Wednesday, May 2, 2012

INSIDE: BOTTOM DOOR

FLOW'ER, n. s.. [fleur, French;  flos, flores, Latin.]
1. The part of the plant that contains the seeds.
If the blossom of the plant be of the most importance, we call it a flower; such are daisies, tulips and carnations.
Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)



The drawing on the inside of the bottom door of the Herbarium honors flowers.  It echoes the feeling of the drawing of vegetables above it, but instead of punctuating the composition with pop art dots there is a shower of white petals from an apple tree drifting down. Another echo is the dark central feature.  This time it is a solitary black/purple parrot tulip. 
This year the weather was mystifying.   Early spring flowers began to bloom during a very warm March and continued to bloom for an extended period when the weather cooled off just enough to maintain them.  New plants kept blossoming while the early ones remained.  It is the first year I can remember the forsythia and the dogwood blooming together.   The world has been a fairyland of pink and white and yellow.
It may be beauty with a price as there is talk of no buds on the grape vines in the western part of the state.  The cherry crop always seems to be on the edge of disaster so that would be nothing too new.  I have not seen many pollinators out there doing their work. On the other hand, Larry, the egg man at the Eastern Market, says there was not a deep enough freeze this year to kill many of the harmful insects sleeping in the soil.
Who knows at this point whether my drawing, which has no respect for seasons, might turn out to be a bouquet that could actually be picked in one day? Everything pictured is from last year's garden which bloomed in a more normal progression.  

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