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Spring

Triumph and loss

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“A garden is always a series of losses set against a few triumphs, like life itself.”

May Sarton

This is the third year since I ‘retired’ that I have been teaching during the winter and early spring months. As before my efforts culminate in mid-April and I find myself with time (apparently) on my hands and must needs change gear and find a different rhythm for the weeks and summer months ahead.

It is also – as I have noted before – the time of year during which our garden awakes, stretches itself, yawns and starts to demand attention. There is usually a gap of about a month between the first plangent calls and the point at which I can no longer ignore them and must start to do something about them. There follows an unseemly scramble to catch up and to prepare the garden to receive admiring (hopefully) visitors throughout the bosky summer months.

I must – in short – get busy!

This is – of course – a considerable ‘advantage’ during these times of pandemic. Since I must needs devote much of my time and energy to our verdant (half) acre(s) it matters little to me that we are in social lock-down. The effect is the same either way!

Anyway – here be some images to ‘set the scene’…

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

Sunrise/moonrise

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I thought that in these times of danger and all-round ugliness it might be good to post something pretty instead.

For those of us who get up on the early side on work days one of the rare joys of the the clocks going forward is that we once again coincide in the mornings – for a brief period at least – with the rising sun. I can’t resist taking photographs:

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid
Not to be outdone the moon has of late also been putting in unexpectedly powerful appearances:

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

Waiting for spring

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Winter lingered so long in the lap of Spring that it occasioned a great deal of talk.

Bill Nye

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid
It has, of late, been particularly wet here on the west coast coast of Canada. Not in the catastrophic flooding/exceptional weather kind of way that some other regions of the world have been suffering, but just a constant and relentless dampness from day to day. The aquifers are doubtless happy – as are the ducks – but as for the rest of us… not so much!

Further, even on days such as today – when the sun has decided to peep through the murk and the temperature has climbed to something approaching acceptability for human life – come eventide it will have again plummeted towards the red (or should that be blue) zone and the nights remain consistently chilly.

As a result our early spring flowers have been caught in two minds as to whether or not to grace us with their bloomin’ presence. The snowdrops have done their thing regardless – but then, that is what snowdrops do.

The daffodils and tulips – on the other hand – have poked their heads out, formed buds and then just stopped… unwilling to burst fully into bloom until the sun comes out in a more meaningful way to provide some proper spring warmth. My worry is that they will just eventually give up without ever bursting properly into flower.

The glorious magnolia featured in these photos is at the college at which I teach. Hopefully this will act as an exemplar to our own rather more timid flora.

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

Glory be!

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A downside of disappearing to the UK (and to elsewhere in Europe) in the middle of springtime is – of course – that one’s little acreage here on Vancouver Island is still only just getting into its stride when it comes to the Glories of the Garden. We will vanish across the ocean and by the time we get back some of these beautiful shrubs and flowers will have been and gone for another year.

As least I got to take pictures of these ones:

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidThough not – of course – the (non-fruiting) cherry tree!

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid

Tree fellers

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Paddy and Mick are out walking on a logging road in the depths of British Columbia. They see a sign nailed to a big Douglas Fir. It reads:

‘Tree Fellers Wanted’

“Ah!”, says Mick – “‘Tis a pity that Seamus isn’t with us. We could have gone for that job!”

I’ll probably get into trouble for that! Oh well…!

We have had the tree fellers in and they have been felling a tree (and lopping some branches). The tree was a little cherry tree at the back of our (croquet) lawn. It didn’t fruit but it did blossom gloriously each spring for all of a couple of days. The main problem can be seen in this photo of the view from our new deck:

That picture was taken at about this time of year two years ago. The tree had grown considerably in the interim and was seriously impacting our view toward Mount Baker.

As can be seen from this comparable shot – taken just this morning – we also had the experts nip out a few of the lower branches from one of those big Doug Firs:

The next step is to persuade our neighbours down the hill to trim back the cedars at the back of their garden, to give our lovely vista another couple of years of unimpeded viewing pleasure.

Since virtually every house in our neighbourhood has views that are not dissimilar to ours this sort of negotiation is quite common. One usually offers to pay the costs and since it makes little difference to the residence further down the slope, those concerned tend to be co-operative.

Let’s hope we also get lucky!

 

Late, late, late!

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Photo by Andy Dawson ReidIt is my habit, at this time of year, to post to this journal selected images of verdurous nature – in particular in that form which it takes in our garden.  I do this, of course, to show off just how splendid is life in this balmy coastal paradise at the time of year at which spring bursts forth in all its glory.

The absence of such images this year is telling… telling mostly of the near six weeks for which parts of our estate were buried under a foot or two of snow.

Now, nature is no mug – having been around this loop any number of times in the past – and simply slammed on the brakes, burying its head (in a hideous clashing of metaphors) until such time as things warmed up again on the climate front.

Well – that time is now and all is thus once again kicking off as per usual – but it is, of course, now late, late, late…

…and not only late: there is the distinct air of all of our growing things having taken a bit of a battering during that icy sojourn. No doubt all will recover in time but we really do need some nice sunshine to help things on their way, in place of the current cloudy/rainy/chilly weather that seems to have become a fixture here in recent days.

Ah well – ‘tis only April and these things often don’t pick up properly until May, the which they will doubtless do just in time for us to head for Europe. Ah well…

The dogwood and magnolia trees at least are in bloom and looking good!

 

 

These are a few…

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It is no secret that we have now entered my favourite time of the year – a subject on which I have almost certainly waxed lyrical any number of times in previous postings (at around this time). There are many reasons to delight in the season… nature reborn – the first hints of the summer to come – the warmth anew upon one’s shoulders – the fresh aromas on the balmy breeze – that strange golden light in the sky!…

My first instinct is to break out the trusty Fuji and to document the nascent spring/summer season as I have done so many times before. As the photos attached below will attest I am not about to refrain from so doing on this occasion either.

It is also time for the first Intrepid Theatre festival of the season – ‘UNO Fest’ – a feast of one man/woman shows which aim to amuse, inform, to move and to set the tone for the rest of the year. I am once again on airport/ferry pickup duty – an endeavour that brings me into contact with fascinating artists from around the world – and what’s not to like about that?!

Finally – in response to Aeroplan threatening to expire our precious points should we not have used them by the end of the month, a short but expedient trip has been arranged. We leave on Thursday for Montreal – a city that I have not yet visited but which am very much looking forward to seeing – before heading back to Vancouver early next week in time to catch the Paul Simon farewell concert that was the subject of a previous missive.

Further photographic images are bound to follow…

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

A theory of relativity

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As the drear dark days of winter finally pack their bags and grumble off to the southern hemisphere to bother somebody else, nature rubs its sleepy eyes, yawns and sticks its head outside for a quick recce. To its surprise and great delight there is no-one home! The adults are apparently all away and that mischievous little imp has the garden (yard) all to itself.

The results are pretty much in line with the description that the excellent Glaswegian comedian – Kevin Bridges – ascribes to the teenage gangs from his boyhood whenever one of their number discovered that he was the fortunate possessor of an ’empty’* for the weekend!

Mayhem ensues!

 

By the time the rain has drifted away, the temperature risen to an acceptable level and I get around to dragging my sorry behind out into the garden – it looks as though the rain-forest has dropped by and decided to stay for the duration. There follows a month (and more) of hard labour!

 

Now – this is where ‘relativity’ comes in.

I am – you must understand – not talking about Einstein here – nor Galileo nor Newton. I am referencing neither the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis nor meta-ethical morality (which turns out to be a good thing as my knowledge of either is limited to the world of Wikipedia!).

I refer to the fact that what appears during the height of the summer (I don’t venture out there at all in winter!) to be a perfectly sensibly-sized plot – just about large enough that the neighbours on either side don’t intrude in any way – metamorphoses in the inchoate springtime into a vast overgrown estate full of fiendish flora resembling nothing so much as Wyndham’s Triffids.

A whole bunch of seemingly endless hard work – in other words.

Worth it though, of course. Best get back to it…

* Parents away – house to themselves – party!!

The spring is sprung…

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Photo by Andy Dawson Reid…the grass is riz.
I wonder where dem boidies is.
They say the boid is on the wing.
But that’s absoid.
The wing is on the boid!

Anon (as far as anyone knows!)

Three signs that spring is actually already here – however much the weather might be doing its very best to suggest otherwise.

 

First – the hummingbirds are back at the feeders again. The Kickass Canada Girl calls them ‘the diabetics‘ and observing just how much sugar nectar these tiny creatures tuck away I concede that she has a good point. Anyway – great to see them back again.

We did not have Christmas lights along the front of our house this year, since the upstairs was still in the hands of our contractors when the festive season rolled around. As a result there was no question of the lights being left up late – and thus no possibility of the hummingbirds using the strand again for their nesting ground as they did last year. Apparently hummingbirds like to stay pretty close to previous nest sites so we will see what they do this year.

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidSecondly – the dogwood tree is in bloom. The Girl has apparently long hankered for a dogwood tree and we now have one. This makes her happy – and that makes me happy.

I read that dogwoods often suffer badly from lawnmower and trimmer cuts if they happen to be adjacent to lawns. If the bark is damaged at a low level the trees can become prone to infestation. Ours is a big tree as set so far back from the grass that it is actually in next door’s yard, so it is not in any such danger. If anything the reverse is the case. When the flowers drop on the lawn they do so in the form of hard husks which very rapidly take the edge off one’s mower blades!

Final sign of spring? The return of the Anacortes ferry! During the winter months of January, February and March the little green and white car ferry – a familiar presence during the rest of the year and regular viewing from our windows and deck – voyages no further than the San Juan Islands, eschewing the last leg of the trip into Sidney. There is always a little quiet celebration in downtown Sidney when it is back on its usual route.

Good to see that spring is here again. Now let’s have some sunshine!

 

Wet coast

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Photo by Andy Dawson ReidOne of the joys of living on the west coast of Canada – with its moderate oceanic climate and in what the World Wide Fund for Nature defines as the Pacific temperate rain forest ecoregion – is that we inhabit a verdant paradise of lush and abundant vegetation.

One of the drawbacks of living on the wet coast of Canada – with its moderate oceanic climate and in what the World Wide Fund for Nature defines as the Pacific temperate rain forest ecoregion – is that we inhabit a verdant paradise of lush and abundant vegetation!

Though the summers here on the tip of Vancouver Island tend to be dry and delightfully temperate, the winters incline to the aqueous. As I write this post I can gaze out of my studio window at a landscape that is undeniably ‘socked in’. I believe that the landscape is still there – but I cannot actually see any of it.

The result of all of this humectation is – naturally (see what I did there?) – that during the late winter and early spring all of that lush vegetation grows and grows and grows –  as though there were no tomorrow! It grows upwards – it grows outwards – and it presumably grows downwards as well!

Nature reveals itself to be the epitome of the doctrine of the survival of the fittest, with each species striving voraciously to overrun its neighbour in the ongoing quest for sunlight, water and nutrients. Left to its own devices the wonderful variety of plants in our delightful garden (yard!) would doubtless whittle itself down to just a couple of bigger, stronger brutes as all the weedy (there I go again!) specimens are trampled underfoot (I think I just stretched that particular metaphor a little too thin!).

The bottom boundary of our compact but decidedly highly-desirable estate is bounded with splendid trees and dense foliage. This latter is mostly – as far as I am aware – laurel of one type or another. Now, apparently the Schipka Cherry Laurel – which appears to form the bulk of this hedge – has the following qualities:

  • Hardy to minus 10 degrees
  • Fresh, glossy evergreen foliage attractive all year round
  • Easily grown even in difficult urban conditions
  • Can be clipped into hedges and screens
  • Drought and deer resistant

It also grows around 2 ft a year up to a height of 18 ft! As this boundary growth had not been pruned back for at least two and a half years – and most likely rather longer than that – it was in serious danger of taking over the smaller shrubs in the bed in front of it, not to mention cutting off our view of the sea whilst simultaneously advancing on my croquet lawn!

Fortunately it can also be pruned really hard. Apparently it simply shakes itself off and starts growing again.

I do now have a huge pile of clippings to be disposed of. Any takers?

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