I think the person who named Narcissus had a jealous bone to pick. Would you look at Daffodil and think, "golly, that's a vain flower"? In the myth, Narcissus was a man of extreme beauty. A prophecy was foretold of him. He would live a long life should he never recognize himself. Legend has it that after rejecting more than one beautiful nymph, he finds his reflection in a pool of water and falls madly in love with himself. He then dies of his own vanity and a daffodil grows

There's something springy about February. Technically, it's cold and wintry... But still. In February, a couple spring-cleaning frenzies make their appearance and that seems as good a predictor of spring as PMS before a period. Crocus is a daring bulb. It takes the frost in stride. It's often purple or buttercup yellow. Purple speaks of royalty. Crocus purple makes me think of a king's robe, and somehow that spells dignified. Gold catches itself singing Joy To The World in th

The forest floor these days is all Fern and Salal it seems. That, and Berberis Aquifolium, which for the sake of simplicity, I will from now on refer to as Berberis. My mom and I visited the Butchart Gardens this morning. It's a magical place any time of year. Frankly it looks empty at the moment. Its starkness serves to reveal its structure. And Butchart has good bones. The forest is the same these days, only wilder. Berberis made itself known to me in the barren season. It'

Pine has a single track mind. Have you read that story by Roald Dahl, about the man who is rich, but bored. He meets a yogi who can see without his eyes, inspiring him to do the same. He starts training by staring at a candle flame while concentrating on someone he loves. He practices this endlessly for hours and days and years. Eventually he's able to hold the flame and the person he loves in his focus without any single intruding thought for 3 solid minutes. This gains him

The word dinosaur comes up every time I'm in a conversation about Fern. Weird, right? Turns out pteridology is the name given to the study of Fern. Sounds like pterodactyl to me. Fern feels old. As it happens, some species of Fern are over 400 million years old. That's older than dinosaurs. In the human world, getting to be old implies survival, and survival implies a fight. That's why old people are salty. Scars come from a fight, though their infliction story is healed by t

Snowdrop is a lady. Yin is an energy word I've been hearing and using alot recently. The opposite of yang. We say yin is the female energy and yang the male energy. It's funny this makes me think of a conversation we had with some friends over banana splits in the middle of winter. We were talking about gender identity and what it means to us that kids are choosing their gender before they know who they are. It got a little warmer in the room right then. We take these things

At first I thought I would write about Snowdrop for January, but then Helleborus appeared to me and it felt right for it to come first. Here on the Pacific North coast, January is rain. Cloud cover means dim light. And January feels like Helleborus because it is a little dreary, introspective, quiet. When I first found Helleborus I was walking the puddly sidewalks of Vancouver, happy as a clam with my rainpants and accepting of getting wet and smelling the part. The rain is

People often ask me why I don't paint things other than plants. I feel like that's the same as saying: Why don't you eat something other than your food? I could paint a landscape, and I have, it's just not what my soul wants to do. I created the blog to answer this question: Why is it that each time I pick up a brush, out come plants? Plants have taken hold of me, and I don't know why. I do know however that plants make me feel things that I have never felt elsewhere. And be