Hum of the Bee Makes the Rose Grow

Hummm and that Rose will Grow 16th November 2008

I know you won't believe it, and yet maybe you will, but I have observed something amazing, well maybe, maybe not...
But sometime ago, like...say three weeks ago, we had a swarm of bees that fixed themselves to one of the front yard rose bushes.
I think it was the just joey near the letter box.
Anyhow, this rose following the departure of the bees, was marked by white wax.
And then, several weeks later the new shoots appeared red and began sprouting with renewed vigour, unbelievable.
Had the bees said something to that rose...?
Maybe they stung it, massaged it, tickled it, hummed it - lots of hums...and more hums... and feasted on nectar and that rose grew new shoots, they multiplied and shot out every which way...
And today, another story that reminded me of this one about the rose...
My auntie and my mother, the three of us visited Dawsons Nursery on Hale Rd Forrestfield... and beside eating a lemon flan and creme, and a reasonable sized cappuccino whilst the song: "Born Free, as free as the wind blows" played nearby... and besides wandering through a maze of rose delights like Mr Lincoln...wow what perfume, and Angel Face... and all others... besides... I made a chanced discovery of how to grow a magnolia.
"It wouldn't move" said my auntie.
"So I hit it with a stick against its lower trunk and you know it began moving soon after."
And she didn't seem surprised?!
And I am still surprised that plants can react this way.
I always talk to my plants, and I talk to plants I don't even know... sure plants are strangers who really want to be friends...befriend we humans... shake a branch and it drops an apple, hit its stem and it sprouts a new leaf.
But I reckon we should do what the bees do.
If a rose won't move, try tickling it, eat a honey sandwich or drink, sip or slurp some honey tea in its company, or hum to it...
I reckon the humming is what did it.
You can't sting it, because that's something bees wouldn't do, because when they lose their stings they die!
Try humming...and begin today...

Stag Horn: Look within the Little paw-leaf emerging

From the Outer


Closer: The arm extends



The child, the hand reaching for the light...

Felco Secateurs: With a Beak Like a Bird

Felco no. 4 Secateurs: With a beak like a bird

Siren on the Wall

Siren on the Wall, or the birth of venus, beneath the pergola, north facing

It is strange to consider, but this woman of clay, the selkie that she is, seems a woman of about 28 or in her early 30s... Maybe, secretly this form is a sign of fertility, a signifier... I remember standing at the foot of the Birth of Venus in the Uffizi Art Gallery in Florence, Italy, and she too like the woman of clay was positioned above a shell. So the shell is a sign of fertility, and the woman above means what...?? To be continued...

Red-winged Ballerina

Red-winged ballerina, beneath the pergola, north facing



In a Purple Frock...

Pink Ballerina

Pink Ballerina

Bella by the door

Near the door, white geranium pink insides , back patio, north facing

White speckled pink geranium

White speckled pink geranium near the back door, back patio, north facing

Dazzling Geraniums

Royal Knight or is that Royal Night...



Dazzling pinks, geranium back patio, north facing

The Geranium - pale orange

The Geranium - Back patio, north facing

Impatients red and white

Rear garden, northside, beneath the pergola - impatients

The Boy and the Bird Bath

Beneath the varigated box, the boy and his bird bath

Iceberg buds

Iceberg buds (front bed)

Front Bed Ice Berg

Ice berg

Rose the Bella

Wonderous Red name of rose not known

Vivid Red front bed rose

Vivid Red

An Amber Throne

Amber Throne rose name unknown

Back garden Rose

Backgarden Rose

The Rose 'Pinky' with Bee

Pinky with Bee

Flowers in her Hair

Waterhouse and Roses

An altared state

An altared state 7th Nov 2008

I said to a neighbour recently, that when I smell the rose, especially the scent of the Eiffel Tower, that long stemmed pink I smell God.
I scent-ce the present-ce of God.
There's something divine in this experience.
The rose bush is really a green altar that makes offerings of scent.
From the rose bush's leafy arms come offerings that strain to reach you - hoping to touch you.
Some are thorny arms that don't like to be handled, but regardless carry gifts as their apology for their unique ability in drawing blood.
Roses take on a personage quality, and their leafy forms delight the eye for some as much as their flower.
Their leaves are an art form.
And their spikes seem to exert the same qualities as the tail or horned outer skin of some mythical green dragon.
Roses are minature dragons stabled in garden beds.
Under laid and sitting atop rotting stable manures and ancient stems and gnarled leg-like roots.
Out of these sculptured plimps of possibility, beings that are cut and made to heel, come buds of scented blossom, buds on arms with finger tips of roses.
It makes sense, that roses are scents Beautiful scents arranged to dress the air...

Opium Poppy

Bursting flower of the Opium Poppy

I was once a gardener of the Mayland's Memorial Rose Gardens.
I had taken over from the old Rose Gardener Alan Bishop.
His brother, Fred Bishop, was my forman and both of the Bishops were old school gardeners.
Twice per year we planted as many as 5 thousand annuals.
And periodically amid the spring season, amid the calendula and petunia the odd opium poppy was known to reveal itself.
Now, right next door was a police station, and getting along as I did with the old police sergeant (who also liked gardens and gardening when not arresting drunks and hobos hidden there in) had an interest in what I grew there.
On spying the garden's opium poppies he researched the possibility of whether they were legal.
To our surprise they were legal, at least having half a dozen seemed ok.
So it was that he had a vase with some on his front counter...
And so, now these many years since those poppies of Maylands everytime I see the ones in my mother's garden I remember the old police sergeant and the joke we shared.

Ethereal Wonder

At this stage - a rose unknown

Strelitzia reginae - the Guards of Paradise

The Guards of Paradise





Note the feather I found caught in a spider web. See it was once a bird but now it is a flower...or maybe it is still a bird when no one is watching...

In the front garden is a clump of Strelitzia reginae whose flower spikes appear very so often.
Their colouring is vivid.
Their orange and purple blue plumage are striking as they stand on perpetual watch over the bird bath and native frangipani.
They are the garden's guards and their appearance is magically arranged by some unknown florist whose hand arranges them thus...
And the sight of them begs the question, how could a plant know to copy mimic a bird??
Sure a bird or animal can mimic a plant, some camouflage themselves and take on the colours of their host and some look like their host and here we have plants that are copying the form of birds... ??
One wonders if the gardener that created such things slipped up...
What he or she meant to create was a bird with such a look.
And then I am thinking, I remember now a recent walk I had with my daughter when I introduced her to the snap dragon.
"See" I said, "you can see its jaws..." And now I am thinking, what of orchids that resemble butterflies... like that indigenous orchid the spider orchid or custard orchid or donkey...
None of them resemble their namesakes because none of them are their pollinators. All seem to me to resemble butterflies...
Is this a case of selective breeding or something more...
If it is selective breeding, imagine the odds and time frame that has led to such things...
For the orchid flowers in spring when all matter of creatures are flying and then their flower disappears...
The mystery of what they are disappears till the following year when one thinks they can see a butterfly, but find themselves looking at an orchid.