June can be a slow month in the garden, visually; the spring bulbs and ephemerals are long past, seeds have barely sprouted, bedded annuals are still teeny things just starting to grow, and summer perennials have yet to open. But as the month progresses to the solstice, pops of color begin to emerge.
It’s déjà vu all over again, as Yogi Berra would have it. Less than four months ago I put down my rescue cat Charcoal, who had a cancerous tumor in his mouth, and now his companion Cleo follows him across the Rainbow Bridge, from the same complaint! Cleo and Charkey were very close, and she hasn’t been the same since his passing. Her eating habits had become erratic, and she was isolating more and more in the upper reaches of a storage unit in the laundry room that was their home. After a few initial forays into the spring sunshine of the garden, she refused to go out, and the weekend before her death, she stopped eating completely.
As April wanes and fades into the lusty month of May, spring bulbs in the garden are waning, too, but there’s a last flourish of late-season daffodils to enjoy, and the muscari are at their peak. Perennials have returned, and are lush with new green growth (or in the case of heucheras, that might be rose, bronze, burgundy, yellow or purple growth!), and some have even bloomed.
The very concept of awards and movies seems alien this year, after a twelvemonth of pandemic restrictions and closed theaters, but the Hollywood Dream Factory grinds on, and though it’s been delayed a month from its normal airing, the 93rd Academy Awards will be presented Sunday, 25 April 2021, starting at 8 PM PDT in Los Angeles. And that means it’s also time for my annual Oscar asteroid prognostication!
I love flowers. Not just the blooms, their whole process of unfoldment. Spring flowering bulbs really embody this, as we watch the first tentative emergence of their leafy tips, often while winter still holds sway, giving way to graceful stems and swelling buds held aloft. Starting off slowly at first, at some point critical mass is reached, and the bud bursts into a full-fledged bloom, sometimes within hours. For many varieties, the transformation continues, as the blossom’s initial hue alters over time, deepening, fading or blushing, requiring a daily viewing if the full effect is to be absorbed. In that way, spring flowers teach us a lesson of paying attention, mindfulness, being present, lest any precious stage in their development escape our notice.
On April 9th, 2021, Buckingham Palace announced the death of His Royal Highness Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, husband of Queen Elizabeth II, at their home in Windsor Castle, just two months shy of his 100th birthday. Prince Philip and the Queen were married 73 years, and he was the longest-serving consort in British history. The couple have four children, eight grandchildren, and ten great-grandchildren, with another on the way, due this summer.
