Chocolate and Wine and Romance for Valentine's Day

Well, it's Valentine's Day once again, and I'm here to offer a gardener's point of view on what makes for a happy sweetheart. In a word (or three): chocolate, wine, and plants= romance for a gardener! 

I'm a big fan of good quality dark chocolate (Hershey's waxy crap need not apply) but I'm also very fond of chocolate flowers and foliage in the garden, so for your viewing pleasure I offer some delightful, and very low-calorie, chocolate plants. 

Among my favourite perennials are foxgloves, and Digitalis parviflora 'Milk Chocolate' is a definite star. The flower spikes and individual florets are nowhere near the size of the standard species, but they're such a lovely unique colour. Last year, my plants began seeding themselves a little bit, and I've promised one plant to my friend Alice, so as to share the love around.

Bloomin' weather, bloomin' weeds, bloomin' ickies and blooming writer

Today is Sunday, 5 July. Belated but heartfelt Happy Canada Day to my compatriots; hope everyone had an awesome Canada Day with lots of "true patriot love..." and lots of red and white!



and belated but equally heartfelt Happy Fourth of July to my American neighbours. (My Red, White and Blue tribute follows...)



Assorted bouquets, hugs and apologies to regular readers and to my fellow bloggers who I usually visit faithfully. I've been amongst the blogging/gardening missing again.



I'll blame it on the weather, shall I? We've had something like seventeen days in a row of wet, dreary weather, with fog, rain, drizzle, etc etc making an appearance for at least part of every day, according to my longsuffering spouse, who notices these things. But frankly, I haven't been noticing a whole lot of anything, since I've been fighting illness again.



Regardless of what's going on with health and weather and other matters of the universe, of course the gardens sail on without me, and are approaching jungle-like qualities again. The sun has been out intermittently today, and the humidity has been broken, though I haven't been outside the house yet to test this for myself. Watching from my bedroom window, I've seen the sun gleefully illuminate the overgrown grass, the far too exuberant growth of plants both welcome and otherwise (goutweed, I'm looking at YOU...). I keep reminding myself that things happen for a reason, and that invariably they also work themselves out. So I'm gonna focus on the flowers and the foliage, and not so much the weeds, other than to laugh at them.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it. I'll catch up with everyone when I can, and hopefully feel up to finishing some posts that have been partly done for several weeks but never been completed and posted because I've felt too icky to get A Round Tuit. Fortunately, posts don't get couchgrass or goutweed in them when neglected...

Joy Across the World

It’s Tuesday, 20th January, 2009. Inauguration day in the United States of America. The country next door—our best friend and closest neighbour—is celebrating en masse. And so are we, and people in countless other cities, towns, communities, in countries across the world.

President-elect Barack Obama—he’s still about 30 minutes from taking the oath of office as I write this—is a human being. He can’t fix everything wrong in the US, in the world, over night. He knows this. Most of us know this. But he embodies a hope that has been long missing for many of us, of all races, of all nations.

I’m a bit of a political junkie, although I keep most of my political thoughts to myself in most regards. It’s no secret that I despise our current Prime Minister, but he also is just a human being, doing what he does. However, as a Canadian and a citizen of the world I’ve been pulling for Barack Obama for well over a year, and I’m so happy and excited and proud of our US neighbours right now. What I like about this man is that he doesn’t do ad hominem attacks on opponents. He has been respectful of the 43rd president, and kind and respectful to his former opponent in the presidential race. In his dignity and respectfulness, his intelligence and kindness, he represents a spirit that we know is at the root of most humans, but that sometimes gets suppressed as we get caught in the rat race, in stress and worry and fears and concerns.

It’s kind of fun to watch three different stations (BBC, CNN and MSNBC) all roughly at the same time as well as scanning various sites and blogs on the Interwebs. Keith Olbermann just called this “a cold but hopeful morning” in Washington, and so it is across the US, across Canada too. I love Obama’s spirit of non-partisanship, his reaching out across party lines. I hope that continues through his presidency, and that those who are his opponents in doctrine continue to also reach out and work together in common concern for their country, and for the world.

There are touchstones of time that we can remember across the years. We know, those of us who are old enough to remember such instances in history, where we were when John F. Kennedy was sworn in. When he was taken too early from all of us. When Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I have a dream” speech. When Elvis died. When the Million Man March happened. When 9/11 happened. Some happy stories, some terribly, terribly sad stories.

We will remember where we were when the networks called it for Obama, and we will remember where we were today, when he is sworn in as the 44th president of the United States. I’ll be sitting here, laughing and crying at the same time, as I was the night he won.

May God—whoever or whatever you conceive that to be—bless Barack Obama, his family, his government, and his country.
And because this is normally a gardening blog…a patriotic bouquet for all my US friends.