“A sad tale’s best for winter.”
Shakespeare
February, it seems to me, is the lowest point of the year. One can hardly believe in February that it’s still winter. The saving grace of February is that it is the short month and it marks the start of the countdown to spring.
February was rife with festivals in ancient times. Imbolc was celebrated by the Celts on February first. It marked the turning of the seasons toward spring.
February was named after Februaris, the Roman festival of purification. So writes Hal Borland in one of my favourite books, Sundial of the Seasons (1964), a collection of outdoor editorials from the New York Times. February used to be the last month on the calendar and it ended with the feast of Terminalia on February 23. After the Terminalia comes March, spring and the new year.
Around home the first sign that the new growing season is out there is the garlic sprouting in the pantry. And the indoor jungle of plants has started to grow again in response to the longer days.
I don’t really like geraniums but I seem to have inherited two giant ones from friends. Both of these plants flower all winter and stay green and healthy looking even in the depths of winter. What more could you ask of an indoor plant?
I also seem to have inherited a giant fern which is now at least four feet wide. This, too, was given to me. I repotted it and it grew. And grew and grew. I never really wanted a fern, either, as it’s something of a Victorian house cliche. At least I don’t have a fern stand.
I had a nice response from Anne, a friend of a friend, to my flippant comments last month about English Arts and Crafts gardens. Anne grew up in a manor house with a garden designed by a follower of William Morris. She told me that her parents inherited a garden with much topiary. They let most of it grow out and assume natural shapes with the exception of five perfect evergreen domes close to the house. These apparently look striking with a light dusting of snow on them. So maybe as well as changing my mind about dahlias, I will also have to tolerate a bit of topiary here and there. The only thing constant is change….
Pandemic reading hasn’t been neglected this winter. Isn’t it discouraging that this is the second winter of pandemic reading?
From the classics shelf, I read a couple of books that were Sunday School prizes awarded by the Anglican Church in Millbrook in 1901. The first, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Snow Image (1899), is a collection of Moral tales with a capital M. The title story features a snow child who comes to life. Unfortunately it doesn’t end well for the snow child invited into the parlour to get warm by an interfering parent. The plots are a bit creaky and the moralizing obvious but I enjoyed it anyway. I can’t really say the same for Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield (1776). The plot here is truly ridiculous although of course being a moral tale it all comes right in the end.
More current reading included Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind about the science of psychedelics. The usual suspects are here: Aldous Huxley and Timothy Leary and many lesser known researchers on the subject of using psychedelics to treat many afflictions.
I have no interest in altered states but read this because I like Michael Pollan. He wrote one of my all time favourite books, A Place of my Own The Education of an Amateur Builder (1997). For anyone interested in architecture or design or who just dreams of having a cabin in the woods, this book is highly recommended. He ends up overthinking everything and goes off on many tangents all of which end up being interesting and informative.
A new seed catalogue arrived recently. I thought I ordered everything I might want for the coming season before Christmas but now I’m not so sure. It seems I will get some coffee table plant perusing after all.
By Jill Williams
