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One Beautiful Thing

George Burns is a lovely, striped rose my sister bought for me a decade ago during one of her visits to Nevada. At the time, she wanted one for herself as well. That is, until the owner of the local nursery said the bush wouldn’t produce the same colors in Oregon.

This past season, George Burns was among the first of my rose bushes to recover from a late freeze and produce a bloom. I almost missed it since the bud formed in a sheltered niche among some low, leafy canes. I spotted it on the 7th of June just after it burst.

To my surprise, the flower was not the splash of red and white I’ve come to expect from this bush. It was red and yellow – the colors the nursery owner predicted for Oregon growers.

It didn’t take long to figure out the reason. It was the rain – lots of it – that came to the high desert over the winter and early spring. Mother Nature changed the pigment of the petals much like an artist adjusts the pigment of watercolors by adding more paint or more water to the canvas.

I don’t presume to understand the science of how a flower reacts to moisture in such a stunning way. All I know is that it clearly does. When I looked at the same blossom after 12 days of clear skies, with only our drip system sustaining the bush, the yellow had given way to almost pure white.

Whether one prefers red paired with yellow or paired with white on a George Burns bush is of little consequence in this story. Rather, it is the simple understanding that what any living thing receives in the way of sustenance will surely color its existence.

Knowing this puts a profound burden on we humans, don’t you think?

If we understand that what we consume plays a big role in determining our health, doesn’t it follow that we should choose what we eat and drink carefully? If we understand that words and deeds make a difference in how we feel and whether we thrive, doesn’t it follow that we should be kind to ourselves and, likewise, speak and act with kindness toward others?

Yet, too often we don’t behave in a way that reflects this understanding. We don’t treat ourselves or those around us with the care we should. The upshot is that we don’t live the best life we can, and we miss opportunities to lift others up so they have a better chance of living theirs.

It’s not a failure per se. It’s human nature – especially when a thousand random things in a fast-paced, complex world affect our actions and reactions.

Still, wouldn’t it be lovely if we could slow down, if only for a little while each day, to make sure we do at least one beautiful thing for ourselves and one beautiful thing for someone else?

Like the colors of my George Burns rose, the result could be stunning.

 

 

Never Give Up – A New Perspective

About this time last year, I wrote enthusiastically about reviving a “little twig of a rosebush” that was struggling in our front yard (Never Give Up). It had responded to my attention by producing two small, yellow blossoms. I couldn’t wait to see what heights it might reach the next season.

Alas, the little twig remained a little twig throughout this past spring. It greened up when the weather warmed, but that’s all it managed to do. It didn’t sprout new growth. It didn’t create new buds. It seemed to simply be baking in the direct Nevada sun.

I don’t easily give up on roses, and I didn’t give up on this one. Carefully, I dug it up, potted it in premium soil mix, and carried it around back to my Secret Garden. Beneath the arching vines of a Lady Banks rose, I found a shady spot for it to regenerate. If magic could happen anywhere, I thought, it would be next to a statue of Little Red Riding Hood and a stepping stone stamped with the Frog Prince.

It took some time, but the magic happened. The little twig grew into a miniature version of the bush I know it aspires to be. Then, just as summer began to wane, it produced a bud.

I debated at length whether to get it back in the ground before the weather turned. Ultimately, I decided to let it winter in our guest room. There, it basks in the morning sun that streams through the east-facing window. It continues to sprout new foliage, and I’m anxiously waiting to see whether the sole bud will finally open.

As I light-heartedly wrote a year ago this month, the saga of my little yellow rosebush reminds me of the “never give up, never surrender” tagline of the cheesy Captain Jason Nesmith in the space spoof Galaxy Quest. It still does, but the passage of time has led me to another, deeper conclusion.

That little rosebush seems to know something most of us aren’t so sure of – its reason for being here. The purpose of its life. Its destiny. To produce a flower – a short-lived thing of beauty in the span of humanity but a source of joy for those lucky enough to behold it. A source of nourishment for the bees and butterflies that seek its nectar. A source of life carried on the wings of those amazing pollinators.

Am I saying that my rosebush is a sentient being capable of understanding its purpose on an intellectual level? Not necessarily but, if so, then it’s more advanced than we humans. Our intellect actually seems to get in the way of understanding our purpose. I’d like to suggest that maybe it’s not as complicated as we think.

What if our purpose, metaphorically speaking, is the same as the rose? What if we are simply here to create beauty, spread joy, and nourish each other’s minds, bodies and hearts in all the ways we need nourishment? What if our purpose is to send a life-affirming legacy into the future on the wings of the next, amazing generation?

And what if we never, for one minute, gave up our quest to fulfill that purpose?

The Joy of Pruning

Roses take care of themselves.

That’s what I used to tell people who admired my garden. After growing these classic flowers for 17 years, I’ve stopped saying it.

As it turns out, roses do need a helping hand to reach and maintain their full, beautiful potential.

Years ago in Portland, I watched our next-door neighbor prune his roses to the crown every fall. Every spring they came back with vigor. Perhaps I should have taken the hint but, when I began to grow roses myself, I didn’t want to start over every year. I wanted my roses to grow tall and lush and fill our backyard with color and fragrance. To that end, I shunned heavy pruning in favor of trimming off dead wood.

My approach seemingly worked just fine … until now.

This year I noticed that some of my biggest bushes generated very few blooms. Most notably, my Peace rose managed only half a dozen flowers. Its descendant, Love and Peace, struggled to produce two.

When I went hunting for reasons, neglect turned up as the likely culprit. I’ve always known that roses need air circulation. That’s why there’s plenty of room around mine. What I missed was the need for air circulation inside them.

So this week I’ve been pruning with newfound passion. I looked for old wood and for canes rubbing against each other. I created space inside the bushes by trimming in a vase shape as experts recommend. In some cases, I also pruned for height. I ended up with a truckload of debris and a joyful heart.

I won’t see the end result of my effort until next spring, but I’m confident I did the right thing. I’m sure of this not only because of the research I’ve done about roses, but because of all the relatable experiences that crossed my mind while pruning.

In every aspect of life, allowing things to get out of control brings adverse consequences. Some variation on pruning is almost always the first, most logical response.

Suppose you accumulate too much debt? Something has to give in order to pay it off. Most people go straight to their budget and start cutting discretionary expenses.

Suppose you’ve accumulated so many things that your home has become a cluttered mess? When you tire of it, you’ll likely go through the house sorting things into keep, sell, throw-away, and give-away piles.

Pruning is a must in large-scale problems, too. Plastic languishing in landfills? Reject plastic bags and take reusable ones to the grocery store. Man-made carbon upsetting the balance of nature? Reduce the emissions from fossil fuels.

Virtually everything we do in the garden and in life requires us to build and prune, rebuild and prune again. What I’ve learned this summer is that we shouldn’t be afraid to do it … and do it with the joy that comes in knowing you’re doing the right thing.

(Check with your local nursery or chapter of the American Rose Society to learn about recommended pruning times in your planting zone. Heavy fall pruning is not standard in most areas where freezing winter temperatures are common. In fact, it is not typically recommended where I live, but this year I felt the benefits outweighed the risks in my garden.)

Bloom Even If No One Is Watching

In the spring when I walk through my rose garden, I often feel overwhelmed with the abundance of blooms and explosion of color. I raise my arms in joyful awe while uttering delighted oohs and aahs that must make my neighbors wonder what’s happening on the other side of the fence.

This time of year the experience is much more placid.

The bushes are drifting off to sleep. The smattering of late buds tease me as they take their sweet time to open. I watch them daily like a mother bird waiting for eggs to hatch. Typically, I know where each and every one is incubating, and I’m poised to greet them when they burst into breathtaking splendor.

Despite my tender devotion, twice in the last week I walked right past hidden jewels.

On Monday, I was taking a second lap around the garden when a bright splash of red deep in a Sedona bush caught my eye. Two days later, as I was evaluating my George Burns for fall pruning, a white and red blossom tucked into the canes near the crown surprised me. In both cases, I whispered sweet nothings to the flowers and stroked the soft petals as though they might be the last I would touch in my lifetime.

If I had never seen them at all, it would have been a shame. But, I realized, only a shame for me. The roses may have basked in the shower of my adoration, but they quite obviously didn’t need it to bloom. They did exactly what they were born to do, and did it remarkably well, without so much as a glance from the gardener.

I wondered. Do I have as much humility? Would I spend time writing a blog and a full-length novel, growing flowers and taking pictures of them, if I didn’t expect someone to appreciate the result? Is it all about attention and approval? Or, as some say, is it really the journey that matters?

After deep reflection, I’m convinced it’s about the journey.

Don’t get me wrong. I love a good pat on the back as much as the next guy or gal. I feel fulfilled when someone is moved by something I’ve written. The point is, though, I wouldn’t stop doing what I do if no one was looking.

In the hierarchy of life’s hallowed purposes, embracing our unique gifts is second only to sharing love. In fact, in its own way, exercising our gifts is an expression of love. Love for the source of the gifts – whatever you believe that source happens to be – and love for the singular soul you are.

Every word I write, rose I nurture, and picture I take contributes to my growth as an individual. I understand myself better, have more insight about the reason I’m here, and feel more at peace. With all that as the reward, I would truly be content to bloom unseen for the remainder of my days. In so doing, if I touch someone’s heart, all the better.

Thanks so much for reading.

Trust the Gardener

“My roses seemed oblivious to the drama.”

I made that observation in my last post (Keep Calm and Carry On) while describing my unfortunate encounter with fungi in the garden this summer.

Today, while continuing my work to treat the problem, I also continued to wonder why the roses were blooming so beautifully despite the attack by an enemy I’ve nicknamed unscrupulous slime balls. Unbidden, the words …

Trust the Gardener

… suddenly floated across my thoughts as if the whispering voice from Field of Dreams dropped in from Iowa. Just like the astonished Kevin Costner character, I spent the rest of my morning trying to figure out what exactly the voice meant.

Are my roses blooming because they trust me to worry about and address the nasty organisms assaulting their foliage? If so, I’d like to think they’ve put their trust in the right person. I love each and every one of those bushes in equal measure and would do just about anything to help them thrive.

But then, I thought, what if the voice was not answering my question about the roses but talking to me? Advising me?

I was raised in a Christian household, although I can’t say we consistently attended church or knew a whole lot about what’s in the Bible. I wouldn’t call our family religious then. And I’m not religious now.

What I am is someone who passionately believes in a higher power. Whether it’s the universe, the collective unconscious, the force, or the Good Lord Himself, there is a sacred, spiritual energy that connects everything. Love and goodwill run through it like currents in a river, and it grows stronger when we link into it through prayers and positive thoughts. I have faith that it’s there because I feel it.

Maybe the voice among the roses this morning was reminding me to trust this higher power that I so strongly believe in. Trust that I’m not alone in my struggle with the fungi … or in any of the struggles in my life … or even in coping with “the overwhelming level of ugliness that exists in our world today” (as I wrote in my last post).

Interestingly enough, for someone who doesn’t know a whole lot about the Bible, one verse I do know is this: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the Gardener” (John 15:1). I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it came to mind this morning not long after the voice whispered in my ear.

There really is a great deal of comfort in knowing that someone’s got your back. Metaphorically speaking, I’ve got my roses’ backs. Spiritually speaking, the Gardener has my back … and yours.

Trust the Gardener

Keep Calm and Carry On

Powdery mildew. Black spot. Rust. These are not conditions a rose enthusiast wants to see in the garden. They’re all forms of fungal disease and, unfortunately, my roses were hit this year.

I’d like to say that the first thing I did after discovering there was a problem was to identify the source and fix it. You know what they say about any kind of hole you want to crawl out of. Stop digging, for crying out loud.

Alas, my first reaction was to literally cry out loud.

When I collected myself and did my due diligence, I realized we needed to reprogram the entire drip system. The roses were getting watered in the early evening along with everything else on the property that likes a little drink before bedtime. Roses prefer their brandy in the morning, thank you very much. It turns out, evening binges leave them with a nasty hangover and vulnerable to any sleazy fungi loitering around looking for an opportunity to stake their claim.

Reprogramming the drip system probably sounds easy-peasy … if you’re high-tech savvy. When I was a kid, adjusting the water meant moving a sprinkler from one side of the lawn to the other. Now it means entering numbers into something that looks like a bomb detonator. You have to know what sequence affects which drippers and whether to include said sequence in Program A, B or C. One mistake can foul up the whole thing.

For a 65-year-old who’s still trying to figure out how to stop text alerts after 9 p.m., the prospect of reprogramming the drip was paralyzing. Here’s where I pause and extend a thousand thank yous to my husband who did battle with the blasted thing for me … twice!

Arresting the source of the problem was only the first step, of course. Then I had to play surgeon and remove the diseased foliage. Next I tapped into my inner fireman and sprayed the bushes with some healing mist (an organic brand that promises not to kill bees or animals or humans along with the sleazy fungi).

All the while this was happening, I couldn’t help but notice that my roses seemed oblivious to the drama. They calmly continued to produce new foliage, grow new buds, and take my breath away with spectacular blooms. They continued to live their beautiful life despite the ugliness that threatened them. It was like they inherently knew what we humans must see repeatedly in memes and on coffee mugs, posters, and t-shirts before we realize the genuine wisdom embedded in it.

Keep calm and carry on.

It might seem impossible to live a beautiful life with the overwhelming level of ugliness that exists in our world today. I don’t need to waste space here to list the maladies. You know them by heart.

The question is, can we also teach our hearts to memorize the goodness that surrounds us? Can we still grow, learn, and bloom despite the drama? Can we spend every day spraying our personal healing mist on those around us to make their world just a little more beautiful?

I’d like to think we can.

Run for the Roses

While browsing around my garden last week, I was surprised that the roses most anxious for spring are two that were not bred for the Northern Nevada climate.

Run for the RosesMy 2016 Portland Rose Festival Parade Roses, started in an Oregon nursery and transported here on faith, are greening up in eager anticipation of the blooming season. Even better, ruby shoots of new growth are forming on the emerald canes.

Like a prize stallion in a run for the roses, I expect that the rich, pink buds of these transplants will burst out of the starting gate before most of my other bushes have saddled up for the race. In fact, I’d bet my last dollar on that.

The value of going first, of not being afraid to bloom while others watch and wait, is a notion that actually occurred to me last summer. On bushes that produce roses in bouquet style, I noticed that typically one bud will explode in a flash of brilliant color while those around it seem to creep toward maturity. It’s as though the one is leading the way saying, “Come on, everybody. If I can do it, so can you.”

Greta Thunberg is like that.

If you don’t know the name, let me introduce you. She’s the 16-year-old Swedish girl who was recently nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for her fearless and determined effort to raise awareness about climate change. Correction. Her effort to get adults to do something about climate change.

Go FirstLast August, when she first began school walkouts and protests in front of the Swedish parliament, she was a lone figure. Now around 70,000 youth in 400 cities regularly walk out of school on Fridays to demonstrate their concern. And get this. Last week more than 1.5 million kids in 125 countries participated in a worldwide climate strike.

It’s worth mentioning that Greta has inspired this impressive youth movement even with the challenge of Asperger’s Syndrome. It’s on the Autism spectrum, and one of the characteristics is difficulty with social interaction. For one thing, someone with Asperger’s may continue a conversation past socially acceptable norms because they don’t notice the social cues that signal most of us to shut up.

Let that sink in.

Is it strange that a 65-year-old woman who grows roses in Nevada is in absolute awe of a 16-year-old who has captured global attention?

Most of us will never achieve a fraction of Greta’s influence. But we can learn something from her and from my Oregon roses growing in the Nevada desert. They aren’t afraid to go first. And we shouldn’t be either.

Are you holding back on something? Is there a dream that you’ll “someday” pursue or a movement you’ll “someday” support? Are you waiting for someone else to test the waters?

Don’t wait anymore. Jump in. Go first. Bloom first. Or as Dan Fogelberg sang in 1982, Run for the Roses.

“It’s the chance of a lifetime in a lifetime of chance, and it’s high time you joined in the dance.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdDwm3QIwfg

Show Up

When Katie, my happy-go-lucky Springer Spaniel, was alive, she and I took a walk around all the paths in our back yard every evening weather permitting. I didn’t always want to go. She consistently persuaded me with her gleeful anticipation.

Katie - Springer SpanielShe’s been gone more than two years, but I can still picture her out there among the roses and the aspens. What a girl. She was never more content than when she was by my side, and she never tired of poking her nose in familiar bushes in the hope of discovering something new.

Her “cute dog trick” (as my mother called it) was to sniff out mysterious creatures in the sandy soil, stare at them motionless like a hunting spaniel that had spied a pheasant, and then pounce. She’d wiggle her butt and her little stump of a tail, spin joyously in circles, and then do it all over again.

We never actually saw what she was chasing, but we decided to nickname them graboids after the colossal sandworms in the campy movie Tremors. She didn’t catch a single one, but she made it her lifelong mission to try.

Katie Hunting GraboidsWith tears in our eyes, this was the last story we shared with our veterinarian as Katie drifted off to her final sleep at the ripe old age of 14. I like to think she’s merrily hunting graboids in heavenly rows of flowers and fruit trees, waiting for me to finally show up.

I still like to stroll around the yard weather permitting. Sure, I’m out there almost daily from spring to fall weeding, pruning, deadheading, and fertilizing. It’s not the same, though, as just enjoying the space.

Sometimes I simply soak up the beauty of the roses I so carefully tend. I take pictures by the thousands and sit on my stone “count your blessings” bench doing exactly that.

Sometimes I see miracles. Once while approaching our ornamental pear tree, I looked up just in time to see a mother hummingbird feed her fledging offspring by sliding her long beak down the little bird’s throat. I stopped dead in my tracks and watched in awe.

I’d like to think I appreciate everything in life as much as I appreciate my garden. I’m not perfect, but I do try. Especially as I’ve grown older, and life has naturally grown shorter, the value of walking in constant gratitude has come into sharper focus.

It’s not just about rare moments like seeing the Northern Lights or your daughter in a wedding gown. It’s the everyday gifts – the majesty of a fiery sunset, a song that unexpectedly touches your heart, the last poignant lines of a soulful book, your goofy dog romping in the snow.

Maybe the best thing we can do is live every day like we’re hunting graboids. It doesn’t matter if the prize is something no one else can see, or that we may never actually catch it. We can still delight in the chase. We just have to show up.

Katie in Snow

Ships Were Not Built for Safe Harbors

Years ago, when I moved into a house that already had a handful of rose bushes in the front yard, I knew next to nothing about caring for them.

Three by the porch were so overgrown that, if not for the colors of their blooms, might have been mistaken for one bush. They were wedged into a tiny flower bed against the garage wall and were beginning to creep over the front path.

By the time spring advanced to summer, the creeping had become invading, and the canes were as unruly as morning hair. It was time to do something.

I had a limited array of garden tools at that point. A couple of trowels perhaps. Definitely no pruning shears. I did have an electric hedge trimmer that had come in handy at my last home where the front yard was ringed entirely with dense, woody shrubs. I plugged it in and started to work.

Now that I understand roses a bit more, I’m haunted by that day. The scream of the trimmer, the flying bits of cane, the flittering pink, white and red petals. The memory is like a blood bath in a horror flick.

I suppose the trimmer would have been acceptable if the bushes had been hedge roses planted for the specific purpose of creating a sculpted border. These were climbers, and they deserved better.

If the roses felt battered or betrayed, they never showed it. They quickly bounced back from the massacre and flourished. Thankfully, by the next year I was more educated and had the right tools. I apologized to the bushes season after season with by-the-book deadheading (angled cut above the first five-leaf set) and carefully pruning them so they would grow upward instead of sideways.

When I moved again several years later and decided to grow a rose garden from scratch, I had enough practice that I wasn’t afraid of the challenge. I had learned that roses are hardy enough to rebound from almost any amateur blunder.

It seems it should be easy to transfer that insight to other aspects of life – to venture forth into unchartered territory unafraid of making mistakes because, well, mistakes are rarely fatal. Instead, most of the time they are the stuff of wisdom and growth.

This is as true as any truism in the annals of human history. Why else would generations of poets, songwriters, and authors repeatedly shower us with reminders about the value of sailing boldly out of safe harbors and taking roads less traveled?

And since they’ve said it so often and so well, why do we still need reminders?

I don’t have a one-size-fits-all answer to that. As for me, I look in the mirror and ponder my inner fears practically every day. It’s no surprise that the woman looking back rarely utters a helpful word. When she does, she smiles a knowing little smile and simply asks, “Do you remember the day you took a hedge trimmer to those roses?”

Ships Were Not Built for Safe Harbors

(With headline credit to John A. Shedd, Salt from My Attic, 1928, A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.)

Playing the Odds

If you’re a gardener, you probably know where you live on the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map.

In the high desert of Northern Nevada, I’m in Zone 7a where the mercury can reach as low as zero in the winter.

Knowing your zone is a little like knowing your banking password. It unlocks valuable information about the plants and trees you should choose if you want your garden to survive the coolest season.

It’s also a little like gambling. You’re playing the odds.

You see, the designers of the zone map understand that not every winter follows the norm and not every plant responds to the elements in the same way. They hedge their bets by saying their designations can steer you toward plants that are “most likely to thrive” in your zone.

Even with that disclaimer, I’m quite fond of the zone map. Without it, I might actually have given in to my fascination with Hawaii and tried to grow my favorite island flowers in the desert. Maybe I could be successful with hibiscus since there is a hardy variety in addition to the tropical. However, the fragrant petals of the delicate plumeria would surely perish, as would the glossy anthurium (whose name falls woefully short of its exotic beauty).

Yes, the zone map is why our yard is as attractive as it is. Desert-friendly honeysuckle, moonlight broom, wisteria, forsythia, and roses are as close to a guaranteed jackpot as one can get around here.

Unfortunately, as the zone map gurus have said, there are no solid guarantees in the garden. Or in life. Every day, it seems, we’re faced with choices that force us to play the odds. With some, if you choose the wrong path you can try again. With others, you get only one roll of the dice.

Take my effort to keep breast cancer at bay.

I was diagnosed with Stage 1B invasive ductal carcinoma in September 2017. My doctors promptly armed me with the cancer version of a zone map. Based on the law of averages, I needed a mastectomy or a lumpectomy followed by radiation therapy, and five years of a hormone suppressant.

Not quite satisfied, I took their zone map and piled on everything I could dig up about the latest trends in breast cancer treatment. Some of it supported the standard protocol. Some of it didn’t. In the end, I unlocked enough information to accept my doctors’ advice on an à la carte basis. I had the lumpectomy, refused the radiation, and started taking the hormone suppressant.

So far, the odds are working in my favor – more than a year with no recurrence. I know it’s too early to call “Jackpot.” Five years is the standard milestone for celebration. Let’s say I’ve managed to spin three cherries, and the machine paid out enough for me to keep playing for a while.

What the heck. I’m feeling lucky. Maybe it’s finally time to take a chance on that hardy hibiscus.