The Way Things Grow - Plants and Paintings

The sky is cloudy, the air is damp, and perhaps smoky from the Oregon fires. This is no time to be painting. At 10 A.M., I am outside on the deck with my Bialetti Moka pot of Ruta Maya coffee, just listening and watching. The birds' conversations are ongoing as always, but today, a first. The hummingbird is collecting nectar from the arugula that I let bolt. Arugula (aka rocket) has a beautiful flower stalk and I do like stalky flowers. From now on, I'll enjoy arugula as much for the flowers and hummingbirds as for the salad greens.

Close by, the lavender has been in bloom for a couple of weeks and hosts innumerable bumblebees, each solitary one doing the work that the lavender has invited it to do. The chipmunk is all over the place with cheeks stuffed full of whatever looks tempting. I find strawberries half-eaten in the oddest places.

A catalog: goldfinches, jays, common yellowthroat, vireo, robins, catbird. Nasturtium, calendula, marigold, cilantro, parsley, basil. Rosemary, geraniums, bush beans, romaine. A rain garden with little water and no frogs this time of year. Can I still call it a rain garden? For a moment, the hummingbird returns, going to the orange jewelweed that's just coming into bloom. And I almost forgot, quinacridone red oriental poppies and white rugosa roses, carmine daylilies and chrome yellow St John's wort. Of these four, I planted only two. The other two showed up of their own accord, against a tapestry of greens: sweet fern, sensitive fern, wild mint, bulrushes, and an unidentified grass with feathery russet seed stalks that spill over the gravel.

This is how I like to garden, adding my few contributions to the rich mix that nature prescribes, shaping the whole here and there according to my own aesthetic, always mindful of the needs of the creatures living with me.