All posts by Elsa Johnson

Origami — Why Did She Do It?

Uncategorized

by Elsa Johnson

Origami – in a snit of pique – swept

the table clean of the red and clear

yellow she had been working on –

nothing was right – and they drifted

down to the white below.

Or…   Work complete

she lay aside the scissors

and cleared the table off.

The leavings drifted

to the white below.

Or…   Cupboard so full

that she must edit – only

the best remain.  The rest

drift    to white below.

Perhaps   benevolent

she chose to share…

and they drifted down

to the white below.

Or – mistress of her craft – Origami

gold with joy   clothed in her best

white dress   fills her arms with

glowing red and yellow    spinning

throws them…     Slowly swirling

they drift down

to the white

below.     

The Peril of Plant-Lust

PRACTICE

“You Will Regret It.” I have said that at times to my more willful landscape clients – and even on occasion to myself — when they or I have succumbed to an ill-advised plant-lust. Live and learn, with the emphasis on the latter.

We have written in Gardenopolis about akebia, the vine that’s willing to take over the world of your back yard and your neighbor’s too; …and we have also heard a rebuttal argument that through the practice — the firm hand — of good husbandry, akebia can be made to behave appropriately and thus be enjoyed. Good husbandry in this context means being a responsible gardener, which means understanding any potential negative long term consequences of planting specific invasive plants, and either undertaking the maintenance needed to contain them, as with akebia, or deciding that perhaps it would be better not to plant it at all: after all, you may control your akebia, but should you move, will the next owner of your house? 

Some other plants that also fall into this category are most barberries, multiflora rose, and many non-native honeysuckles (lonicera). The problem with these plants is that their fruits are eaten by birds, the seeds are ingested, and then released elsewhere, perhaps miles away. So, for example, barberry can now be found deep in the pristine woodlands of Holden Arboretum, or closer to home, in our secret jewel, Forest Hill Park, where multiflora rose has volunteered itself, as well as the barberry. When I go to visit my son in Connecticut I sometimes walk a power-line nature trail near his house that is completely overrun with multiflora rose. No one planted them.

In some states the nursery trade is discouraged from stocking certain barberry, while a few other barberries, such as ‘Crimson Pigmy’ or ‘Helmond Pillar’ are allowed as they are considered less invasive.  I have a ‘Helmond Pillar’ in my own yard and I watch it closely. This year it is loaded with berries (most years berries are sparse). My own theory for why it may not be invasive is that because of its very tight, upright growth habit birds just don’t use it; I never see birds landing on or roosting in this plant.

Helmond Pillar

For years I had an ordinary green barberry that grew right under a window. It came with the house when I bought it. I kept it for its deterrent value, but cut it back hard several times each year (well gauntleted). The birds loved this barberry and roosted in it all year, but especially in winter, with a nice layer of snow on top.  This year I ripped it out.  I will plant something else for the birds– maybe next week. I’d like to get something in before the snow flies; my cats like to sit on a cushion in the window and watch the birds. Since they are indoor cats I allow them this indulgence.

More on other invasive plants another time.

CMA Garden Exhibit Review: Did He Really Paint in the Garden in His Summer Whites?

BEAUTY, GENERAL INTEREST

by Elsa Johnson

10_Louis_Comfort_Tiffany

Wednesday I went back to the garden exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art for the third time. I like just wandering through, letting my eyes pull me to what attracts them….and every time it is when I come to the ‘international’ second half of the show, that the picture of Louis Comfort Tiffany by Joaquin Sorolla, reaches out, grabs me, and stops me in my tracks. There Louis Comfort Tiffany sits, handsome,  posed in front of his easel, brush in hand, reaching out in the act of touching paint to canvas, in his summer whites, surrounded by symphonies of flowers, a glimpse of the Long Island shore and a bit of blue sea or sound over his right shoulder. 

Wait. Back up. Did I say summer whites? I did.

These are not just any summer whites (did he really paint in his summer whites?) … no – these are dazzling summer whites, vibrating summer whites, summer whites made up of deft touches of many colors — never too much; always just enough – an intricate game of using dabs of color in folds and shadows to make what is hit by sunlight highlighted, heightened, and even brighter, making this sun drenched 1911 portrait of Tiffany so much more than just a portrait. Despite all the flowers surrounding him and Tiffany’s own pleasant face, it is the subtle unsubtle suit that keeps drawing one’s eyes back. 

Both Sorolla and Tiffany were immensely talented and hard-working and both achieved great success. One feels – or imagines – that between the artist Sorolla and his subject, Tiffany,  also an artist, that there is an ongoing conversation comprised of an intimacy of understanding the job, and shared humor at the joke (surely they didn’t paint in their summer whites). As we look at the painting, we are standing where Sorolla stood. That vibratingly white, light obsessed suit is the medium of discourse.

There are two other paintings by Sorolla on either side of the Louis Comfort Tiffany picture. Both, pictures of Sorolla’s home in Spain, are also light-filled, but it is a softer light, more diffused, luminous and shimmery, and the handling of the paint and thus the effect so different from Monet’s more visceral application — and this exhibit is really, when all is said and done, about Monet. But, still, it can be very nice to stray from the main course.

Should you find yourself as the result of the exhibit — or this small tidbit — interested in the Spanish artist Joaquin Sorolla, you can go to www.joaquin-sorolla-y-bastida where you will find a biography and a file of more than 300 images of this very prolific artist’s work. (I mean, really – would you paint in your summer whites?)   

Seethe

BEAUTY, POETRY

by Elsa Johnson

 

rushing-water

Not susurration   this present wind   That would

be a softer stirring  …the trees’ leaves tendering

whispers of intimate rubbings – touch – green leaf

to green leaf    in quiet communication …but

this wind is a boil  …seethe of leaves whipped — 

funneled to furious    yet not destructive : a

life-full sound and so  …sustaining    Eyes closed   

this seethe could be sound of a strong tide

running on a blind night… sea swirled and churned

to froth and foam    spume and fume also wind

driven    The moment? – immersive :  sight nothing   

sound everything   Solace…  when time stops

(or seems to) …eyes closed   ears open   hear

this roaring sibilance born   not of rage

Poem: The Buck

POETRY

 by Elsa Johnson

The buck

Came trotting up my sidewalk

fast

nose to the ground

nostrils        wuffling

swerved

just before the porch steps

– at the top of which

I was standing –

glanced up

and back down

fast

as if to say:

   ‘Human

   at this moment

   you are not remotely

   important to my life’

and hustled on

too obsessed

to be flag-ish 

One track mind

ten point sex

drive

The nose knows

what counts

On the Day of the Dead

POETRY

by Elsa Johnson

My mother will unpack herself from her box of

ashes   move to a comfortable chair   look at me

critically   and say : You’re wearing that?  And maybe

this time I will have the will to not run and change

my clothes   My father will reassemble himself from

the soil under the lemon tree in Arizona   come

north for the day    sit at the table drooped scowling

over his cigarette like a crow or Ichibod Crane   

while my brother who brought him mutters  humph

humph at all he disapproves of on principle 

which is everything —  my house   my head   my heart

Toward the end my dead lover will come   line them up

and dance them all back to dust…   while I smile and wave 

Crying :  Goodbye!  Goodbye again…    Same time next year?

 

Notching the Wheel

POETRY

by Elsa Johnson

There goes another notch on the wheel  :  goldfinch

changing his summer garb to drab sparrow guise –

the way the missus goes all year  —   only a hint

of yellow leaking through as he barbers sunflowers

And now comes actea round again   she of many

names —  cohosh   bugbane   cimicifuga  :  Fairy

candles    that open their small white asterisks

and cast out their honey-scent to draw in late

bumbling bees    The trees are breaking their too-

green-too-chemical bonds    Origami is at

her drawing board in the attic lost in dreams of

color:  crimson   vermillion   and coral lake   In

the wings   dragon quietly fans his icy breath

listening for the next notch of the wheel

Garden Sloth: Fall Clean-Up…Or Not

Uncategorized

by Elsa Johnson

IMG_2556 Most of us were brought up to think good gardening means a yard that is all cleaned up and neat-as-a-pin. To this end we blow all the leaves out of our gardens and remove every bit of organic debris – the leaves, the floppy stalks, the gone-to-seed-heads of various grasses and flowers.  We take all of this organic material and get rid of it, or hire someone to get rid of it. As if the aural assault of leaf blowers all summer has not been enough, in fall it ratchets up even more. How do we stand it?

The answer is : we don’t have to. We should be keeping all that good but messy stuff on site. To pay someone to cart it away is like giving away gold (on several levels).  What??? ! …You say.

Yes — a messy garden is a good garden for lots of reasons.  You don’t see mother-nature out there with a leaf blower (well, yes, there’s the wind). The leaves fall, the other vegetative debris topples onto them, and over time this material decays, adding stored nutrients and organic bio-mass back to the earth. This is how you grow soil that doesn’t need annual applications of manufactured chemical ferilizers to help plants to grow.

Part one is: it helps to have an area where you can stockpile vegetative debris, preferably somewhere out of sight.  Ideally this is a compost pile where you put your other vegetative organic wastes.  Part two is you can bed down some of your plants for the winter under a blanket of leaves.  If you can shred the leaves, that’s even better; they will break down faster. Some lawn mowers can do this. Leaf mulch under shrubs can be left on all year-round.

And if you leave some seed heads on at least some intact perennials, the beneficial birds and insects will thank you (dropping a tiny note through the mail slot) … the birds for leaving a food source, and the beneficial insects for leaving a place to lay eggs and overwinter. But be careful to choose native plants for this purpose and avoid non-native or invasive plants.

If you must tidy up the garden, make it a part of the garden where neatness really matters to you (what will people say?!).  Be strong. Walk away.

First-To-Go

POETRY

by Elsa Johnson

In spring you can

eat her :           green honey

and white             dripping

from fingers    toes    even

skin       is        How sweet.

But now Gleditsia’s shedding

Her honeyed skins

drift                her hoards

of gold                        wash

through our streets.

Here comes             dragon

slonch-wise

scales a-chink              fire

in his eyes                    ice

on his breath:

Mine          he says         all

mine.            In a few weeks

selfish as death               he

will burn these trees

                                    clean.

Song to Fall

POETRY

by Elsa Johnson

Witness   the leaving –

the green

leaves the green leaf    

Attend

the edges

where filigree begins

Witness    the spread

of potlatch color on

leaves’ palms     

veins     blazing

the green

away.        

Calibrate    

the green receding.

Eclipse the crime : 

summer’s     

too green 

too chemical

bond.