I bought a book on ferns last fall and uncovered it during a recent spate of cleaning. I got serious about looking for some new kinds of ferns for the back yard and actually found a nursery in Virginia, the Crownsville Nursery, that carries a great variety of them. Yesterday, a box arrived with my new babies:

The packaging was quite clever: the packing straw is held in place with rubber bands, which keeps the potting soil from coming loose. Each pot has that stick in it, which kept the top of the box from crushing down or the pots from flying up. All of this actually allowed the larger ferns to travel free and unbroken. I was impressed.

This is the Dixie Wood Fern, Dryopteris x australis, and I got three of them. They’re supposed to grow up to five feet in lenght/height, so I’m thinking of putting them in corners somewhere. I had planted some Ostrich Ferns in such places, but those died off over the summer and don’t seem to be reviving like some of the others that suffered similar setbacks.

This is a Peacock Fern, Selaginella uncinata, and I got ten of these. They’re supposed to be a good ground cover and actually be an iridescent blue at some angles. I plan to cover the northern bank of the labyrinth with these, and if they do well there, and the Irish Moss fails to thrive in the middle plot, I may use them in the middle as well.

As I mentioned above, many of the ferns I planted last spring died back during the summer heat, but most of them are now putting forth new growth. The most hardy seem to be the Autumn Ferns; they didn’t even flinch at the heat. The Mexican Male Ferns that I planted at the entrance to the men’s loo seem to have perished altogether, although they shouldn’t have. The place I put them is usually moist. Perhaps this summer it wasn’t, however.

I need to go back and catalog the others I planted. I know some were Japanese Painted Ferns, and there was at least one other variety.

I love ferns. I think they’re beautiful in ways that flowering plants aren’t. I agree with the Japanese that flowers in a garden make it “hot,” and that a green garden is a calming one. So far, my semi-wilderness of ivy and ferns is fitting that description admirably.

Anyway, I was going to plant them this afternoon, but the rain has prevented me. Yes, I know I could go ahead and play in the rain, but I don’t wanna. Another task for later.

I was out on the Art Walk downtown last night, bought a new piece, and came across these at one of the antique places:

These look like pieces of old wall dividers, maybe like from between booths at a pub or something. The upper panel has been replaced with a mirror. (Yes, that’s Herman Fletcher in the first one. I’m in the other one.)

I’m thinking it would be interesting to have something like this, a tall one and a short one, installed together somewhere outside the labyrinth, so that as one walks it, one occasionally is confronted with one’s own image.

Reactions, anyone?

The grass springeth.

It’s still a little thin, so I’ll wait until next week to mow. I’ll wait for it to stop raining, too.

That was such a lovely end to the previous post, I had to end it there. But I had more.

The periphery of the labyrinth is a wild mess of green: ivy, ferns, vinca, various “volunteer” organisms, a couple of things I’ve actually planted, all tumbled together and only moderately managed by me.

This spot struck me this morning. It is only partially deliberate, which makes it in a very Zen way quite lovely indeed.

The photo, of course, cannot replace the experience. You will have to come do that yourself.

I spent last night, and now this morning, out in the labyrinth. I had only the fire and the labyrinth, no music, which is unusual for me. I listened to the sounds instead.

This is such an amazingly peaceful spot, and even in its recovery phase, an essentially beautiful one. Now the leaves are beginning to drift down, and unlike the pecans, which are a metaphorical as well as a literal nuisance, they are lovely as well.

I’m watching a hummingbird wander apparently aimlessly through the branches of the trees. Surely she can remember where the feeder is?

I’m also watching a lone candle still flickering from last night. It is my practice, after finishing up for the night, to leave the rainbow/chakra candles burning, as well as the four clear candles around the center. It’s a wonderful sight in the night.

Often many of them are still burning the next morning. But now, way more than fifteen hours later, one is still going.

You can just see it there, the indigo candle, the “third eye” chakra. Our inner eye, our sense of judgment, of wisdom. If we seek an answer, it is here we must find it.

Maybe if I sit here the rest of the day, I can hear what the question is.

As the Keeper of the Labyrinth, I officially hate pecans. They smack of metaphor.

Sometime in the night, the center of the labyrinth was visited.

This individual is sitting on the eastern bricks. He clung tight as I removed the bricks, but sometime during the day he flew away to sit above us in the trees and scream for sex.

Here we are before I got started.

These are pieces of 1-inch thick corrugated cardboard that I snagged from the Carnegie Library renovation site. I figured they’d be good to set the pieces of granite on without scratching them.

Here’s the granite removed. I marked each piece on the bottom with its position, e.g., NE, SW, etc. The pieces were not cut in accurate 90° angles, so it’s important for future generations to know where they go.

Here’s the center with the granite and the inside bricks removed.

Essentially I was digging a post hole without a post hole digger. It would not have done me much good to have such an implement; the clay was full of construction detritus. I just chipped away at it with my spades. Eventually it got too deep to remove soil with the spade. I resorted to a former citronella candle pail to scoop it out.

My goal was to dig deep enough to hit the topsoil under all the clay which had been dumped there from the excavation of our addition in 1993. It was about two feet down.

Here’s the final hole with water that I poured in for a percolation/drainage test. It drains just fine.

The bowl seated atop the hole. I traced around it and began to carve out a bed for it.

The bowl in situ.

I measured the depth of the hole to the bottom of the bowl. Then I cut a piece of 6″ PVC pipe. Anyone need six feet of PVC pipe? Here’s the drainpipe in place. Then it was time to go find some large gravel, which I did at Mulch and More out on Hwy 34.

Here’s the “river rock mix” filling the hole. I thought about just filling the outside part with the dirt and leaving the drain empty, but then I thought that future generations might find it easier to remove the pipe if it wasn’t lodged in silt and clay. To that end, I drilled holes to attach rope to the top of the pipe. (You can see my written instructions to future generations inside the pipe.) Also, I figured mosquitos might find a pool of water too attractive, but they probably wouldn’t bother going down under the rocks.

So I got maudlin. Sue me.

And here we have the Problem: the north and west channels in the bowl do not line up with the bricks. Since the granite is not cut accurately, the channels are non-negotiable. I will have to find a way to cut into the bowl for those two areas.

And here’s where we left the thing on Saturday afternoon.

Here is my poor labyrinth yesterday as I watered it. Notice how absolutely brown it is. All the grass has died, save a few poor blades in small pockets. I shall have to reseed in a couple of weeks.

Here is the bottom of the omphalic bowl, patched. It’s going to be forever out of sight, so I don’t have to clean it up.

Here are the epoxied cracks, all gold leafed. It’s actually kind of nice. I may come back in on the little white spots and gold leaf them as well. Sort of a night sky there in the center of my labyrinth. Up close and personal, there are plenty of bare spots, but as long as you’re not really paying attention, it’s lovely enough, especially in the dark and under water.

And here is where it is going tomorrow, if I’m lucky. It turns out to be a good thing that the grass has died; now I don’t have to feel any qualms about turning the center into a construction zone. It’s not as if it’s going to destroy anything of permanent growth.