Losing friends in the Pacific Northwest

Carved into my thoughts are the mounting losses of fine gardens and of even finer gardeners.
The "I remembers” of when ...my friend was bent over in the garden, stooping to observe his latest planting. He doesn't exist any more except as my memory of a slender man all too often dressed in gray. He grew older and became a grandpa, playing with his grandchildren. He also taught the neighborhood kids how to differentiate the many kinds of leaves and berries. Which were safe and which were not. It was a garden as rich in connections as in collections.

In his world of trees, we could all become hobbits and for his secluded garden, the city became a much friendlier place. Two gnarly hawthorns, their prickly thorns and gnarly bark much like him framed the garden and home. There was a hedge-like, prickly quality to him sometimes, yet the birds and children would always flock to him. His quiet prickliness making the garden a very private and special place. For all that "adult" private ness, his birdseed and hummingbird feeders would always be filled, and we children could watch the daily ballets the Anna's would make around the feeders or the fuchsia flowers.

As a botanist, he created many new plants. He loved Amaryllis, Nerines and Grevillea. One of his plants carpets a great many California homes. Like I, he never patented anything. He just shared what he loved. One section of the garden was always reserved for a collection of his most recent experiments and we kids always respected this private corner. All of us respect and value the concept of sanctuary, even if we don't have the words to define it.

The garden adjoined a greenbelt and it was his wish that this property be kept intact. For although it was three lots of more, he wanted it preserved as the acre it was. It was to be a "bird sanctuary" and a neighborhood-connecting place. As he aged he became more infirm and had a stroke. He began to fall down while walking in the garden. Friends would have to pick him up. His own children were dead, so he gave his power of attorney to his nephew.

And while in a rest home this nephew sold the property to a developer to be carved into lots. The Hawthorn's, and all the bulbs will all be buried beneath asphalt. Was the nephew just trying to pay for his care? I don't know? Did the Realtor and the Escrow company do anything wrong? Legally, no -- but morally yes. When informed of this sale it broke his heart. A few months ago I had to weed out the Mecanopsis cambrica as this Welsh Poppy would go to seed and choke out other plants. The dandelions went wild as in my garden. I removed the Welsh Poppy's.. . He looked at me very strangely when I told him of what I had done. Herb, you took all the light out of my garden -- all of the Yellow. Those Mecanopsis were here when I first bought this place fifty years. When I die, I had hoped they would be there for the next owner.

Is it more important to have housing for people, or a bird sanctuary? At the very least we could influence the builder not to kill all the trees, and retrieve as much as possible the hybridized plants so carefully tended for the last 50 years. He told me in the nursing home..."well there is really nothing really special on the land, just what was there and a few things I planted."

Are the neighbors fighting this proposed development? You bet they are. Things like this trigger powerful feelings of the heart and soul. Even if they lose and if that small greenhouse gets converted into a private home, in my memory that magical garden will still live on.
The gardens that we plant and nurture are a good reflection of the health and depth of our hearts and souls. Communities and cultures are also like gardens. Some are naturally better endowed, others are simply better planned and yet others shine more brightly because they began with less and had to struggle. All, however, need to be fought over in the most constructive sense of the word.

The earth beneath our feet is ever preserved by hard tiling and the investiture of sweat and labor towards later and greater rewards. The investment towards a remembrance that this garden and this land belongs to the children, forwarded on loan and then only if, we as stewards are, are concerned enough to pass it on in the same health and beauty as it has been lent to us.History provides the rich "wellspirit" from which the soul as well as the garden draws.

The flowing memories of past inhabitants and friends whose gifts are timeless legacies that can be drawn upon time and time again ... and in that sense the garden provides one with an immortality stretching out to future friends yet unknown who in their own 'circle's' turn will take wonder at all you've done.
For Noel, Verle, Dorothy and NUI who triggered the compilation of many different gardens -- all lost..

This is a "Thursday Child's" story of four wonderful horticulturists and that of a younger one, who still has far to go! I hope this article will teach all of us to strengthen our own heart lines and in that cultivation, learn to reach out and help others do the same. It is also a dedication to all the young hearts still beating strongly in an elder’s body. And a special thank you to the truest pollinators of this earth, those elders who take the time to propagate difficult cuttings and who help nurture us younger sprouts to root most firmly.

(c) 2003  Herb Senft

REMEMBRANCES-by Maggie-Skyline

I wonder if any gardening members have stories of amusing or unusual ways in which they have acquired plants. I would be delighted to know."

The following letter super cedes many of the following responses I have ever had, mine included.
This contribution came from another and her 50ish! "beginnings" began a short-lived magazine called Bindweed.

On just another normal day in came this bouncy thing full of life and happiness. She had just turned 50 and was celebrating it. We talked and exchanged thoughts and became instant friends. Stay in touch, said I as I was heading out to a favorite beach of mine. I would write a poem called Driftwood, about lost lovers and all that stuff.

Imagine my surprise when a few days later (no email then) she writes to me.

It was to become the beginning of Bindweed. I entitled it --

REMEMBRANCES of Maggie

"Well, I am a gardener by birth and avocation, a gardener both in the literal sense and in the figurative sense of sense of "seedsower." I come from a long line of green-thumbed individuals who, like me, spent more time caressing a blossom, talking to the plants, gazing in amazement and wonder than finding out the botanical name! There is a place for both, however. I will admit to that one of my treasures is a home movie taken of me with my paternal grandmother... I was about 2 years old (maybe younger) ... and she is holding me and walking through her rose garden ... bending close so that I could see and touch and smell the blossoms. Somehow, when I watch that silent film, from this distance and in this place which life and age have now placed me, I see my own spirit developing. A spiritual inheritance, a strong 'green' line was flowing from her to me. It flowed from her to my father, and even though my father and I had battles-royal, I feel his 'green' in me, a direct line (This is not to leave out my maternal grandmother ... Welsh, strict, proper, tough ... a lady ... who grew dahlias the size of dinner plates and roses fit for a queen ... or the dining- room table.

She could also ring the neck of a chicken in preparation for a proper Sunday dinner"

(c) Maggie Patterson

Fifteen years later I have not yet had any better description of how one fell into gardening.

It was a Seven Eagle Day

A friend of mine would often call me up when she had a “five star” day—a day in which many good things happen!

Cleaning up today I found an old journal of mine. It was nice to thaw out that old memory. I hope others will post their own “five star” days! Sometimes just reading or hearing about someone else's good vibrations will re-tune our own.

It was a Seven Eagle Day!

Omens of the air reminded me today of my reasons for living here, reasons I sometimes forget. My first steps out the door this morning put me under the wings of a hawk flying directly above. The air was clean and frosty. We have such wonderful air and I get to wake up to see snow frosted mountains looming above the tawny fields. My morning walk started a flurry of activity in the creek, ducks shooting upward to escape my approach and a blue heron doing a graceful pirouette as he aborted his landing.

Eleanor came to help on this lovely spring-like day and we were both blessed by the sight of Ravens in flock-like flight, some twenty-five or more flying south east, heading towards the Puget Sound. They wheeled and dove and talked as they flew overhead—of mysteries spoken and not understood unless it be of the heart. Eagles flew by next, seven in number. A most magical number. They soared on by and unlike the Ravens did not take note of the humans below.

This was my day today, bird feeders replenished and all manner of songs bursting forth. The Varied Thrush by the creek so noticeable in its song, and finches and chickadees supplying the smaller voices. Red-winged blackbirds being the chorus girls, the main attraction and always singing while I have my lunch.

March continues to approach on hesitant, frosty feet, but the days are noticeably longer the warming sun fuel to the soul. Everyone is more spring like. It was a day made all the more lovely by Eleanor and the visit of Janet and Sylvia who brought seeds to sow and pictures of New Zealand to share. Their rocks for the medicine wheel garden are now in place. (((1982))) Janet is by far my most enduring customer. I shared some of my latest writings with her. All sparked in no small measure by the recent conjunction/cupping of the crescent Moon, Venus in her bowl. This occurred on Feb. 24 and was definitely one of the most remarkable celestial couplings this man has ever seen. I hope your own letters written were filled as brightly as that brilliant night. As Mary Ann would say “It was a Seven Eagle day!”

I hope others, offer remembrances of their own special days!

For Deb.

© Herb Senft 1994

It was one of those days!

This is one of those pictures that was sent to me knowing that I am an Arborist.A warning?. Today I just checked out my chainsaw sharpening job at a place and ran into another guy. We reminisced about the gruesome fatalities we have known of. I will not go into them. Nothing like a meeting of two tree fallers in a chainsaw place.



In England there is an attempt to re-introduce this specie. It is being fought because of fishermen who fear the beaver will eat their fish. Even some of the experts have agreed. Utter stupidity of experts and why so much is miss-understood about animals. "Beavers will eat the fish." Bullocks.

They are opportunists and will eat dead fish, but they are not hunters of fish. Maybe, your European version (and where did they get the pups they introduced) are different than the N. American one.

Ours will eat whatever they can find in their habitat. This includes aspen, willow, alder, cottonwood and should an apple tree be nearby, that too might go.If they eat fish, it is usually dead fish found in the vicinity. I have never seen a beaver with a fishing pole, although I see a lot of two footed salmon killers.

Personally, I think we should Norplant (shoot with a birth control dart) all those fisher persons... not the beaver.

My introduction included favorite music groups.

Since I view myself as part Canadian, though no one as yet has cross-border adopted me yet.

Two Canadians on another gardener blog were promising hopefuls; but the weather in their provinces stopped me short. I prefer Vancouver B.C. I nearly began to contact the three primary schools I went to, hoping that somehow some older gal would remember the young rake who had passed out so many Valentines. Sigh!

Follow up.

Canadians seem to be ever so humble about what they have. Americans have the Rockies, the Dolly Parton of the Grand Titons. You have banff in small caps.

Get to advertising!

You have the hottest Governor General. WOW! You had Treudeu. Valerie Pringle -- also hot and interesting. The weather gal who does that strange sport of rolling stone pizzas down the ice. 'Curling' (like hurling) it is called. The Scot's seem to take to it as well.

On music alone. Canada stands proud.

Celine Dion comes to most minds, but she is not one of my favorites. Do remember I am a 60's kind of guy. I do respect her though.

My favorites:

Susan Aglukark!!!
Leonard Cohen!!!
Nelly Furtado
Kate Lang
Gordon Lightfoot !!!
Anna McGarrigle
Kate McGarrigle !!!
Rita MacNeil some
Joni_Mitchell
Buffy Sainte-Marie Oh so very much.!!!
Stan Rogers
The Weavers
Ian and Sylvia Tyson!!!

and a no on Neil Young.

That said Canada has produced exceptional artists, songwriters performers and T.V. anchors. Why don't they write about their accomplishments. Being ever so humble is a crock.

I would love to hear what the Canadians would add to that list.

Now, I would add Sinead O'Conner to my favorites as well, and even Dolly Parton for her Garden Song. Also, Kate Wolf for her Apple and the Lilac tree ... since we are so into gardening.

I had challenged a Canadian on another blog if he could arrange to get a National Anthem sing off between Leonard Cohen for Canada and the Austin Lounge Lizards for America. He never replied.

I would love to post a picture of Dolly but I think most of it is copyrighted.
Her comment of "I have got little feet because nothing grows in the shade." is worth thinking about.

As far as good lines, few actors or singers have her one liners.
"I was the first woman to burn my bra - it took the fire department four days to put it out."

-Dolly Parton

ARCHIE ON THE COMPUTER - skyline

Now, I just dragged up some old photos and saw one of Archie, a superior breed of the U.K typing away at my computer terminal. Mind you, it was in DOS in those early years. That was one brilliant animal. Not staged at all, John and I just walked in on him and snapped the shot. Doggy Porn I suspect. He did look sheepish at having been caught.

Not only was this red-headed canine caught red-handed but if you will note he is also right pawed. Taking notes of the site address I suspect.




I think sometimes we forget how devoted dogs are to their companions. Both in my own case and in Johns; their losses, were final breaking points. Mine was a half-breed cross of Australian Shepard and Cocker Spaniel. Don't laugh; he was all of the former, only with the damn ears and begging eyes.

He was run over and I found him squashed..

John had the most sensitive dog I have ever known. An Irish Setter/Retriever. He died of natural causes and we made a nice memorial for him and planted a nice tree over him. He is near the brook he always loved and I think he is peaceful

Both of us had been dealing with rather eventual deaths in our respectful lives. Cleaning out the sons flat after a suicide, both of my parents that sort of stuff. Both of us handled that.

When the dogs died, so did we. I suppose that is how we found each other

And unlike some others, I have never had the courage to get another dog. It is now approaching the same with making new friends.