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.