Rebecca and Hosta 'Liberty' 13 May 2023

It is plainly obvious that because I have written 5811 blogs beginning in January 2006 that I have forgotten many of them and that I often repeat the themes of my past blogs in the present.

Twice (at least) I have written about the origins of the word in English portrait and its equivalent in Spanish retrato. Because of all the spare time I have being obsolete, redundant, retired & inconsequential I spend lots of time comparing in my mind the two languages that I speak. 

Retractare 1

Retractare II 

In those above blogs on the portrait I mention that when I shoot a portrait, something of the person I take out (withdraw?) from them, is embedded in my photograph, particularly if it is a good one and it has eye contact.

Last night 12 May, 2023 I looked at Rebecca’s portrait that is on the floor in my bedroom. Because of the flood in my house two weeks ago I have been told to remove all the framed portraits from the wall. I stared at this one, which is special as I used the natural light in my studio (the one I occupied for many years on the corner of Robson and Granville). The César Pelli Eatons/ Sears building across the street with its huge white wall shed light into my studio. Arthur Erickson, probably one of the few who knew of Pelli told me that the light in my studio was “God’s Light”. 

Arthur Erickson - God's Light

Staring at that portrait (and I decided that instead of putting here the photo scan that I would place the frame in my garden) It came to me that when I take a portrait, particularly of someone I think (important that) I know well, It came to me that Rebecca and others I have photographed have withdrawn something of me while shooting them. And could it be that not only was a withdrawal there might be something  given that remains in my memory? 

My two granddaughters is something that Rosemary  shared with pleasure for many years, at least 16 or 17 years. The two girls, Rebecca and Lauren became teenagers and then adults. They are 25 and 20. In this century that connection with grandparents (I had a wonderful one with my abuelita) has all but vanished. Since Rosemary died two years and six months ago I rarely see the two and they never call me. When I text one of them, she rarely texts back.

What this portrait of Rebecca has given me is the memory of good times  with her that will never return. Perhaps in taking this portrait, Rebecca added to me a facility to improve a talent to take further portraits of her and of others well.

But something of me, withdrawn had died out there and not to return.

I feel sad.

Iris 'Bold Print' 12 May 2023

Sleeping Flowers- Emily Dickinson

Whose are the little beds," I asked,
"Which in the valleys lie?"
Some shook their heads, and others smiled,
And no one made reply.

"Perhaps they did not hear," I said;
"I will inquire again.
Whose are the beds, the tiny beds
So thick upon the plain?"

"'T is daisy in the shortest;
A little farther on,
Nearest the door to wake the first,
Little leontodon.

"'T is iris, sir, and aster,
Anemone and bell,
Batschia in the blanket red,
And chubby daffodil."

Meanwhile at many cradles
Her busy foot she plied,
Humming the quaintest lullaby
That ever rocked a child.

"Hush! Epigea wakens! —
The crocus stirs her lids,
Rhodora's cheek is crimson, —
She's dreaming of the woods."

Then, turning from them, reverent,
"Their bed-time 't is," she said;
"The bumble-bees will wake them
When April woods are red."

In our Athlone in Kerrisdale garden my Rosemary banned Iris germanicus (bearded iris) but tolerated the yellow flag iris (Iris pseudacorus growing in our pond. She liked anything blue. So we had lots of blue irises.

This iris bloomed on 12 May 2023 but I have no memory if I bought it after or before Rosemary died.

These days I try to be distracted so as to try not to think of my missing love so I put special emphasis in scanning Iris ‘Bold Print’ in five different ways. 

Iris as a person’s name reminds me that I met two women named Iris in my past life and both were in Argentina. I had an aunt Iris Hayward who was married to my father’s youngest brother Freddy. Iris pronounced her name Argentine style “Eerees”. While doing my military service in Argentina I liked to visit Freddy and Iris in their home in Acassuso because Aunt Iris made the best devilled ham I have ever had.

The other Iris (also pronounced the Argentine way was Iris Moretta. They were from the Philippines and her family was very large. There were 8 of them. The men were named after biblical angels and the women were all flowers.

 More Emily Dickinson

A charm invests her face

 The white heat

I tried to be a rose 

nature rarer uses yellow 

The Tulip

Nor would I be a poet 

November left then clambered up
You cannot make remembrance grow
November
the maple wears a gayer scarf 

Clematis montana & mystery rose 11 May 2023

These last months it seems that I begin my blog (this is one is 5809) with, “at my age of 80”. It would seem that I am going to repeat that obsessive mantra.

Today I noticed that in my large pot containing the English Rose Rosa ‘Leander’, there was an open rose (the second of the season after this one). Because it had five petals I knew it was some sort of wild species rose. How did it get there? When a friend of ours knowing how much Rosemary loved R. ‘Leander’ saw one in an abandoned garden she brought it over. Rosemary was able to see it bloom before she died on December 9 2020.

Leander & Rosemary's Hero

Rosa 'Leander' 7 June 2016

The little wild rose was part of the root stock as Leander was grafted to it.

At my age of 80 (you see?) I find that I am less likely to kill stuff. Today I decided that Leander and the wild rose will keep sharing the pot.

Because the little rose was almost the same colour of the now flowering Clematis montana I scanned them together.

Rosa 'Leander' 18 May 2020 that Rosemary was able to see

We had a large Clematis montana in our Athlone garden and I photographed a healthy looking Art Bergmann under it.

Art Bergmann and Clematis montana

All the plants in this Kits garden bring memories of many wonderful moments shared in Athlone and here with my Rosemary. Her plants have her face on them. It is because of this obsession that I have to keep her garden as intact as possible that on the Wednesday of last week I went hunting for some of her plants that had died and that I wanted to replace. And as I wrote here, when I returned my whole house was flooded from top to garden. Restoration will take time. What keeps me sane is trying to calm down Niña while Niño looks at us both with that incredible equanimity and placidity of his gaze.    

Rosa 'Leander' 6 August 2022

Hosta 'Diamond Lake' 12 May 2023

In the past I have written quite a few times how I began scanning the plants of my garden with my Epson flatbed scanner beginning on a hot summer day in 2001.

My original intention after at seeing my beginner’s luck (look here) with Rosa 'Reine Victoria, was that I was going to always scan the roses and other plants at 100% size, concentrating in being accurate with colour and recording the day’s date. Because in the case of the roses, I find myself scanning them several times during a season and year after year, there is a visible pattern on how plants age.

With the death of my Rosemary on 9 December 2020 I have tried to overcome my terrible grief by finding distractions like writing this blog (blog 5809) and finding new ways of taking photographs. Of late I have discovered that my scanner is a lovely tabletop camera. The plants scans should have made me notice that.

The scanner as a tabletop camera

But the idea of scanning plants for accuracy, I am now modifying by going bonkers in doing “artistic” stuff.

At many of the Vancouver nurseries they are selling hostas that have been grown in greenhouses so that they are blooming in early May as opposed to the usual June. I buy these largish hostas, to be eventually inherited my my Lillooet daughter Ale for her one acre garden. I cut the flowers on their scapes (hosta lingo for stems) and scan them in all sorts of way, for fun.

There is a bonus here. On June 7 Ale and I are going to the National Convention of the American Hosta Society in Ames, Iowa. I am reprising (with the latest modifications) my last year’s PowerPoint presentation at the convention in Minneapolis.

I discovered the beauty of hosta flowers by observing how lovely rose buds can be before they open. Below are links to two blogs on hosta flowers. The gardeners of the American Hosta Society are enthusiastic about the variegation of hosta leaves and sort of ignore the beauty that I have seen in  hosta flowers. It is my intention to so some convincing in Ames.

In praise of hosta flowers 

Frosting on the cake