Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Too inconsequential to be sued

This blog goes to 11…

The house always wins.

All your base are belong to Tunch.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Wetsuit optional.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Verified, but limited!

I swear, each month of 2020 will have its own history degree.

Shocking, but not surprising

Shelter in place is one thing. Shelter in pants is quite another.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Yes we did.

Deploy the moving finger of emphasisity!

Hot air and ill-informed banter

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

What fresh hell is this?

Just a few bad apples.

Militantly superior in their own minds…

How does anyone do Gilligan’s Island as trump world and not cast Jared as Gilligan?

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

You are here: Home / Garden Chats / Sunday Garden Chat: A Poem for Cherry Blossoms

Sunday Garden Chat: A Poem for Cherry Blossoms

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Sunday Garden Chat: A Poem for Cherry Blossoms

From indefatigable gardener and well-read commentor Ozark Hillbilly:

Beauty
Is not less
For falling
In the breeze.

I’ve probably got it all wrong. It comes from James Clavell’s Shogun. I no longer have the book, and while I wrote it down in a journal of stuff I liked, that is gone too. I tried to google it but came up with nothing.

Sigh I tried. Still, for better or worse this is what has stuck with me for more than 4 decades.

Sunday Garden Chat: A Poem for Cherry Blossoms 1

Sunday Garden Chat: A Poem for Cherry Blossoms 2

Sunday Garden Chat: A Poem for Cherry Blossoms 3

***********

Speaking of cherry trees… We planted two (multi-grafts, from different companies) shortly after we moved in, some 25 years ago. Although they matured into lovely trees, neither of them has been doing well recently. Not even the one planted in the ‘best’ spot in the south-facing front yard, which dropped a lot of branches over our unseasonably mild winter.

Would standard tree-fertilizer stakes be helpful, or harmful?

(I’m trying to get the Spousal Unit to dig up the vinca he carefully planted around the bases of both trees ‘to keep the weeds down’, because I’m pretty sure the stuff isn’t helping, but he’s really resistant to the idea…)

What’s going on in your garden (plans), this week?

Reader Interactions

136Comments

  1. 1.

    Dan B

    Vinca is not much problem if it is Vinca minor. It might help to keep a 3 foot circle free with just a loose mulch like medium bark – aged for 6 months would be ideal. Tree feetilizer in a very moderate amount because too much will encourage growth when the trees need a breather. Cherries prefer cold winters and the multiple grafts may not be doing well anymore. And most trees are damaged by turf. Grass roots produce toxins for woody plants – alleopathy.  It also appears that some roots may be girdling.  There’s no remedy for that.

    Id look for a mycorhizal innoculant. Spread it over a wide area up to 25 feet from the trees. You don’t need a lot and wide coverage is best.

  2. 2.

    David Evans

    You have the poem exactly right. Google (shogun blossom poem). Clavell’s book is on the first page of the search results.

  3. 3.

    Jeffery

    I am not religious at all or much into poetry. I found this in a book I am currently reading.

    ‘God’s Garden’ (1913)

    The kiss of the sun for pardon,

    The song of the birds for mirth,

    One is nearer God’s Heart in a garden

    Than anywhere else on earth.

    Dorothy Frances Gurney 1858–1932 English poet 

  4. 4.

    Lapassionara

    Lovely photos, and I loved Shogun when I read it years ago.

    As for the cherry tree, we had a tart cherry tree in our back yard which produced buckets of fruit the first few years we owned the house, then nada, and it started failing. We never figured out what happened, but I know trees have an expected life span.

  8. 8.

    oclib

    in 2006, I was hired by a Japanese company to help start up their first west coast office.  In April of 2007, during Cherry Blossom week, I flew to Tokyo to meet corporate staff.  I was made aware of the significance of the event.  Still, taking a bus from the airport to the hotel and seeing all the people camped out under the cherry trees was awesome….

  11. 11.

    Bill Hicks

    Grafted trees often have a reduced lifespan especially if a dwarf rootstock is used. There is a good chance your trees are just going to die soon. The vinca is unlikely to be causing the problem.

  16. 16.

    swiftfox

    Agree with comment 11.  I have a landscape cherry tree that was likely planted in 1990 when the townhouse was constructed.  Urban tree book says they have a lifespan of 30 years.  Lower branch die back is occurring.

  17. 17.

    Juice Box

    We were planning on spending the summer in Italy, so I wasn’t planning on summer vegetables. Now I’m scrambling to find seed and a pair of gardening gloves (sold out!). Fortunately, I still had some vIable tomato seed. Neither my beans nor my zucchini has germinated.

    OTOH, the dog helped me by pulling out the old drip irrigation which finally motivated me to install the new above ground, low flow system. Good boy!

  19. 19.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: Funny, I can remember a poem I read almost 45 years ago, but I can’t remember that my wife told me on a Thursday that we are having dinner with her daughter and SiL on a Sunday.

  20. 20.

    Immanentize

    Well, if poetry is on the menu!  Here is the first stanza of “Law Like Love” by Auden which is really a great poem:

    Law, say the gardeners, is the sun,
    Law is the one
    All gardeners obey
    Tomorrow, yesterday, today.

    And of course, here is the whole of Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro:”

    The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
    Petals on a wet, black bough.

  21. 21.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven: It’s a great movie and Nicol Williamson just nailed it as Merlin. So many great lines, delivered with perfection.

  26. 26.

    satby

    So, we had a hard freeze Friday night but I covered my apple trees that were just coming into full bloom and they seem to be fine. A few other plants I couldn’t cover look like they’ll lose some leaves around the edges. Yesterday I got some gladiolus bulbs so I will plant them today before the expected rain if it holds off until after my coffee.  Then it’s inside work for the rest of the day.

  28. 28.

    Immanentize

    So, I’ve got cabbage in which some critter promptly et.  Potatoes, leaks and onion sets planted.  Jalapenos too (although a bit early for them). Carrot seeds planted and boards put on top until germination.

    For seedlings, I have some Bok Choi to replace the cabbages; Rutgers, Celebrity, Campari, Sun Gold, and Yellow Pear tomatoes to plant.  Also Tomatillos (yum!) But I’m waiting for this crazy cold snap to fade away….

  30. 30.

    Immanentize

    @raven: That Kurosawa piece is sad.  But beautifully so — like some dreams I suppose.  Wouldn’t it have been great to stand back and watch the whole choreography unfold from afar?  Like a medieval clock but with exquisite beauty….

  32. 32.

    Kay (not the front-pager)

    I haven’t been out yet to check my few planted vegetables, but my husband says the frost last night was hard enough to knock back the irises. We covered the Boston ferns on the porches, but I forgot the veggies in containers on the back patio (we can’t plant veggies in the yard because of the g..d…. deer). A hard freeze in MD in May. What next.

    One of my daughter-in-law’s professors put her onto some chicks for sale. Looking at them made me realize how much I don’t know about caring for chickens. Fortunately my backdoor neighbors are old hands. The biggest hurdle, I think, will be getting my husband to build a coop. After that I think he’ll be hooked.

  33. 33.

    Bex

    Just started reading Silence and Beauty by the artist Makoto Fujimura.  He writes, “By beauty I mean a specifically Japanese understanding of beauty connected with death and sacrifice, a definition slightly different from Western concepts of beauty.”

  37. 37.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Wire sent to headquarters: The assault is on. The hummingbirds are attacking in full force. Need reinforcements. Need more ammo.

    My neighbor was briefly visited by a Baltimore Oriole the other day. I have yet to see one. She also managed to espy a Scarlet Tanager. They are common enough (I hear them frequently) but so shy, and spending most of their time in the deep woods that any sighting is notable. In our 10 years I have actually seen only 3 of them, I think. I hear the Summer Tanagers every morn, singing their hearts out. I’ll start seeing them when the begin feeding the babies.

    The rains have let up for a few days and today and tomorrow I have to finish getting the veggie garden prepped, if not planted. I have loads of beans to sow but starting Tuesday, it is suppose to rain every day thru Saturday at least. If I plant them now they will just rot in the ground. Patience is a virtue, one I need to exercise often.

    The Zen garden annex is all but done. I have a few more details to attend to but once it is finished I’ll send Anne some pics so you all can be properly jealous.

  42. 42.

    OzarkHillbilly

    A beautiful piece from the NYT: I Survived Vietnam. Will I Survive This Pandemic?

    This time the fight has less passion. It is difficult to hate and fight a number with an abbreviation. I am, for now, a witness, tied to victims and repelled by my participation in something I had nothing to do with. The heroes are behind scrubs, masks and hospital walls, anonymous. I do not see them in their uniforms. I commend those blank masks from an empty house, wishing I did not have to share this with them.

    I have the same feeling of isolation and the carelessness, the negligence of numbers from Vietnam. I walk in streets without company and the empty corridors of apartment blocks, the sirens of emergency vehicles replacing the groaned straining of overloaded helicopters lifting off flattened brush. These days I remember and am grateful for that earlier departure from fear, the beautiful country of death. Today, this is the only truth not superimposed, one on the other.

    At the end of a day in this year 2020, I go out into the dusk. The bright star has descended into the horizon. I listen to a song in my mind that I can hum but never voice. I raise my arms, slowly turn in the style of a dancer from a movie and say to myself, this day you have not been touched. The plague has passed you by again and your name is not recorded on the list of fallen. I have been confused for decades but this is a good day.

  47. 47.

    satby

    @raven: I cancelled my subscription to that. It wasn’t worth the money to me. I’m more into the TCM style classic Hollywood films.

  48. 48.

    debbie

    Lovely poetic lines, OH. It may be beautiful, but to me, very saddening to see mounds of azalea petals underneath greening bushes.

  49. 49.

    satby

    Well coffee’s done and the rain is starting. Going to try to stick these bulbs in the ground before it pours.

  51. 51.

    evap

    I never appreciated the beauty of big groups of cherry trees until I lived in the D.C. area for two year.  Thanks for the pictures!

  52. 52.

    oldgold

    While it is probably true that hard work in the garden never killed anybody, I have always figured, why take the chance?

    Despite this heartfelt belief, today, in honor of Mother’s Day and in fulfillment of  the Motherlode’s “or else” edict, I planned to work on transforming  West of Eden (A/K/A “Your damn weed  patch.”) into a serene butterfly garden.

    Alas, I awakened to 29 degrees and a howling north wind at 35 mph. The Motherlode, citing the Geneva Conventions, despite my protestations, ordered me to call off my horticultural Mother’s Day plans.

  54. 54.

    germy

    @NotMax:

    So impressive what computers have wrought when it comes to democratizing (small d) video editing.

    And special effects, as well.

    This, for example:

    Wow, have you ever seen a man do a backflip in high heels? pic.twitter.com/aYc9qQKYMY— Wokescold! The Musical (@underhandrea) February 19, 2020

    I see stuff that students and “amateurs” are doing with special effects, and it’s better than what I saw in Hollywood movies not long ago.

  56. 56.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @NotMax: A friend of mine was the state fiddle champ of Arkansas when he was 16 (iirc). He brought his instrument to our wedding and sat playing it in the mouth of the cave as people filed in for the ceremony. I don’t recall what he played but it was beautiful the way it filled the room.

  59. 59.

    Miss Bianca

    @OzarkHillbilly: Am I the only person who thought Excalibur was completely ridiculous? Maybe because I originally saw it in the theater in the 80s when my head was full of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and I couldn’t stop laughing. I was like, “this guy released THIS movie full of all these solemnly over-the-top tropes and knights in shiny, shiny anachronistic plate armor and wizards in skull caps saying mysterious, portentous things – all tropes that Monty Python just skewered for what should have been *generations*?”

    Saw it again on TV years later and *still* couldn’t stop laughing at it, but maybe that was because all these solemn, solemn portentous scenes kept getting interrupted by hemorrhoid medication commercials.

  60. 60.

    Kristine

    Lovely photos–thanks!

    Rainy morning here in far NE Illinois. After that, winds pick up and the temp drops. We could even see a few flakes. Possibility of another freeze tomorrow or Tuesday am, though not as bad as last week’s.

    I have a mix of natives and cultivars in the yard. The native columbine are forming buds, and the astilbes apparently like the cool wet. The trout lilies are winding down, and the wood anemones and Solomon’s seal will be opening soon. I also have some Carnival de Nice tulips that survived 30 years of squirrel ravages and other stressors to spread and bloom. They’re the older singles, not the splashy doubles.

    Orioles, rose-breasted grosbeaks, and catbirds have arrived. The catbirds munch the orange slices meant for the orioles, which seem to prefer to drink out of the hummingbird feeder (as does a chickadee).

    This week will supposedly be the last of the cold for a while. We’ll see.

  61. 61.

    Immanentize

    @Miss Bianca: Perhaps Bresson’s Lancelot du Lac would be more your style? Dark. Not heroic. One thing I loved about Besson was that he mostly used unknown actors and had them strip out emotions, when possible, from their speech and line delivery. It makes this movie, a supposed romance, so odd and human.

  63. 63.

    Geminid

    Lime is cheap and may help trees produce cherries. Besides adding adding calcium and other mineral plant nutrients it buffers acid soils, making soil nutrients more available to plants. Where I live in central Virginia people often send soil samples to Virginia Tech for analysis; they are usually advised to add some lime, or a lot of lime.                                                                          My friend Joan has two large pecan trees. They produced very few pecans with no meat in them. Two winters back she spread lime under them, and last Summer she got a lot more nuts. But, still not much pecan meat, so this year she’s trying nitrogen and zinc sulfate in addition to some more lime.

  68. 68.

    cope

    @Raven: Allerton Park:  I once went cross country skiing there at night during a full Moon while enjoying the mind modifying effects of some mild blotter acid.

  69. 69.

    mrmoshpotato

    @debbie: Interesting.  Hopefully the person isn’t responsible for any bone-punchingly-stupid commercials.

    Also, Mr. Hicks would probably like a word.

  73. 73.

    raven

    @WaterGirl: We were one of the few not to get married there. Do you know you can stand at the top of those stairs and talk in a normal voice and a person at the other end can hear you?

  74. 74.

    raven

    @cope: Funny, I had a very similar experience there one spring on the meadow. This song always makes me think of that sunrise but it’s more aptly named for your experience.

     

    ICE

  79. 79.

    trollhattan

    @Miss Bianca:

    Yup, watched it on initial release in theater and found it lacking and yeah, instant unflattering comparisons with “Holy Grail” that I was more than happy to share in real(reel?) time. Plus the audio quality sucked, at least where I saw it. It had nothing on “Deliverance.”

    Boorman redeemed himself with “Hope and Glory.” Memorable film well worth the effort to find, for those who have not seen it.

  80. 80.

    donnah

    @germy:Back in the seventies,  my husband’s sister, who is white, wanted to marry her black boyfriend here in town, but they couldn’t find a pastor to do the ceremony in church. Our Presbyterian minister, a very staid old white man, said he wouldn’t be allowed to perform the marriage ceremony in our church, but he had a lovely pine grove on his property and would gladly perform the ceremony there.

    And so they did. It was peaceful and sunny and my SIL wore a peasant style dress with a wreath of flowers in her hair, and her husband wore a suit. Very much a seventies wedding, and actually nicer than being inside a church.

  81. 81.

    japa21

    @OzarkHillbilly:  We had our pass through by a Baltimore Oriole a couple days ago. Every Spring and Fall one stops by for a few days before heading on to wherever.  I got some pictures of it feeding at the hummingbird feeder.

    Also had a rose breasted grosbeak stop by. They summer further north but stop by to feast from our five feeders and suet feeder on their way.  Will see again come fall.

  82. 82.

    Immanentize

    @donnah: Did the groom wear a big velvet bow tie with his suit?  Necessary to any 70s event.

    ETA I graduated HS in the later seventies. My year book picture seems to have me in a brushed denim leisure suit wearing a puka shell necklace. Nah, couldn’t be.

  83. 83.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    Do the spring-soft showers
    shed tears as they fall gently,
    O blooming cherry flowers?
    None can but deplore your fair
    petals scattering in air.

  84. 84.

    debbie

    @donnah:

    A couple of friends had the same kind of weddings, but I think they were small and outside because the parents didn’t approve.

  86. 86.

    donnah

    @debbie:  Hoo boy, hardly any of my husband’s family approved, even his parents, but it was a small and very sweet ceremony. They were married for about five years, but finally divorced, not because of racial issues, but because she felt he was too materialistic. They parted on good terms and they still stay in touch.

  88. 88.

    Immanentize

    @raven: I like those espalier trees on the walls.  I thought of having one here, but I only have wooden fences that are not the house.  And they wouldn’t be right, I don’t think.

  89. 89.

    raven

    @donnah: We had 8 people and 6 dogs at ours. I wore a powder blue cowboy shirt with yellow flowers (I still have it), jeans, blue high tops with purple laces and my keys on my belt. She wore a blue eyelet dress and her dad, the northern baptist did the vows from “It’s a good feelin to know” by Poco. I kept my hair in a ponytail until after the service.

  90. 90.

    cope

    @raven: I remember it well.  I went out to Allerton often in the mid to late 70s.  My girlfriend/now wife worked at a summer art camp there one year and I was her ride there and back every day as well as having enjoyed many an altered state night-time visit when the bars closed.  It was either that or a dash to Danville.

  91. 91.

    donnah

    @raven: I love that!

    My senior prom was in 1976 and I wore a floral print halter dress and my boyfriend (now my husband) wore a powder blue tux. Oh, how our fashion choices haunt us!

  92. 92.

    trollhattan

    @donnah:

    The entire ’70s could be arrested for fashion crime even today. There is no statute of limitation. Because photography.

    ETA the kid liberated her prom dress from imprisonment at the alteration shop on Friday. What to do now with said dress remains unanswered.

  93. 93.

    JeanneT

    @Raven:  Is that Allerton Park?  OK, now I read the rest of the comments I see I’m not the only one who recognized it!

  94. 94.

    donnah

    @trollhattan:

    And I comfort myself knowing that we used what was available and wore what everyone else was wearing, from giant frames on our glasses to pastel tuxedos. We would have been considered freaks if we wore then what we do now.

  95. 95.

    opiejeanne

    @trollhattan: I took our young son and the neighbor girl to see Excalibur, and was surprised by the level of gory violence (Sword of Lancelot seemed tame by comparison) and the rape of Arthur’s mother by Uther. I hadn’t seen any of this mentioned in the reviews and for some reason I didn’t notice the R rating.

    The kids seemed unmoved, they were 9 and 10, but I still feel a bit guilty subjecting them to that at such a young age. The girl’s mother laughed when I apologized and said she’d rather her kids see sex scenes than violence and didn’t seem to get what I was apologizing for.

  96. 96.

    WaterGirl

    I went back and added the Allerton Park photos that Raven linked to. Such a lovely place.

    (I haven’t been in years, ever since Lyme disease became a thing, because they had a terrible problem with that at Allerton. Possibly resolved now, haven’t read up on it in a few years.)

  97. 97.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    It’s a Mothers Day tradition in our area to go to local landmark Longwood Gardens, for which reason since we both hate big crowds we never actually do that, although we are members. We like to go at off-peak times.

    But today we decided to see if they have virtual tours and found out that they do indeed, via a very well-populated YouTube channel. So we ended up doing Longwood after all. My wife is especially enchanted with orchids and in normal times I think this would have been “Orchid Extravaganza” time. So we started with an orchid tour.

  99. 99.

    EthylEster

    AL ask: Would standard tree-fertilizer stakes be helpful, or harmful?

    I recommend worm tea or worm castings. When stuff travels through a worm, it gets a “special sauce” that can trigger amazing results in trees and shrubs. I personally have seen it applied to a dogwood that had not bloomed for years. I can’t find the pics but it was impressive. C. florida does not do well in PacNW.

  101. 101.

    WaterGirl

    @Immanentize: You are welcome!

    Seemed to fit in nicely with the Garden Chat.  Plus, we can use all the calming images we can get!

    edit: say, can you let me know if you get the email I just sent you.  I want to be sure it didn’t get marked as spam since It went to about 35 people.

  102. 102.

    Pete Mack

    @Lapassionara:

    If they are not in full sun, they should last about 70-100 years. With full sun they last a couple hundred years. But they are definitely not trees of the climax forest.

  103. 103.

    LivingInExile

    @Kay (not the front-pager): I have had good luck with a product called Liquid Fence.  Mix it with water and spray on your trees. And pla nts. Works on deer And rabbits, if you remember to do it every couple weeks.

  104. 104.

    trollhattan

    @Immanentize:

    She and her buddies might yet finagle something, I’m not in the loop (shocker!).

    Finally decided on St. Mary’s (the California edition, one of several St. Mary’s as it turns out). It’s been a long haul and having finally decided (and I swear there was never an “eeny, meeny, miney, mo” round) a lot of stress has suddenly vanished. They swear there will be fall classes–I don’t know how they can control that–and I really question XC season, which is why they recruited her in the first place.

    It’s a funny little world, we send this generation into. I feel very bad for the class of ‘2020 but I think ’21 will get a much more thorough screwing over.

  105. 105.

    EthylEster

    @oclib: A friend of mine was hired by the state of WA to plant a replacement for one of the cheery trees that adorn the capitol grounds in Olympia. When he saw the tree, he said that it was nice but not the correct kind of flowering cherry. Wrong variety. The state guy in charge told him to just do it! So he did and the following spring it was obvious there was a problem. He was not hired to replace the replacement.

  106. 106.

    Yutsano

    Sakura! 桜! Such a lovely flower with special significance to Japanese culture. My mom doesn’t have one but she does have an ornamental almond tree that blooms very showy every year. Unfortunately due to circumstances I missed it this year. Ah well. It’s still very much alive out there.

  107. 107.

    debbie

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    Thanks, I just took a couple tours of the spring flowers. Beautiful photography! I see lots of flowers around here but can’t get close enough to really see them (private property laws and all).

  108. 108.

    Pete Mack

    Vinca (minor and major) is considered invasive in temperate woodlands in the US. It forms huge mats in which nothing else will grow (though existing trees will do OK.) So make sure the stuff doesn’t escape or even spread–it is almost impossible to eradicate. (I have tried and failed more than once.)

  109. 109.

    Origuy

    @Raven: In four years at UIUC I never went to Allerton. I didn’t have a car and only had a few friends that did.

  110. 110.

    opiejeanne

    @Pete Mack: There is a huge old cherry tree on our property (just outside Seattle) that must be at least 50 years old, but the fruit isn’t great. It isn’t an ornamental but every spring it covers itself with blossoms.

    I can’t imagine who would have planted it, because our house is only 25 years old. On the hillsides in our area there are cherries that have “escaped”, grown from fruit dropped by birds, and I wonder if this is an escaped cherry, or maybe the fruit is poor because we rarely have bees or other pollinators when it’s in bloom.

    We planted a Rainier cherry 9 years ago, and while we were standing in the garden, admiring it, a gust hit it and stripped nearly every petal, and they blew across the garden in an amazing show. Since we will be home this year when the cherries are ripe on the Montmorency trees and the Rainier, I’m going to hang some reflective ribbon from the branches to flutter in the breeze and any the birds. They can have all of the cherries from the big tree, which they quickly strip bare a couple of weeks before the other cherries are ready.

  111. 111.

    WaterGirl

    @Origuy: For the 10 years that my dad was alive after we lost my mom, he would visit me every April and we would drive out to Allerton to see the stunning display of tulips.

    He claimed it was for Easter :-) and end of summer, but I always thought of it as the tulips and homegrown tomatoes, both of which he loved.

    But I was always his favorite, so I didn’t worry about that too much.

  112. 112.

    opiejeanne

    Ozark and Raven, your pictures are great. This has been a very entertaining thread.

    Now I have to assemble the potato salad for our Social Distancing Picnic later today.

  113. 113.

    raven

    @Origuy: In the 70’s it was THE place for the counterculture on weekends. That was before they took down the gay statuary.

  114. 114.

    WaterGirl

    @opiejeanne:

    reflective ribbon to flutter in the breeze and scare away birds

    Does that work?  I put a net on the cherry tree every year, and it is a total pain in the behind to get it on the tree.

  116. 116.

    raven

    @WaterGirl: ETA, I think the gay themed statues came down much earlier.. They also took down the gorilla and the bear fighting and indian. I think they were displayed in the Krannert lobby at some time (not the gay stuff).

  118. 118.

    raven

    After the tour, the Bear was returned to the Park until 1989 when, in response to controversy against racism, sexism and animal cruelty and threats to ‘melt them down’ both the Bear and Gorilla were taken off exhibit and placed in storage on the Allerton grounds. Their storage ended in 2006 when they were exhibited on loan at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. Following their return in 2007, the Fremiet pair were put on permanent exhibit in the Kinkaede Pavilion at the Krannert Art Museum on the campus of the University of Illinois. There, the bronze pair remained in their windowed sun room until last October, 2016, when they were re-installed at Allerton Park very near their original installation site of 1959. What a circuitous trajectory for these magnificent works of art.

  119. 119.

    NotMax

    @Immanentize

    Should that happen to be in storage, liberate it for Immp to wear for freshmen orientation when/if the campus is reopened.

    :)

  121. 121.

    SFBayAreaGal

    @OzarkHillbilly: Excalibur, in my opinion, is the best King Arthur movie ever made.

    The music, the filming, the cast, especially the scene you referenced, gives me goose bumps.

  122. 122.

    NotMax

    @WaterGirl

    At one time thousands upon thousands of those once ubiquitous AOL discs were repurposed in yards spanning the length and breadth of the land to be hung from tree branches to spook the birdies.

  123. 123.

    Yutsano

    @NotMax: When I was in college, someone made a suit out of nothing but the free AOL discs (when they were the free 3.5* versions) and had that at Halloween. It was way too fucking brilliant.

  124. 124.

    Sab

    Birds planted a new tree in my side yard a couple of years ago. It is finally big enough to identify. It’s an allegheny serviceberry. It’s full of blossoms this year. The rental goats tried to eat it last year but they couldn’t quite reach.

  129. 129.

    Kattails

    Probably dead thread but talking about Japanese culture, cherry blossoms (Beautiful pics!) reminded me of Japapese artist Itchiku Kubota, whose life work was using silk kimono as a basis for the most exquisite artwork.  Here’s a link to his Symphony of Light series: they’ve lined up the kimono open, backs facing the viewer. The image floats and you can use you mouse to pan over a scene encompassing twenty-nine full size kimono all linking into one panoramic scene. Stunning, gorgeous colors. Google him for more goodies. You will not regret spending some time with his stuff, I should link it to the virtual tours thread.  He’s passed away but was one of their national treasures.  Has a museum devoted to his work.

    @Sab: My sister had one a serviceberry in her yard, made great jam with it.

  130. 130.

    WaterGirl

    @Kattails:

    I should link it to the virtual tours thread.

    Comments are automatically closed after 30 days to prevent spammers from trashing them, but I can add this to that thread

    edit: Except that I can’t really figure out what to do when I get to that site. :-(

  131. 131.

    Kattails

    @WaterGirl: the Munson Williams Proctor Arts Institute had a traveling exhibit of the pieces, it may be easier to view them individually at that website

    At the first site, I should have gotten you to the Symphony of light collection. You should get a long line of kimono against a black ground. Just click to enlarge, or hit the + sign, then just drag your mouse to see the whole thing.

  132. 132.

    Feathers

    If you are looking for a different sort of Mother’s Day cherry blossom experience, check out Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees, a 1970s Japanese horror film. A bandit from the mountains robs a traveling couple. He falls under the spell of the wife and takes her with him, desperately doing anything to keep her happy. What makes her happy? Severed heads. Excellent and beautiful entry in the ghost wife genre. Opens with a scene of contemporary Japanese people picnicing under the cherry trees, but a voiceover tells us that this was not always the custom. Back in the days, walking through a cherry blossom forest would drive you mad. Had not thought of it being a contemporary of the Italian giallo films, but it is. Have been watching seventies horror, want to give this a rewatch.

    Am in the haven’t really ever gotten into Excalibur camp. I think it was from being very into the Arthurian legends, but always catching bad transfers on TV halfway through the movie. The modern silvery costumes in the natural settings have always been just off to me. Weird, because I like Zardoz.

  134. 134.

    opiejeanne

    @WaterGirl: I don’t know if it works, but I’m going to try it this year. I’ve had the roll of reflective ribbon for a couple of years, mislaid it the first year and haven’t used any of it yet.

    We will find out.

  135. 135.

    opiejeanne

    @raven: One of my dad’s aunts & her husband moved to Hawaii in the late 20s (I’d have to check the date) but no one I’ve talked to even knew that she did, let alone why. They lived in Chicago until then.

    She’s the one who sent Dad the Civil War letter written by his great grandfather in Toronto to his grandfather in Chicago in1862, telling John to take his brothers to church, which is a laugh. John and two  brothers had just moved to Chicago, and the aunt’s father enlisted in the Union army right after the letter arrived. It was full of fire and thunder about what should happen to leaders of the Confederacy.

  136. 136.

    Betsy

    It looks like the tree(s) in the picture may have girdling roots.  This happens because the roots of containerized trees often circle in the pot.  Years or decades after planting, those small roots are big and they girdle the tune or other roots.  You can read up on the web.  Sometimes a very careful removal can help, but also very risky.

    In general, treat the root zone under the canopy of most trees gently — no digging or trenching there, plants or grass won’t do well, so just mulch with fallen leaves and let it alone.  Consult your county ag extension agent for specific advice.  They know the problems and plants in your area, and why things go wrong.

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