remembering spring

here’s the rest of the dried spring bulbs i found in the back bedroom yesterday. i left them pretty much as i had found them for fear that they would fall apart if i tried to detangle them. i am impressed at how the daffodils held their color. and the little hints of blue from grape hyacinth delight. i have a penchant for dusty, earthy palettes. so this collection suits me. i know i am not alone in liking these muddy, earthy color palettes. but i do not think i am in the majority either. on a similar note, i also prefer minor key music. i have a feeling that if you asked all the lovers of minor-key music what kinds of colors they prefer, that there would indeed be a high correlation between minor key music and earth tone lovers.  so, tell me, are you minor key or major key? primary,  secondary or tertiary colors?  earth tones or bright colors? i’m curious.

collection of dried spring bulbs

expressive aging

these tulips have been lying quietly in my spare bedroom where i placed them last april and then ignored them for four months. i started cleaning the room today for our daughter’s upcoming visit. wow. these tulips dried with so much expression. more personality than than they had in life, in my opinion. i love the fluid movement implied by the plum-colored petals. and how the yellow stamen peek out here and there. such a fun surprise.

dried tulips

winter in august?

i just cut these cattails from beside my dock. they look like something i might have cut last winter, and stored in the corner of the basement for six months. nope. these are august cattails, over-wintered from last summer. wind whipped and battered by spring rains. drained of all color. with the sun shining on them, they looked like ghosts from winter past. these, too, are august cattails.

overwintered cattails (Typha)

this too is columbine

i have photographed columbine flowers several times–their spurred petals ever a fascination. but these not-quite-dried stems are also columbine. i snatched these from my neighbors garden. i’m not sure i would have even recognized them as columbine except for the one small flower still in bloom.  after ten years of doing STILL, i have gotten pretty good at identifying the native flowers and weeds and my bioregion when they are in their peak. but identifying them in their off-seasons, especially winter, is still difficult for me. plant identification apps like “seek” are already hugely beneficial. i’m impatient for their databases to grow to a point where they can also recognize plants in ALL their various stages. imagine.

columbine flower stems in early autumn (Aquilegia)

olive in appearance only

russian olive trees were introduced to north america in the 1800’s by bird shat (according to wikipedia). it’s considered an invasive but i still like it. i like anything that reminds me of (real) olive trees and mediterranean france. i also love anything that resembles the color of silver sage. silver sage, the color, was trendy twenty five years ago. i think i painted my first bathroom silver sage. i just googled “when was silver sage the trendy color?” to see if it was 20 or 25 years ago…and guess what i found? it’s totally back in style but now it’s called a classic (“Silver Sage Benjamin Moore: Best Classic Colour 2022”).  i guess that means i’m a classic too.

russian olive branches (Elaeagnus angustifolia)