Before. November 5, 2013, my biggest bonsai at its absolute peak of color. Ahhhh!
This morning, November 12, 2013. Siggghhh.
Autumn, don't leave.
I don't want to put my little beauties in their winter grave.
I knew they wouldn't stay this beautiful. I knew I had to look at them as much as possible before it would all be over. So I did.
And this morning, it was all over. Ah, but still so graceful, so beautiful.
In the next week or so I'll have to bundle them up and prep them for the winter. This means taking them out of their pots, wrapping their trunks in aluminum foil (the only way I've found to foil bark-eating voles. I think it hurts their fillings.)
I'll dig all the spearmint and goosefoot out of the bonsai pit and I'll heel them carefully in, on their sides. I'll cover the rootballs with soil, water them in and lay a glass shower door over top of the pit.
I'll check them all winter and water them when they dry out.
I've been doing this for 21 years in this place, and ten years before that for the big trees.
Something so beautiful doesn't happen overnight.
Autumn, don't leave.
12 comments:
The photo of your daughter and the autumn leaves is fantastic.... they match so gorgeously! As for the snow... we got it here in Athens as well... ARG!
Your writing is so poetic. We follow your words and pictures with delight and interest and then at the end gasp a bit when we realize what you have really said.
Can still remember the first time I encountered your bonsai trees. I was stunned.
Simply.Beautiful. And tying it all up with the cri du coeur photo of Phoebe? Whew. Any wonder why I love you so? xoM.
What a beautiful post. Your photos are outstanding!
I've read your bedding-down-bonsai-for-winter posts however many times you've written them by now, and I still never cease to be amazed!
You really need to stop making people cry.
xo
Persephone is taken by Hades to the Underworld. Demeter searches, grieves, puts a Freeze on Life. She will get her daughter back. You will defy Hades with your greenhouse. Yes!
There are two kinds of gardeners: garden decorators who want everything to be pretty immediately and stay pretty always, if something does not do well or if they get bored with it, it is pulled and replaced. Then there is the garden nurturer, who chooses carefully, waits patiently, changes tacts when necessary and is rewarded with something fabulous.
Good-bye autumn glory; hello winter with your stark beauty, long cozy evenings, time for indoor crafts and projects, family gatherings, sweet dreams and planning for spring.
Interesting dynamic tension between your paean to bonsai, and your photo of Phoebe.
As you say "Something so beautiful doesn't happen overnight."
Only, with the bonsai, you can trim and shape and hold them back. With your daughter--maybe parental trimming and shaping but no holding back.
My daughter is only 6, and I am sniffling at this. Great writing.
Do you know the David Mallett song, Autumn? Another lovely anthropromorphism of the season as woman.
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