Tornado Warnings in Denver.

"Oh yes?" I say.

I'm flying out, airlines-not-befuddled-by-Icelandic-Ashplumes willing, tomorrow morning.

"Yeah," the barista girl says "I'm supposed to tell you guys about it, stay away from windows and all that."

Me, sitting next to a window.

I'm not concerned somehow.

Typing on my laptop.

A lady, who has been audibly been sitting outdoors, talking, has come indoors and, seeing three gentlemen, including yours truly, at the back of this cafe, mumbles loudly and very fast "Hey-how-ya-doin'-I-got-a-computer-too."

I think this is deliriously (yet suppressed) funny and cannot help but make brief eye contact with her.

"They-gonna-be-tornados.. tornado-warnings... snow... Denver-Colorado... first time..." to no one in particular. More forgettable mumbling.

To me:

"What's-your-name?"

"Kenton, and yours?"

"Tension?"

"No, Kenton"

"Like-tension-in-the-neck?" gesturing to her neck.

"What's your name?"

"Karen.-K-A-R-E-N."

After this point, despite feeling I have an ear for language, most of her conjunctions gently flew passed me without capture..

"Where-you-live?"

"In a backpack"

"Wha-oh,-this-one?" touching my small backpac on the table.

"No, no, a much larger one" (I'm grinning)

"Well-you're-traveler! Well...like travelers...come-on-over-anytime... give-you... address" Other lovely verbal sounds that might have been words, but were really just a lilting rhythmic set of small hills.

"..I-live-nearby... want-my-address?... my-apartment-I-mean-my-hotel,-done-up-with-canvas-and-everything... you-married?"

"I'm just passing through."

"I'm-not-married-either" (pointing to her little finger. Yes, not her ring finger. But both were bare)

"No, thanks, that's OK." a few seconds earlier the two other gentleman at this end of the coffee shop gave up at keeping their faces toward their laptops.

"Well," she said in that evenly fast mumble "anytime-you-travelin'..." and as she was walking away, half-gestured towards herself

"...we-make--connection."

Eight seconds needed for her to leave the cafe.

My painfully amused smile follows her.

Man 1, (maybe sympathetically, but mostly amused) : "I think she wanted you to go home with her."

I laugh: "That was cute."

Man2, not asking: "Man, how could you pass up that offer."

We are all grinning withe the warmth of one of those comraderies born of small experiences together. It helps that it's raining outside, too.

People are beautiful.

Man1 is back to his yellow notepad and laptop, Man2 is back to his laptop as the second woman of three comes to sit across form him for a job interview at the far end of this cafe.

On this new endevour:

The exposure to plants stokes my desire to set up shop, root down, and grow myself a massive garden full of massive plants and massive rock. Alas.

I am beginning to want to be back for the NARGS summit, (July 2010, Denver and Salida, Colorado.) but that desire is across the teeter-totter from the ability to long-term travel.

The Icelandic Ash-plume has subsided, but some flights are still nilly. That factor permitting, I fly out tomorrow to a city and country for which I've not prepared myself at all. No map, no Rough-guide-lonely-planet nothing, not even a glance at the language. I know some of the plants in the mountains, but I'm otherwise landing blind. It is half-deliberate to prove something to myself. I don't know what.

But oh the thrill of Freaking Terror.

{As high-heeled girl #4 sits down for her interview with Man 2, I think: Sorry mother, I hope you didn't just read this post!}

Island Fever

Canadians have a reputation of laid-backness. It is true. I'd like to think. My Canadian friends are. Elsecially Mr and Mrs. B-. They are dear friends that recently moved to Nanaimo (on Vancouver Island) as a result of the dreariness of the up-island town of Pt. Alberni. Charming in that sunless and rainy, I-think-I'd-like-to-drink way.

Now, they enjoy sunny dog-walks on the beach and copious coffee. I never thought I would to being able to sleep after a cup, but after a few days with them, it was a regular part of my blood composition. The baton passed- now tea gives me the shakes; this shall pass...

But's lets talk about the simple joys in life.

Great Pleasures of Great Projects and Lofty Missions are great, and I subscribe to them, but even they leave one with a hollow spot somewhere behind the sternum.

I was reminded in a conclusive way by my Canadian friends the importance, no, the essentialness of simple pleasures, which is often within domestic life. Yes. So let us look at some dog pictures. And walks on beaches. And gardens-moved-to-back-porches.

And simple fantastic snacks. No, that's yogurt, not ice cream.

I am so inspired by Mrs. B-'s joyous patio plant ghetto that I fancy I'll invest in a trough and pots for my homeless garden when I get home. ("Home," here, being a rather fleeting word, like a nervous chickadee)

Now that I'm all relaxed, it's time for some evening-walk-inspired environmentalism.

I am not calling for any actions nor supporting/proposing any policies, personal nor governmental. Here's some pictures and interpretation.

Biking through Nanaimo, I came upon this lovely, thin-soil-over-rock hill. Coated in mosses and outwardly puncuated by trees, including the above Arbutus menziesii. (A glorious luminescent Ericaceous {Heather Family [they all do well in the Pacific Northwest]} tree with bright, naked, bark and glossy evergreen leaves.) I hid the bike and took myself for a little walk up the ridge. The environment produced between sheets of tiny-flowering-annual studded moss and leaning conifers and Arbutus is a quaint ethereal stroll through one of those forest-style bonsai. The whole thing is sitting on top of a solid mass of dark grey rock, the trees inhabiting puddles of pure-humus soil. Beautiful.

This shot is for you, Allan. Rocks and Ericaceous plants.

Why are these words underlined? I'm too computer un-savvy to fix it...

But the interesting bit is where this hillock has been carved into to accomodate new houses for a growing Nanaimo. I am impressed that such massive amounts of rock can be sliced through so cleanly and efficiently enough to be economical. Cute houses.

Hanging off one of the edges is on of the three last Artostaphylos columbiana on this shrinking hill. It's not a rare plant in the Northwest, in fact, it is quite common. But there are three on this hill, each being genetically different. The last cut portion is unfinished, the road and homes are not built yet, and there may be no plans to cut more hill. It would be a novel drive through the hill into a neighbourhood if so.

In the study of weeds, one learns that weeds are nature's way of swinging disturbed soil back to the other side of the balance- old, established, tight ecologies. One will see certain plants only growing on roadsides and not away from the road. Well, that is a bad example, because roadside mowing and runoff also change that environment... But anyone who has bought a new house will find that they are up against worse weeds for it. The above picture demonstrates the soil-disturbance effect so perfectly, I never imagined such a clean exhibition. The top of the photo is the edge of the rock, which has been cut away some twenty feet removed. The bottom represents an undisturbed show of great green moss that covers the hill. Note the middle spectrum: how young Taraxacum officinale (Dandelion) are springing up and the moss is markedly less green, then dead towards the cut edge.

A Fantastic exhibit.

Now, the discourse on the implications of finer degrees on spectrum of the human-nature disturbance interface, as well as personal value-based choices within the practical analysis of will be left for later, or never, on this blog.

UBCBG and Penstemon davidsonii var. preateritus

(aka, my botanical Holy Grail #1)

If you are not aware of The University of British Columbia's "Botanical Photo of the Day," please look at it and decide if you want to enrich your flower-life every day via e-mail.

http://www.ubcbotanicalgarden.org/potd/2009/05/penstemon_davidsonii_var_praeteritus.phpThis picture (link) of Penstemon davidsonii var. praeteritus was all it took to convince me to make a trip up to Fair Vancouver to see the Garden. The photo-of-the-day program continues to influence and fuel one's interests and enrich the span of one's wonder.

Here is the plant itself, an incredibly large specimen, upon my visit. Penstemon davidsonii var. preateritus is a plant I swear to see in the wild...

Espalier in the Food-related Garden. This shot is for you, Trina.

The gardens, in a sage act of not cutting down last year's dead flower stalks, has made a seasonal impromtu exhibit of Cardiodrinum giganteum. I love this kind of good horticulture.

And it was worth the round four-thousand miles. UBC's Botanical Garden is a living collection of plants (those words arouse me every time...) for study purposes, placed in an aesthetic way for the enjoyment of the greater masses, including me.

It has an appropriate bend towards Asia and the continent's diverse Rhododendrons, which were in full bloom. Timing sometimes smiles on us.

The rock garden, to which I made my initial beeline, is curated by the fine Mr. Brent Hine. Thanks, Mr. Hine, for your time and broad knowledge. I wrote in my notes that this garden is "exquisitely labeled." It must have been pretty great to use such an inky word in my little notebook.

A specimen Larix lyalii, planted in 1975

Anemone palmata

I like the design of the rocks. Close and big. It is monumental yet passive, letting the plants shine as the real stars they are. I can count the number of gardens with rock arrangement of which I fully approve on three fingers, and this is one of them.

Border Crossing...

...Is as fun as oral surgery.

Funny that Canada's border should be where I have trouble. India? Waved me through without a blink, bypassing customs.

Canada? Well, I will admit that given the evidence- the fact that as a backpacker, everything I need to live is in a big backpack and I have no proof of my bank account's holdings on me (this is good security among thieves) that I might, just might, look like a vagrant American hippy looking to get himself lost indefinitely in the Canadian Forest because expatriotism in a Canadian forest is somehow more novel than just getting lost in a forest in the US...

Anyhow, once I told the border officer that I had a ticket to fly to Tbilisi, Georgia, and therefore a reason to return to the US, he sent me on.

Once in Canada, I found myself at the doorstep of Van Dusen Botanic in Vancouver- an old historic-private-holding-turned-public-garden. Some places are easy to blow through, check off your list, and move on, but Van Dusen's atmosphere absolutely demands that you have a sit in one of the gardens and relax. It's probably the distillate-of-Greek-siren with which they fertilise. No, it's like fish emulsion...

Vancouver itself still enjoys a residual high from the Olypic games a few months back. No, I lie, actually. It is in withdrawls, according to locals.

(Above: Horseshoe bay owes much of its economy to the hour or two people must wait there before the next ferry arrives)

Having things to see on the island, I caught the evening ferry to Nanaimo.

For those who have not had the experience: one parks his vehicle in what appears to be any multi-layered parking lot, makes his way up a level to the cafeteria for dinner, browses the mall-esque giftshop, and, if he's failed to make it up onto the outside deck (catching a fine island-studded oceanic sunset) and realise he's moving on the water, will, in an hour or two's time, find that leaving the building, he's in another town on a island. Magic, for $59.65 Canadian.

Nanaimo is a large village or small city North of Victoria, British Columbia.

I haven't been to the UK to compare, but it feels pretty British here. Or European. Folks are pretty domestic and value simple things in life- there are a lot of bookstores here. And Pet stores. And dogs. And gardens. Everyone is talking importantly about just how her mother likes to make her cherry pie, that the neighbour is getting new raspberry canes, that the dog is getting groomed. It's lovely and laid back. I could live here.

Folks are also happy because it has warmed up here, and the sun is bright behind the oft-present thin film of maritime cloud.

Gardeners Rock!

Nothing but fortunate timing has followed me as yet. It happened to be the monthly meeting of the Northwest Chapter of the North American Rock Garden Society in Seattle.

This night, the club was honouring their late colleague, Steve Doonan of Grand Ridge Nursery with a slideshow and reminiscences.

Meetings are held in the University of Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture, where, from the amazing landscaping (and look how well arranged those rocks are!) one can see that they know what they are doing! Glorious... One gentleman was so inspired as to perform his evening taichi there.

And, no meeting would be complete without show-and-tell. Here, a member's Fritillaria sp.- (orientalis or nigra?)

Washington Hospitality

If you like Conifers that suffer from a lack of size and overabundance of character, make an appointment to visit Bob and Dianne of Coenosium Gardens.

http://www.coenosium.com/

You will be impressed by their collections (for sale and private), then you will round a bend and find yet another enormous heard of tiny trees dotted across a forest hillside. And again.

Then there are the full-sized cultivar collections... A person can get lost in the big ones, but at least it will be in a place full of varied colours, shapes, sizes, and textures of tree...

Yes.

Cedrus deodara 'Feeling Blue,' above, both comments on the boringness of cone-shaped conifers and solves the problem itself.

I personally find myself attracted to this puddle of a plant- Weeping Hemlock

Tsuga heterophylla 'Thorson's Weeping'

Case in point, the steward of any postage-stamp or rockery or large pot-on-patio-you-refer-to-as-your-garden-and-rightly-so should award it with solid evergreen interest.

Cedrus atlantica 'Glauca' at Wells Medina:

Better known to locals and far nearer to the heart of Seattle, is, for discerning and serious gardeners, the classy Wells Medina. It's a nursery, I write, since that's not in the name.

Every gardener and his dog (you think I'm joking, but it was a five-to-one ratio when I was there, in favour of the humans, but that is still more dogs than your average nursery.) come to peruse their gallery of colourful plants under the diffused Seattle sun:

And after an exhausting day of looking at plants (quiet please) I make my daily cafe pilgrimage to write this blog. Better yet, I fall into lectural discourse with the cafe's window washer, a brilliant lovely warm oven of a man who has a lot to share about history, morality, spirituality, the nature of wisdom, and what constitutes a burrito by definition.

Thanks David.

Meanwhile back at the ranch.

Or my hostess' garden.

I have, up to know, deprived myself of the token shot of the Space Needle. Here it is; happy now? Seattle really is a beautiful and clean city. (Upon utter this, a local reminds me in a weary voice this is because it rains all the time...)