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Ferrebeekeeper has been over-reliant on garden posts lately. Yet the last days of spring/first days of summer are such a beautiful time, that I thought I would put up some more pictures anyway. Most years I select tulips to bloom at the same time as the cherry tree, but, last autumn I apparently picked out whatever took my fancy and paid no attention to the timeline. As a result there were lots of frilly, fringed, or otherwise baroque tulips blooming in late May!
As the tulips faded, the roses, impatiens, and torenias started to bloom. The rose pictured below has the splendid name “Cherry Frost” which sounds like a sinister James Bond girl or a punk band or something. Because it was transgenically tinkered with, the little rose is surprisingly resistant to blackspot and molds. Additionally, it does well in low light and cold (at least so far). This rose was blooming back in February…but I did not post the pictures because the blossoms were not nearly as beautiful (and the rest of the garden was fallow).
Speaking of lying fallow, I recognize that I did not post a great deal for the last few weeks, and I apologize. Sometimes it is necessary to take a little break to think of new ways to express oneself. This in no way indicates that I have lost my enthusiasm for writing about art and science or opining about the affairs of the world! It does however mean that I have been working on some new artistic themes (maybe the poor misunderstood flounders need to lie fallow for a little while too). In the meantime, I have been sitting in the garden working on new ideas…and how to explain/popularize them.
We will explore this more in soon-to-follow posts, but for right now, I hope you are enjoying June too (and maybe have some lovely flowers of your own). Don’t give up on coming here for posts (nor on anything else for that matter). Sometimes things take their own time to germinate (just like this year’s late tulips).
Hi everyone! Happy Earth Day! For now, I will spare you from the posts about the state of our planetary ecosystem and its fraught relationship with the intelligent invasive primate causing so much trouble everywhere (although you can read some past thoughts about that here), and instead show some garden photos. The gorgeous Kwanzan tree which lives in my backyard in Brooklyn is abloom and I have been sitting beneath the tree enjoying fleeting feelings of ineffable beauty instead of writing blog posts. We will return in full force at some pint next week. In the meantime I have tried to capture some of the garden beauty in the pictures below.
The cherry tree is starting to get older and most of the eye-level branches have died out, but there are still gorgeous blossoms higher up where the limbs get sun! More about the tree next week, when I hopefully have some artworks finished…
Some people regard pansies and violas as sort of tawdry flowers, but I think they are as beautiful as the most exotic Miltonia in terms of sheer prettiness. If they were more rare we would probably think they are the most gorgeous blossoms in the garden. But they are not rare…because they are super tough! I planted the little black violas back in October and they shrugged off the full force of winter’s blast with shocking indifference.
Another favorite plant which is blooming right now is the bleeding heart. I planted a white one too, but it is presently only 5 centimeters high, so you may have to wait to see its blossoms.
It looks like the tulips will bloom later, but some species tulips and volunteers have come up. Below are more pictures of tulips and Johnny-jump-ups.
There is an ornamental crabapple in the back of the garden which is as lovely as the cherry (in some respects). Unfortunately it is less photogenic, but you can see some of the pretty magenta blooms above the hellebore and the single lonely muscari.
And here is a picture of the gardener, looking peeved that everything did not bloom at once (he never seems perfectly happy, no matter how wonderfully the flowers perform). In the near future, we will return to traditional Earth Day themes of the proper path humankind must chart in order not destroy the living systems of Earth (we all need to think a lot more about that and push back against powerful interests which assert that it is not a thing to be thought about). The garden is a way to start thinking about such things (for it is a problematic artificial ecosystem), but for the moment, let’s just enjoy the blossoms.
Ever since the beginning of the pandemic, I have been working on drawing with ink using a steel nib. Of all the drawing media I have used, pen and ink provides the most expressive and beautiful lines–provided you can avoid blotting, smearing, or spilling the ink. Alas, it is exceedingly easy to destroy your drawings (and your wardrobe) through the least mishap with the INDELIBLE ink. In the spirit of the masters of medieval illumination (who also utilized pen and ink), I have been drawing a series of strange floral monastic people–well, perhaps it is a bit unclear if they are people or paphiopedilums. In the picture above, a loving deity of growth irrigates the sentient crops as a kindly sister looks on. Beneath the grass, a caecilian hunts for destructive grubs among the roots and mycelia. Speaking of mycelia, kindly note the little gnome collecting mushrooms. In the heavens, a pelican flies by with a fish struggling in its beak while a bat-winged putto plays religious music on a lyre. The odd-man out in the composition is the friendly ring-tailed lemur who seems perplexed by this harmonious tableau (surely this can’t be Madagascar), but takes in in stride with sanguine primate good cheer.
This second drawing is more complicated and harder to parse out. A little chapter of nuns have left their onion-domed convent to luxuriate in the heavenly effulgence. I feel like that aerobic-looking fairy may well be a lay-sister. Unfortunately, their repose is disturbed by a big, stiff, skinny mummy which is just lyin’ around on the lawn. Who on earth left it there and why? Also, why does the mummy have a mummified flatfish? The day is additionally marred by the presence two faceless apparitions to the extreme right. Drifting through the air everywhere are little zygote-spores of some sort (or are they little seeds of the flower people). It is good to see that life finds a way, even if the sisters are putatively uninterested in reproduction. Also there is an ermine (the very symbol of purity and moderation in Christian art) who is looking quite closely at a banana split.
I am pleased at the way that using black ink and white ink gives these peculiar allegories a feeling of dimensional form. Speaking of which, drawing with sumi ink this way also gives a literal 3 dimensional aspect to the work (albeit a slight one). If you run your fingers over these drawings, all of the lines are palpable and i had to photograph them multiple times because of little shadows and strange reflections cast by the raised ink.
It is nearly Thanksgiving and I had believed that the flower garden was done for the year (except for the inevitable die-off…and maybe am ornamental cabbage or pansy or two to contend with winter’s frigid blast). However it turns out there was a last treat left for November. I planted tricyrtis flowers this year, hardy little woodland perennials from Korea, Japan, & China (and there are also some tropical varieties from the Philippines–but that is not what I have). In English, the flowers are known by the evocative albeit slightly grotesque name of “toad lilies”. They look a bit like little toads with bulbous white curves and little dots of woodland color. In years past I have planted toad lilies, but I usually accidentally weed them out before they bloom because the stems and leaves look very much like the invasive Asiatic dayflower (which is pretty interesting in its own right and deserve its own post…next year). This year, I did not weed the dayflowers, but the toad lilies did not show up anyway and I marked them down as a failure. However it turns out I was just impatient and the winsome blossoms didn’t appear until November! Is this what they do in their native Korea?
Anyway I am delighted by the little white flower with pinkish brown dots and stipples which showed up just prior top the frost. Now I am worried that I will unthinkingly tear it up next year when I weed the beds. I wish the photographs which I took were better, but you will have to imagine its haunting dark fairy beauty on your own–or just look at any of the innumerable pictures on the web. Be warned however, none of the photos really do justice to this demure woodland beauty.
It is blossom season in New York! Instead of writing blogs about mollusks, gothic art, and politics, I have been looking at flowers and trees. The cherry tree at the top of the post is down by the Manhattan Court House (as you can hopefully tell by the World Trade Center/Freedom Tower/Whatever-it-is-called-now), but the rest of the images are from my garden in Brooklyn. The centerpiece of the garden is a Kwanzan flowering cherry which usually blooms for a fortnight (although, thanks to the cold snap, it seemed more like 6 days this year). I have blogged about the cherry blossoms at length in years past, yet, every year I am struck anew by the beauty and evanescence of the pink blooms.
Here are the blossoms in my back yard (my roommate added those plastic flamingos, by the way). Speaking of other gardeners who change things around in the flower garden…here is another character who lives in the neighborhood who cannot keep his paws off of the blossoms. Every day during tulip season he beheads a couple of tulips to see if they are good to eat. When he realizes they are not squirrel food, he tosses them down. Sigh…
Below is a patch of pastel pink tulips. You can see one of the beheaded stems at far left.
These white tulips are known as “Pays Bas” and I think they came out particularly lovely! This year, in addition to the cherry tree, the old ornamental crabapple also blossomed (which is a rarity). You can see the darker pink blossoms in the foreground in the picture immediately below.
I am going to see if I can draw/photograph/capture some more of the garden’s spring charms for you (it never looks right on the computer screen), but for now I am going to go back out and enjoy the showers of falling petals…
It is December 16th and a winter storm is blanketing New York City in snow and howling at the windows. I wish I had taken some pictures in Midtown (I work on 42nd Street across from Grand Central Station and the Chrysler building), but, alas, I was hurrying towards the subway instead of standing around taking photos like a tourist. You will have to be content with these candid winter shots from my garden and front stoop in merry olde Brooklyn. At least you can see the holly tree (immediately below) and the beautiful plane trees which live on my street.
Speaking of trees, it is the Christmas/Yule season and I have put up my sacred tree of life to shine brightly in these dark times (you can read more about it, in these posts from past years). I need to think of how to liven it up, if I am going to post it year after year, but all of the animals make me happy (and, since there are hundreds, I don’t think I can add any more). You can also see some of the flounders peaking out from behind it.
We will say more about the holidays as we near the solstice and the end of the year (thank goodness this year is ending…but have we learned anything?). Until then, I am going to drink some cocoa and take a winter nap. Stay warm and be safe! Happy holidays from Ferrebeekeeper!
We have had an awful lot of politics around here this autumn. How about today we just concentrate solely on autumn? As I often mention, there is a Kwanzan cherry tree in my back yard in Brooklyn. It is a beautiful tree (although neither my photographs, artworks, nor my essays have ever fully captured its ineffable loveliness).
The cherry tree is most famous for how it looks in spring, when it resembles a radiant pink cloud descended from paradise, yet it is always gorgeous–even in winter when its bare limbs look like Chinese seal calligraphy. Indeed in autumn it glows a brilliant bright yellow which is nearly as lovely as the soft pink of spring.
Alas, as always, my photos do the tree a terrible injustice (also, hopefully you are not put off by the ornamental bacteriophages which I hung up back in summer to contextualize our current plight). I wish you could see it in the real world. Looking at its graceful, winsome branches has kept me sane during this long sojourn in the city (I don’t think I have left since the beginning of last December!) and I wish I could share the beauty with you. After all, as pretty as the tree is in its golden autumn finery, this yellow cloak is soon to fall and the cherry tree will be bare through the gloom, mist, darkness, and chill of winter. How are we ever going to make it back back to the blossoms this pestilent year?
This year Ferrebeekeeper missed the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival…but that doesn’t mean we have forgotten about it. Additionally, in a garden-themed post a few weeks back, we promised a few more late-season pictures from the garden. If only there were some way to combine these two objectives…
Allow me to present the last flower to bloom in 2020…the moonflower (Ipomoea alba). There are still plenty of flowers in the garden and tough blossoms like roses and violas will probably continue blooming until December, but the moonflower bloomed for the first time in October (if that makes sense). There are some reasons this lovely nocturnal vine is only just beginning to bloom now. Not only did I start the seeds late in the year (long after the last spring frost), but it is a tropical flower from equatorial Central and South America and needs a 12 hour day to bloom. The long days of summer get it all confused.
True to its name the moonflower blooms at night (a real plus for Ferrebeekeeper, since I tend to be a night bloomer as well). The gorgeous blossoms form big white perfect circles, like the moon. They wilt away at dawn. Alas, in Puerto Rico or Colombia, the moonflower may be a perennial, but here in Brooklyn, it is definitely an annual. I may only get a handful of flowers, but it was definitely worth the wait! Happy belated Mid-Autumn moon festival! However, this year we get two full moons in October so prepare for further moon-themed posts for the Halloween blue moon!
Although 2020 has been a pretty alarming year in all sorts of ways, there was a silver lining: my flower garden ended up being unusually fulsome and colorful this year. Unfortunately photographs don’t really do gardens justice (just like the camera “adds 10 pounds” to portraits, it apparently subtracts 20% of blossoms and color). Even so, I think a little bit of the prettiness shows up in these pictures.
Brooklyn was appropriately rainy and not too hot. Even though I have a shade garden where barely anything grows (except for the trees which are the true stars of the show), there was still plenty of color, texture and form to keep things exciting.
Spooling through theses pictures makes me wish I had taken some shots in summer when sundry flowers were at their apex, but at least these allow you to see some of the Halloween decorations I put up (and the “Furnace Flounder” sculpture which I lugged out into the elements). I can’t believe I haven’t posted about my garden since spring (when I was busy painting watercolors back there).
I don’t know what I am going to do when winter brings gray desolation to this refuge (and cracks my sculptures to pieces). I guess I can always start thinking about next year’s garden and how it could be better. For one thing, maybe I will be able to have parties again with lots of guests to enjoy it with me. In the mean time I am going to go out and soak up some of the last rays of September sun and listen to the crickets. Even this slow, messed-up year is starting to gallop by as summer dies. Maybe I will find some more pretty flower pictures to post before the frost starts though.
This summer I have spent a great deal of time in the garden which has been my refuge from the plague, turmoil, and strife. I keep hoping that the carpenter bees will return, but I have barely seen any hymenopterans at all thus far (aside from little black and brown ants which seem to be as numerous as ever). That all changed the other day, though, when a magnificent visitor swept into the garden! A lot of hymenoptera are strikingly colored (as the velvet ants will testify) , however this dapper character looked like a refugee from a 1980s musical video or a disturbing anime. Not only was this wasp’s jet fighter body the deepest brown (which was so dark it might have been black), but all four of its wings were the same color too! Not only was the whole creature sable, but its dark brown coloring was also iridescent blue/purple–so it gleamed like a blue revolver. There was one noteworthy contrasting color on the wasp’s face– its huge antennae were fluorescent orange!
Although the wasp seemed like it was preening on my hostas, as soon as I moved to get my camera it was gone. So, alas, I have no photos of the strange visitor. Fortunately though, this wasp was more visually unique than a Dick Tracy villain so I quickly found a match in the rogue’s gallery of wasps online: Gnamptopelta obsidianator, the “bent-shield beseiger wasp”.
Now you would think that if crazy creatures like this were flying all over New York City, there would be plenty of information about them online, but you would be wrong. It speaks of our human myopia that, although I easily found pictures of it, I could barely find out anything about the lifestyle of the beseiger (although one website opined that I had actually seen the lookalike wasp Thyreodon atricolor–so keep that in mind, for what it is worth). According to the internet, these wasps are both ichneumonids– parasitoid predators which lays eggs inside living hosts. Paralyzed, the hosts still-living flesh provides a decay-resistant larger for the wasp larvae [shudders].
Whatever you might think about the terrible things this wasp does to make ends meet, there is no denying that it belongs here just for its sheer fashion sensibility alone. I will keep my eyes peeled for more of these magnificent yet troubling wasps–both in the garden and online. I still can’t believe we know so little about creatures which literally live right next to us!
ferrebeekeeper 