March 19th, 2009, by Margie Doyle
by Janice Richardson
A pair of swallows light on the Dragonfly Gardens door knob.
Observing the web of life and the intricacies of nature has become a passion of mine. I’m particularly moved by the phenology or timing of things. The notes on my calendar track the patterns that cycle through each year.
With the advent of the winter solstice and the increase in daylight there is a quickening of the life force that energizes nature. I imagine that even seeds can feel it. The potatoes in my cupboard start sending their shoots on a mission to find the light. Every time I open the cupboard they call to me to plant them and my green thumb starts to itch. This happens at about the same time every year and lets me know the gardening season will soon be here.
Mid-winter in early February marks the return of the first songbird scouts to the forest around my house. They sing their solos on those beautiful crisp blue-sky mornings that makes a person want to open up the house and do a spring cleaning. These songbird melodies are nature’s yearly wake up call to come out of hibernation. Read more
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February 11th, 2009, by Margie Doyle
by Janice Richardson
2004 after one of the first"Saturday Sunrise Talks in the Garden". The people left to right are: Janice Richardson, Joleen Kelleher, Betty Barats, Nancy Southern, Kamala Harrison, Kiko Harrison In front: Fredricka Kundig Photo by Anthony Richardson
Understanding weather patterns is an essential tool for successful gardening. In the mid-1990’s, when I moved from Oregon to northwestern Washington, I felt surprisingly unsure of myself when I began my first gardens. I no longer had the inner knowing that I had relied upon to make some of the most basic choices for plant placement. It took awhile to accept that my physical “uprooting” had a psychological component to it–and that it would take time and experience to find my way of knowing again.
Many people who fall in love with these islands, do so in the summer months. When they move here, they find a big surprise when the weather changes. We arrived in the early fall and before long, we started to notice a significant decrease in daylight. Mornings and late afternoons were becoming dark as night. Each day, the sun descended on the horizon until it finally disappeared behind an unobtrusive hill to the south of us.
The cedar forest surrounding our house seemed to loom larger and enclose us. I could see plant life shifting and preparing for winter, but I, this “human plant”, who was born and raised in Oregon, hadn’t adapted yet. Rather, the change in light had signaled symptoms of light deprivation and a clear message to my psyche that I was not home.
Winter came, bringing bitterly cold arctic winds. These “Nor-easters”, come down through the Fraser River Valley in British Columbia, Canada, and blow particularly hard on the northern side of the island where we were living. That December, a record 100 year snow storm covered us with about four feet of snow. The roads could not be cleared and we were house-bound for more than a week. Read more
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