Thinking Citizen Blog — The Five Layers of Spring Flowers in New England — The Joys of Phenology (Part Two)
Thinking Citizen Blog: Wednesday is Climate Change, the Environment, and Sustainability Day
Today’s Topic: The Five Layers of Spring Flowers in New England — the Joys of Phenology (Part Two)
Last time, the bottom three layers of spring flowers: the ground-huggers (scilla, flox, blue bells), the knee-highs (daffodils, tulips), and the shoulder heights (forsythia, azalea). Today, three ornamental trees (cherries, dogwoods, magnolia). Next week, the giants (maples, willows, oaks). What is your favorite of each category? How about crabapples? redbuds?
Are you a gardener? How do you structure your garden to maximize your joy?
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
FLOWERING CHERRIES — the most world-renowned, the “sakura” of Japan
1. The inspiration for the most beloved song of Japan: “Sakura, Sakura.” The “sakura” is a symbol of the evanescence of life. The ideal of savoring every moment is echoed in the rituals of the tea ceremony. As well as in the concept of “Ichi go Ichi e” — every moment as a unique opportunity.
2. “Hanami” is the custom of having a picnic under the blossoming cherry trees.
3. The movement of the cherry blossom front across Asia is tracked on the nightly news.
NB: The National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington DC commemorates “the March 27, 1912 gift of Japanese cherry trees from Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo City to Washington DC.” The US reciprocated in 1915 with a gift of flowering dogwoods. The Festival began in 1934, was suspended during World War II and resumed in 1947.
DOGWOODS — the state flower of Virginia ; “dogwood diplomacy”
1. Do you have a preference for white or pink or salmon colored dogwoods?
2. Pointy petals or rounded?
3. Do you have a soft spot for densely flowered specimens or ones where the flowers are more widely spaced?
NB: In 2012, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton engaged in “dogwood diplomacy” — announcing the donation of 3000 dogwood trees to Japan on the 100th anniversary of the Japanese gift of cherry trees to the US.
STAR MAGNOLIA — plenty in Back Boston, Boston
1. Native to Japan.
2. Brought to the US in 1862.
3. “The species Magnoia stellata may be found growing wild in certain parts of the Ise Bay area of central Honshu, Japan’s largest islands at elevations from 50 to 600 meters. It grows by streamsides and in moist boggy areas.”
‘Dogwood Diplomacy:’ U.S. To Send Japan 3,000 Trees
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
A LINK TO THE LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED BY THEME:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
ATTACHMENT BELOW:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
NB: Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field (“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)
YOUR TURN
Please share the coolest thing you learned in the last week related to climate change or the environment.
Or the coolest, most important thing you learned in your life related to climate change that the rest of us may have missed. Your favorite chart or table perhaps…
This is your chance to make some one’s day. Or to cement in your own mind something that you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than otherwise about something dear to your heart.
