endless variation

we have a cattail bed the size of a football field (soccer pitch for the rest of you) between our home and the lake. the boardwalk through the cattails is one of my favorite things about this house. every single season in the cattail bed is dramatic. in spring the new growth shoots up so fast you can almost see it with the bare eye, in mid-summer the 9-foot tall leaves make an arched tunnel over the boardwalk that’s 100 meters long, in autumn you can see the wind whip through the grass-like leaves like waves on an ocean. and in winter, the brittle leaves snap under the weight of wet snow to form geometric constructions of endless variation and fascination.

cattail leaves in winter (typha)