Boxwood Wreath

Song
2007, oil 32″x 32″

The boxwood hedge is as old as this house. When planted, the 24″ between it’s trunks and the walkway to the front door must have seemed a sufficient distance; in the past few years, however, it’s taken a semi-annual clipping to keep the path clear enough to walk. It’s also been badly pruned. That sounds a bit self-righteous, doesn’t it? But I’ve learned from Bill Finch’s columns in the paper about trimming bushes to a pyramidal shape so the lower branches get light, so I have the obnoxious zeal of the recently converted. And now I see hedges everywhere–hedges like old guys at the VFW–flat-top buzz cuts and gone sloppy around the waist. And tended by some of those same fellows, I’m sure.

It’s taken awhile for the pyramid ideal to gain acceptance here at the house, too. Or worse, the idea that the right shrub for a given spot is one that doesn’t need much clipping at all. It’s not fair to pick on men, either–I have a neighbor lady who hints unsubtly that my wonderful huge azaleas ought to be about four feet shorter. I cut out the poodle-tops; that will have to do. My own garden obsession is with the edger I bought myself last year, after years of wanting one. I love to see a sharp edge around the curved beds in my yard and let all hell break loose with the shrubs within. There’s a metaphor there, I’m sure.

But to get back to the boxwoods. They’re gone, cut down to the ground. My glossy red front door is visible from the street and soon a new curving brick walkway will appear. Five feet wide, enough for two to walk side by side. And since it is almost December, I’m wondering how one makes a boxwood wreath–I have enough cut limbs to make dozens. Maybe Martha Stewart can help?

Cool weather thoughts

When it gets Dark
2007, oil, 32″x32″

Mobile Bay in the cool months is a maze-pattern of water and mud dotted here and there with small islands of grass. Birds rest here on their migration further south, and I am torn between a wish to photograph it all and another wish to work in my garden.

Fall is the best time to garden here; the plants take their time setting roots deeply over the winter and the next summer are somewhat armed against the heat and, lately, the drought. I plant those things that will withstand such extremes as lack of water and–if we are ever so fortunate again–our usual afternoon thundershowers. The project this fall is to finish carving new beds for native plants out of a boring stretch of front yard. My house is a fifties ranch, so one of the beds is boomerang-shaped. The inspiration for these large beds arose from patches of weeds and the expensive cure for that, and also a lack of enthusiasm for cutting grass in 90 degree temperatures. But the surprise is that the remaining grass has assumed a shape of it’s own, and that the pattern of beds and grass is beautiful under streetlights and moon.

The Shifting Islands
2007, oil, 32″x32″

The End of March
2007, oil, 32″x32″

Some Dreams They Forgot
2007, oil, 32″x32″

Places East of Here, no. 6
2007, oil, 32″ x 32“