Indian Summer

 

Oh what a beautiful day it was today! It started off cool and gray but by noon the sun was shining and the temperature glorious - a perfect Indian summer day and how hard it is to believe it's already the end of September! My Dad used to recite the poem "Along the line of smoky hills, the crimson forest stands and all the day the blue jay calls throughout the autmn land . . ." a sure sign to us that autumn was here. And here in Muskoka, the hills are coming alive with their annual colour show.

 

 
Although parts of the garden are well past their prime, other parts are just coming into their true glory - the burning bush is now aflame, rudbeckias are at their peak of golden beauty and my David Austen roses continue to bloom and bloom, and oh what a fragrance they give. And my climbing rose that only blooms in June has produced a multitude of fat rosy rose hips, an antidote for winter colds. I just noticed today that my wegeilia is starting to bloom again. After a crazy summer of too little water and too much heat, the  past couple of weeks of cooler temperatures and a few days of rain have given everything a renewed boost.

A few days ago I harvested the last of the tomatoes, as we've already had frost, and cooked them into delicious roasted tomato sauce for enjoyment during the long cold winter days when one needs a reminder of summer's harvest. And yesterday I picked and cooked my grapes. I then froze the juice which I will make into delicious grape jelly on the next Saturday that I have free. Another taste of summer to be savoured in the depths of winter.

In the next few days we'll be taking down the gazebo and putting away the garden furniture for another season. I hate to put everything away when the days are still warm and sunny but before you know it there will be snow in the air and I'll be cursing that I didn't clean up everything when the weather was nicer. But today I'll just enjoy the blue jays calling to each other and visiting my garden to partake of the berries on the shrubs and trees. Aaah! Indian summer days!

Roses - Symbol of Love for Valentine's Day

"In the heart of every woman
is the memory of a Rose."

Jean Gordon


Roses have been the symbol of love throughout the ages but it was the Victorians who began to write about roses in their poetry and prose extolling their virtue and innocence.



And as Liz Klose and Laura Peters recount in their book 'Roses for Ontario', "A Greek legend attributes the creation of the rose to Flora, the goddess of spring and flowers. She found the lifeless body of one of her beautiful nymphs in the forest and asked the gods to give the creature new life by transforming her into a flower, one that surpasses all others in beauty. The request was granted and the new flower was named Rose, Queen of Flowers."



Roses have been the symbol of love in my relationship with my husband and he often gives me roses for special occasions, and sometimes for no occasion at all. We have a few roses growing in our gardens, new varieties that come out on a regular basis that seem like they might like to survive in our colder winter climate. We love the ones that smell like roses should smell, that wonderful sweet intoxicating fragrance. My husband especially loves the mauve variety (name unknown) that really exudes with rosy aroma. After all, what good is a rose if it doesn't smell like a rose! In ancient times in Persia it was found that oil could be distilled from rose petals and that once bottled rose oil could last almost indefinitely. This was a real blessing as it was much easier to open a bottle of attar of roses, as the essential oil was known, than to be surrounded by bushels of roses, to enjoy rose fragrance. From this discovery, the scent of roses became a staple of cosmetics, aromotherapy and perfumes.



This Valentine's Day show your loved one you really love them with a gift of roses. And remember that the Rose is the goddess of Spring which I hope is just around the corner (and on this very snowy day we could use a few warm thoughts about spring!).



Did you know that Kenya is one of the major rose growing countries in the world that services much of Europe?

Honeysuckle's Sweet Perfume

"How sweetly smells the honeysuckle in the hushed night, as if the world were one of utter peace and love and gentleness."

Walter Savage Lanfor

How true the above quote is for the honeysuckle smells sweetly in my garden evoking the essence of peace, love and gentleness. Today as I hosted a ladies garden party, the sweet nectar of the honeysuckle in full bloom wafted gently on the breeze tantilizing our olfactory senses as the petals began to gently fall to the earth. I love the fragrance filling my garden at this time of year. As one moves through the garden scent fills the air, from the honeysuckle to the roses to the peonies. It seems there is no area in my garden that is not perfumed.

I am amazed that a simple thing like scent can lift the spirits, transform one's outlook on life and create a sense of bliss. We are certainly blessed to live in such a wonderful creation as our earth. And with our windows open the honeysuckle's fragrance drifts into our home in the evening hours. This quote from Louise Beebe Wilder from her book, "The Fragrant Garden " sums up eloquently the effect flowers perfume have on us. "It is to thread our days with subtle, gentle happiness, a happiness definable but profoundly felt. To sleep in a room beyond whose casement Honeysuckle scrambles and to awake in the night to the exquisite fragrance that inspires the darkness is an experience of a rare quality. Such things invade life's commonplace routine with an ecstatic pleasure."