Pink Queen Anne's Lace

This year, several of the Queen Anne's Lace in my garden were pinkish-burgundy. Though i've never noticed this color before, they are really attractive and coordinate well with the magenta trim on my house. I hope they reseed themselves.

This COVID summer, i've seen many things in the natural world that i haven't noticed before. This slowed-down summer has created space for my inner naturalist to bloom.

This coming slowed-down fall and winter offer opportunities for at-home retreats. I'm signed up for a silent concentration retreat in mid-October.

On retreat, i will probably see things i hadn't noticed before. Those seeings are called insight. I practice insight meditation.

The pink Queen Anne's Lace is stunning.

Name Your Weeds

Papaver somniflorum

A gardening friend tells me that her husband dug out all of her Solomon's seal because he thought it was a weed. This all-too-common story leads me to one of my tenets of gardening: Name Your Weeds.

I don't pull a weed unless i can name it. I've heard repeated stories of people who can't keep the re-seeding annual poppy, Papapaver somniflorum, in their garden. I give them seeds year after year. "The early foliage looks like a lettuce leaf," i say. "Oh," they often say. "I thought that was a weed."

It does take a while to learn your weeds, and you may notice that some weeds like particular spots in your garden. Sheep sorrel grows in 2 of my strip beds, but not in the parallel third one. Go figure.

Part of our mindfulness practice is becoming able to identify our emotions. Mad. Sad. Glad. and all the variations on those themes. Once you can name your emotions, you are not tossed on the sea of i-don't-know-what's-happening-but-it's-really-uncomfortable. A wave of emotion washes over you; you feel at sea for a minute or two; you remember to be mindful; you name the emotion. Oh, that's what it is. Chances are the body and mind will relax, at least a little bit.

Name your weeds. Pull them out. Give the flowers a chance to bloom.

Judgments

The difference between a weed and a flower is one of judgment. In the spring, i allow wild asters to grow in my flowerbeds because they add a white or lavender mist of color in the fall. When their flowers have finished blooming in October, i pull them out as if they are weeds.

What about those people we would like to pull out of our lives? Those weedy people whom we have a little grudge against, those weedy people who rub us the wrong way. It's all a matter of judgment--ours.

The fault lies not with "them," but within ourselves. Even then, we have already judged ourselves as having a fault, but since it's too ugly, we cast out our projection and land that fault on someone else.

The fall asters are not to blame. They are simply being their aster-ish selves.

Heal-All

Heal-all is blooming in my yard. This common 2-4 inch tall plant looks like a weed, but i once saw it in an English garden in the Cotswolds standing about 10 inches tall and looking quite beautiful.

Heal-all is an herb that actually does heal chronic illness. The young herb is edible and can be used in soups and salads.

The Dharma is a heal-all for the mind. Once we diagnose our dis-ease: that suffering exists and that we can never be comfortable in our own skin as long as we are looking for happiness outside of ourselves. Even happiness of the moment has a shadow side, if we will but look.

The remedy for the discontent of our minds is following the Noble 8-fold path.

I walk into my pathless lawn, and there i find it: heal-all.

Beech Hedge

Here in England and Scotland, we often see beech hedges--an inventive way to make use of those copper-y beech leaves that don't fall off until the very end of April. A beech hedge can be one "wall" of a garden "room."

The idea of a beech hedge is particularly attractive to me since i live in the woods, which is full of beech saplings. I recently heard the state archaeologist give a talk, and he said that 6,000 years ago, just after the Ice Age, beech made up 36 percent of the forest in Vermont. My guess is that it still does.

My neighbor, who lived in England 40 years ago, is trying to create a beech hedge to keep the deer out.

How do you create a protective hedge so that the positive qualities you wish to grow will actually grow? For instance, it's difficult to listen to the news and cultivate happiness at the same time. The news gives us many opportunities to practice compassion, but i often get stuck in ain't-it-awful or some other form of aversion. Aversion is a mental weed that i do not want to propagate.

My "hedge" means i don't read or listen to the news very much--maybe 5 minutes a day reading the headlines in our town newspaper. It's amazing how much i absorb through osmosis.

Here in the U.K., the news has been interminably of Brexit for the past two years. People are good and tired of that "news," which could just as well be called "olds."

It's time to build a hedge around your precious time, your precious life.

Goldfinch on Yellow Mullein

This morning, while meditating on the deck, i opened my eyes to see a goldfinch perched on top of a 6-foot tall mullein.

When i say "mullein," you are probably thinking Isn't that a roadside weed? 

Even weeds can have beautiful cousins.  The mullein in my garden has yellow flowers that are an inch in diameter. It’s a cadelbra mullein so it doesn’t have just a single stalk of flowers but has several branching offshoots.

The advantage to our weedy thoughts is that they form the basis for our compassion. We know how it feels to lose a loved one, to be surprised by a scary disease, to rail against divorce. So when a friend or acquaintance pours out their suffering, we can sit still with them, and say “Yes.” Not yes that we agree with their stressful thoughts, but yes to the sound of suffering, yes to the feel of fury, yes to the pain of the body.

We ourselves know the stress of those weedy thoughts and can offer the comfort of our presence.

Sumac Staghorns

Speaking of Rhus, today i drove by a big patch of staghorn sumac, brilliantly red in the gleaming low sun.

Coincidentally, i bought a pint of staghorn "berries" to make tea at the Farmers Market in September. Recently, i decided to add sumac to my daily green tea. Delicious, herbal, and it might even be a remedy. A few years ago, i made sumac staghorn tea because it is high in vitamin C. Now i'm trying it as an anti-itch potion.

Right now, i view sumac as healing; i used to think it was a weed tree. This type of either/or thinking blinds us to one side or the other. The answer is both/and--a place where the mind does not rest comfortably. Both? Both.

Monarch on a Zinnia Throne

I saw a monarch butterfly this afternoon, sipping nectar from a zinnia, not far from a stand of milkweed.

Yesterday, i found 2 monarch caterpillars on the underside of a milkweed leaf. Although i've heard that there aren't enough milkweed, i have plenty growing in my cutting flower beds.

When is a weed a weed? And when is a flower a flower? It's all in the eye of the beholder. It all rests with your personal judgment. Every judgment is a judgment, dividing the world into good and bad, yes and no.

Or we could practice non-judgmental awareness. "Oh. It's like this."

Too Hot to Garden

Ninety degrees is too hot to garden. Time to hang up my trowel, roll out the hoses, and water, water, water. (Not one of my favorite chores.)

Some brief gardening might happen at 5 a.m. or at 7 p.m., but in between, it's time to focus on something else. One of those something elses for me is that i'm going on retreat this week. It's time to leave the garden on its own.

To everything there is a season.

A time to plant,
and a time to water.

A time to garden,
and a time to refrain from gardening.

A time to weed,
and a time to let it all grow.

Let it go. Let it be. Let it grow.

Is Sumac Really a Weed Tree?

In the past month, 3 people have said to me, "Sumac is a weed tree. I've got to get rid of it."

Sumac is a weed tree? Sez who?

Sumac has many wonderful benefits:

• It has beautiful red, yellow, green foliage in the fall.
• The sumac staghorns provide food for birds all winter long.
• The 12-foot tall sumac provides a nice intermediary between the 3-foot tall garden and the 60-foot trees in the woods.
• Sumacs have an interesting airy architecture. They are a nice background tree.

Yes, sumacs sucker, but around here, i seldom see vast stands of sumac. Mostly, i see small patches.

A weed is something growing where you don't want it, but are you really going to plant a garden in the place where the sumacs are? They are usually growing in a waste place, a place no one has paid attention to for quite a while. Are you the one who is going to roll up her sleeves and pay a lot of attention to that area? Really?

Saying what everyone else says might be true. Or it might not. Investigate for yourself. Inquire deeply into what is true for you.

Investigation is the second factor of enlightenment. We look deeply into the delusion that is all around us, and call it by its true name: Delusion.

Wild Asters

Wild asters have sown themselves in my flowerbeds, looking like a lavender mist over the ground. The wild asters are small-flowered and rather puny, but en mass, they are beautiful. And, at this time of year, any color at all is welcome.

I could consider wild asters to be a weed. After all, they grow on the roadside, and they're not spectacular.

But at this season of life, I am simply grateful for the favors that nature bestows on me. Like a purple mist in the garden.

Sowing Money Plant

Money plant, which bloomed so beautifully in May, has gone to seed. Last week, the seed pods were a pretty mauve. This week, due in part to the drought, they've turned brown.

Now i pull out this biennial (Lunaria) and walk around my flowerbeds shaking it like a magic wand. Next spring, i want money plant here. And here. And here. The seed husks fly off and land on the ground like pennies from heaven.

Every word that flies out of our mouth is planting seeds for our future. A friend told me yesterday, "I don't want to talk about it, because talking about it will only make me upset." That is wise speech in action.

We want to prepare the ground for wholesome thoughts, words, and deeds. We all already have quite enough weedy thoughts and words for this lifetime, thank you very much.

A penny for your thoughts.

Money plant blooming in late May with seed pods just forming.

Random Acts of Gardening

Today i saw a bumper sticker that i thought i authored. But i guess great minds think alike.

Practicing random acts of gardening is often a random act of kindness. I'm thinking public or semi-public gardens, such as those in parks or in front of the post office or doctor's office. I do like to pull a weed or two as i walk by.

We aren't practicing random acts of kindness for praise. In fact, we already know that no one may ever even notice. The ego of "aren't i being good!" is almost entirely absent. These random acts of kindness are not for your persona, your public face. These random acts of kindness or of gardening are your private face, for yourself. I think of it as leaving things better than i found them, which is my New Year's resolution for this year.

Practice a random act of gardening today!

Weedy Milkweed

Milkweed is living up to its name--weed. Suddenly it's growing in several of my flower beds. Wha-a-a??? I want it to grow where i want it to grow, not where it wants to grow. I want to support monarch butterflies, just in case there are any around, but i don't want a milkweed garden. Hoo-boy. What to do?

I'm pulling the milkweed out of my flowerbeds, though the roots run deep and are beyond the reach of my shovel.

Our own roots of suffering run deep underground. Take your pick--greed, aversion, delusion, or maybe all three. Don't despair. Begin by being mindful of what your particular "weed" looks like, feels like, what it says in times of stress. Get to know the habit and habitat of your "weed." No need to feel guilty or beat yourself up. That just fertilizes the habit of aversion. Simply notice.

Notice what's growing in your garden.

Weed? or Wildflower?

Queen Anne's Lace is blooming its flat, lacy, white flowers. My sweetie, the mower, considers it a weed. I remind him of the time we held hands and walked through a  field of Queen Anne's Lace.

Weed? Or wildflower?

How do we recognize the weeds/wildflowers in our daily life? People whom we love, opportunities that sprout in our lives. 

Stress is our clue. If we feel stress or distress, then that person/opportunity is a weed.
And if we feel divine--love, compassion, joy, gratitude, peace--then it's a wildflower.

My sweetie is a concert pianist--he attends 2-4 concerts every weekend. That feels too "weedy" to me; my limit is 1/weekend. While my sweetie basks in divine music, i take a walk in a field of wildflowers.

Photo from astoriedstyle.com

Turning a Weed Patch into a Garden

A friend moved into a new apartment with a weed patch for a front yard. She asked the landlord's permission to turn the front yard into a garden. Now she's looking for a rototiller to borrow.

I do not have a rototiller. I love my turning fork, but a weed patch might prove to be a wrestling match for a turning fork.

If she has patience (and for a gardener in April, patience can feel like holding a team of wild horses),

1. cover the area with black plastic this summer OR
2. use the lasagna method and layer on whatever you have--newspaper, cardboard, dead leaves, manure if you can get it, compost, old wood chips, mulch hay OR
3. combine #2 and #1. Do the lasagna method and then cover it with black plastic. Or an old carpet (preferably wool).

When we want to turn the weed patch of our busy minds into a garden that gives us happiness and contentment, we can begin by allowing our bodies to rest in meditation. This requires some patience because our weedy minds have a lot of seeds that suddenly sprout up.

We may try to turn over a new leaf, beginning right now, but we actually do not have that sort of control over our minds.

Mulch your mind with meditation, practice patience, and a year from now you will have a garden of happiness.

Mullein: Weed or Flower?

Some years ago, i noticed white mullein growing by the roadside near a defunct wildflower nursery. "An escapee," i thought. I gathered some seeds and sowed them in my nursery bed.

Mullein is a weed that often stands sentinel along the side of the road. Growing a single stalk 5 to 8 feet tall, it has a few small non-descript yellow flowers scattered over its fuzzy gray-green height.

White-flowered mullein is unusual; this is how a weed becomes a wildflower. When it blooms in early July, the stalk is covered with joyful 2-inch wide white flowers.

Now i have dozens of these mullein volunteering in my sunny beds. It's fascinating to notice over the years how some plants, which you might not necessarily choose, choose you. They like the soil, the sun, the microclimate--something.

We define our "self" by our likes and dislikes. Then something we don't feel any particular affinity for "likes" us. Hmmm. Do we like it (or them) back? Or do we ignore it (or them)?

This is a great opportunity to investigate pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral.
Notice how something pleasant becomes neutral after a few moments.
Notice how something neutral might become pleasant. (Or perhaps unpleasant?)
Notice how something unpleasant becomes neutral if you keep your attention on it long enough instead of just reacting with "Ee-yoo."

Notice how that "weed" in your garden becomes beautiful once you notice its good qualities.