Blood

 Sanguisorba delights the September and October garden with its while chenille flowers. Also known as burnet, this cucumber-tasting herb can be used in soups and salads.

Sangui means "blood" in Latin. (Think: sanguine) and sorba means to soak or staunch. This herb can be used to stop a wound from bleeding.

In these politically divisive times, we want to staunch the blood-letting--the paper cuts of mean words and the deeper wounds of hateful words.

Let's staunch the blood flow between red and blue. After all, the blood in every one of us runs red and blue.

Perennial Ageratum

My local garden group, Perennial Swappers, toured my fall garden this evening. It's the last swap and tour of the season. Hard to believe, since it was 85 degrees today.

I still have lots of color in my garden. In addition to purple asters, white sanguisorba, and pink turtlehead (chelone), i have lots of perennial ageratum giving a sweep of color to several flowerbeds.

My Hoosier cousin, Jeana, gave me a single start of this ageratum a few years ago. Thanks to her generosity, i share big clumps of this ageratum with five or six of my friends every September.

Generosity is one of the foundations of gardening. I give plants to people. People give plants to me. This evening Ruth brought me a double white trillium.

Generosity is one of the foundations of our spiritual practice. Let go. Give.