9 Feet of Fern Root

Hay-scented ferns are so pretty, and they smell so fresh and green. They also take over and form a monoculture. I was cleaning up a woodland flowerbed, and there, of course, were hay-scented ferns. One i ripped out had 9 feet of rhizome/root growing just under the surface.

Wow! Did that feel good to deport that fern!

Sometimes, one of our bad habits can start to take up a lot of room in our lives. Social media springs to mind. Drugs. Shopping. The internet.

It's time to uproot those bad habits. Now.

When Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche was asked, "So what's reborn?" he replied, "Our bad habits." He should know. He was an alcoholic who died way too young. And he did like young women too.

I don't really want to live with my bad habits any longer than i have to. Now is the time to gently tug them out of the soil.

Still Eating Fiddleheads

We are still eating fiddleheads here at my house and garden. I don't believe i've ever harvested fiddleheads this late in the spring. I used to think that fiddlehead season was the first week of May, but in recent years, it has moved to the last week of April with May 1 being absolutely too late to pick them.

This past April was cold, so the spring gardens got a slow start. Then i was away for 5 days, and when i returned the fiddleheads had unfurled their fronds into their full fernness. The fiddlehead that we eat is the sprout of the ostrich ferns; most other fern fiddleheads are unsuitable for eating. The ostrich fiddleheads taste like a combination of asparagus and spinach.

But my sweetie found one fern patch in the partial shade. The other ferns there were up and about, but the fiddleheads were just poking up. One or the other of us goes to that wild patch every day to harvest fiddleheads. This assures that we continue to find more young sprouts, even in mid-May.

Even when life offers us setbacks, our life energy keeps on going. There's no need to take the setbacks personally. Simply notice that things change and keep on changing. Even the fiddlehead ferns.

Evergreen Wood Fern

The wood fern is the other evergreen fern here in the North Country. The wood fern's lacy fronds look like spring or summer against the whiteness of snow. A reminder of the possible.

An image of a fern came to me during a month-long retreat. A fern unfolding. Forever changing. New fronds arising, old fronds dying.

Just like life.

Order your fern stamps from the U.S. Postal Service here.

Christmas Ferns

Here in the North Country, we have two types of evergreen ferns. The Christmas fern has straight-edge leaves and are lovely to behold in a dusting of snow, such as we have now.

The winter snows beat them down, so that by spring they are lying flat on the ground. Then the new fronds spring up.

Sometimes, life beats us down. It can especially feel that way in the winter. Whether we realize it or not, we do still have an internal springiness, but we may have to wait for it to show up in our lives.

In the mean time, during these chill, dark, winter days, you can retreat to mindfulness. That's what i'm doing these first two weeks of January--making a commitment to sit for 2 hours every day.

The Christmas ferns are green under the snow.

Gaywings

A wildflower named gaywings is growing in a shady spot beside a sidewalk. I transplanted it there last spring and am astonished that it "took."

Gaywings takes my breath away with its magenta airplane flowers.

Gaywings has been growing in one spot in the woods ever since i bought this land 35 years ago. Recently, we have cut down some trees, and now the colony of gaywings is threatened by sunnier plants such as sensitive fern and hawkweed.

Transplanting joy is really as easy as transplanting gaywings turned out to be. Place the mind into a secluded spot, such as meditation. Then focus the mind on gratitude or loving-kindness. Or just simply gaze at gaywings for ten minutes.

Japanese Food

Japanese beetles are eating my Japanese painted fern.

Hmmm. Of course! What else did i expect? Maybe it's their soul food? Maybe they're thinking: Finally! Food from home. I'm so tired of eating these foreign foods.

Japanese beetles: Unpleasant (although they are beautiful).
Japanese painted fern: Pleasant.

Fiddlehead Ferns

Fiddlehead ferns are ready to harvest. Quick now! Before the fiddleheads unroll into ostrich ferns. We are looking for the fiddleheads with the brown tissue paper covering (i.e., not fuzzyheads nor "red" heads:).

Fiddlehead ferns, like many other wild edibles, should be quickly blanched in boiling water. Then throw that water away and steam or stir-fry this delicious sort-of-asparagus-tasting vegetable.

Don't wait. Waiting assumes that things will be the same, or sort-of-the-same tomorrow. As the Dalai Lama says, "We don't know which will come first: rebirth or tomorrow."

The fiddleheads are being born into ferns. Don't wait. Tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, the fiddleheads will have disappeared into lush fern foliage.

Photo from tomophobia.com

The Snowplow Does Some Gardening For Me

Living in the north country means having your driveway snow-plowed after every snowfall. Herein comes the dilemma: the snowplow or the garden?

To defend my kitchen garden at the end of the driveway from the winter's moraine of driveway gravel, i installed two sections of fence separated by an arbor--a lovely transition from the parking area to a green and flowering "room."

The male in my household comes down firmly on the side of the snowplow and faithfully removes the fence sections every November. In April, after snowmelt, i may have to remind him to replace them.

Every spring i find that the snowplow has done some gardening for me. Three years ago, i found a hosta growing in the woods. How did it get there? It took me a while to piece together the story of the snowplow nicking it out of the side of the driveway and bulldozing it into the huge snow fort at the end of his run. Fortunately the hosta survived. As did a lady fern the following year.

This week i found mitella (miterwort) and lamium refugees from my white garden at the front door camped about 20 feet away in a grove of maidenhair fern.

Of course, the question is not EITHER the snowplow OR the garden. The question is: the snowplow AND the garden.