it we all are – nature is still pretty much a riddle to me (wrapped inside a mystery etc, etc)… Take this Camellia for example. Some seasons back (maybe four or five) I pruned it back a little in the early spring. It was probably not the best time of year for such a treatment, but I was not too severe on the shrub; merely trying to persuade it not to stomp all over the ‘lesser’ plants around it.
The Camellia clearly took umbrage and refused to flower at all in any of the succeeding years – with the exception of the odd desultory bloom once in a while. This year – well, take a look for yourself:
Maybe I will post an update when all those buds burst into bloom.