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In Praise of the Little Bulbs

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After five long months of wintry weather in Toronto, there is nothing more uplifting than the first flowers of the small spring bulbs. Over many years, small bulbs and corms in my front garden have multiplied, their clumps becoming gradually bigger, or seeds have scattered about until there are pools of colour. My camera finger is always itchy after being out of service since the last of the fall colour dies down, so I head outdoors as often as I can. In this spring of self-isolation, that might be several times a day and I’m often greeted by neighbours stopping to see what’s in bloom. The cold March and April temperatures have made the flowering parade move as slowly as sap up a maple trunk, but every year starts the same – with the snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis). Because they can easily be moved in flower, I have been dividing this old snowdrop clump and digging sections into my front garden.

I’ve also made a habit through the years of cutting these tiny flowers and giving them the high-fashion studio treatment, like the snowdrops below in an antique shot glass.

Next to emerge is usually a tie between species crocuses and little Iris ‘Katharine Hodgkin’. I adore her. She was bred in 1955 in England by E. Bertram Anderson  Her mother is pale yellow Iris winogradowii hailing from the Caucasus mountains. That gives her extreme cold hardiness and her tendency to shrug off snow.

Her father is pale purplish blue I. histrioides from Turkey, lending her the pretty pale blue hue. Her existence is the result of only 2 seeds produced in open pollination breeding work by Anderson, a founding member of the RHS Joint Rock Garden Plant Committee and president of the Alpine Garden Society from 1948-53. She flowered in 1960 and was named for the wife of Anderson’s friend Eliot Hodgkin

This year, my crocuses were wonderful, both the species “tommies” (Crocus tommasinanus) and the bigger, slightly later-flowering Dutch hybrids.

On the one warm day we experienced so far this April, I found honey bees foraging for pollen on the crocuses. I’ve always wondered who in my neighbourhood has beehives, since the property size requirements for beekeeping are fairly stringent in Toronto. Having done a little research, I think they likely originated in the hives on the roof of Sporting Life department store about a half-mile from my garden.

I often combine these early bloomers in a tiny bouquet. Even though they last only a few days, the joy they bring is in inverse proportion to their size.

Crocuses, of course, have their own chalice-like charm – even if they decline to stay open long once removed from sunshine.

My front garden in early spring is anything but neat, given that I mulch it with leaves in autumn and leave many cut perennial stems to biodegrade where they fall. I do lighten the leaf mulch in late winter a little, raking some off so the small bulbs don’t get lost in the duff. This is a side-by-side view of my front garden this spring on March 23rd and April 13th. Once the crocuses fade, the Siberian squill (Scilla siberica) starts to turn my entire garden azure-blue. Most springs, the native cellophane bee and bumble bees make great use of the scilla carpet, but this year’s temperatures have kept most bees in their nests.

My garden’s “blue period” also includes the amazing, rich-pink Corydalis solida ‘George Baker’.

I always love the combination below, ‘George Baker’ with glory-of-the-snow (Scilla forbesii, formerly Chionodoxa).  A few weeks ago, I divided some of my corydalis clumps while in flower and spotted them throughout the garden. That deep cherry-pink is too good not to spread around!

And, of course, I’ve given George his own studio cameos in the past as well……

The glory-of-the-snow has been ready for its closeup….

…. as has the cultivar ‘Violet Beauty’.

Striped squill (Puschkinia scilloides) are ultra-hardy little bulbs featuring pale-blue flowers with a darker blue stripe.

Here’s a closer look of that sweet striped face.

Between the Siberian squill, the glory-of-the-snow and the striped squill, the colour theme of these chilly weeks of early spring is most definitely blue. And with most everyone in Toronto now into their second month of self-isolation, the neighbours have been telling me how much they’re enjoying watching my front garden change every week.

This was a little bouquet I made on April 6th, happy that there were still a few orange crocuses to give it some zing.
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White Siberian squill (Scilla siberica ‘Alba’) come out a little later than the blue ones.

Photographing them in a tiny bouquet lets me appreciate details of their flowers that often go unnoticed when they flower en masse.

Among my favourite of the small spring flowers are Greek windflowers or wood anemones (Anemone blanda). These are tubers, rather than bulbs, and they need to be soaked for 24 hours prior to being planted in autumn.  Their daisy-like flowers always cheer me up – though they only open wide when the sun is shining.  This cultivar is ‘Blue Shades’.

Putting just one windflower in the tiniest vase reveals the beautiful contrast of the bright yellow stamens with the silky petals and fern-like leaves.

‘Pink Charmer’ is lovely, but tends to be mauve….

….. and finally there’s ‘White Splendor’.

My broad-leaved grape hyacinths (Muscari latifolium) have just emerged and are still tight. The light flowers at the top are sterile, while the deep-purple ones at the base are fertile.

Here they are, below, in a little salt shaker vase.  Common grape hyacinths (Muscari armeniacum) emerge just a little bit later.

Along my sideyard path under a big black walnut tree is a colony of Corydalis solida that comes into bloom a little later than the pink ‘George Baker’ in my front garden. This species is very vigorous and will make its way around the garden and even pop up in the lawn. In fact some gardeners consider it a weed – but I adore it. And after it finishes flowering, its leaves turn yellow quickly in the thicket of Solomon’s seal just emerging, then it disappears until next year. You might also see it hybridizing with some of the colourful cultivars, if you can find them to order.

Like all these little spring treasures, it is such fun to snip a handful to bring indoors so they can be appreciated for their beauty up close.

Soon the forget-me-nots (Myosotis sylvatica) will be in flower. I have loads of these biennials throughout the garden and their season is very long. By the time my crabapple tree is in bloom along with later tulips and daffodils, they will be pale blue clouds underneath.

But for now, I enjoy adding the very first forget-me-not blossoms to the little bulb bouquets that now include common grape hyacinths (Muscari armeniacum)……

….. and the native Confederate violets (Viola sororia var. priceana).

All this early beauty of the little bulbs, this re-affirmation that spring brings colourful renewal – especially this year, when we need it so desperately – is one of the most beloved aspects of my own garden. I simply would not be without my snowdrops, crocuses, corydalis, puschkinia, scilla or grape hyacinths. And then, as if by magic, all these wondrous little chorines of the first act will quietly wither and disappear under the later weeks of tulips, daffodils, camassias and the emerging foliage of summer perennials, lying dormant below the soil surface so they can perform the same miracle early next spring.  Needless to say, the foliage of all spring bulbs must be allowed to turn yellow and ripen in order for continued photosynthesis to nurture the bulbs as long as possible.

Meanwhile, my garden moves on through myriad subsequent scenes, not in the least hindered by all these tiny bulbs that helped me bid farewell to winter. Here is my front garden over the space of twelve months. This year I’m filled with anticipation – and nothing but time to enjoy it.

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I buy almost all of my spring bulbs from my friend Caroline deVries’ online retail store flowerbulbsrus. They are available at reduced prices until August 31st and are excellent quality.  A good selection of the small bulbs is also available at www.botanus.com in British Columbia; they ship throughout Canada. (I purchased my own cultivars of Corydalis solida in Canada from gardenimport, which sadly is no longer in business).  In the U.S., small spring bulbs can be purchased from my friends Brent and Becky Heath at https://www.brentandbeckysbulbs.com/. They have discounts for ordering before July 1st.

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If you love spring bulbs, you might want to read my blog on my favourite daffodils and one of tulip design in the spring garden courtesy of the Toronto Botanical Garden, or my visit to the spectacular Abbotsford Tulip Festival.

Crystal Blue Persuasion

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When I jotted down a list of songs for #mysongscapes, a second ‘psychedelic’ song by Tommy James and the Shondells (after Crimson and Clover in my previous blog praising the pea family) easily made the list. It hit the charts when I was in my early 20s and became a kind of symbol of the anti-war, drug-fuelled, free love, counter-culture atmosphere of the late 1960s. It had an infectious introduction with its bongo drums and flamenco guitar and the lyrics seemed to me just a hippie-dippie celebration of everything that was changing in Vietnam era society. It wasn’t until I looked into the meaning of the lyrics this winter that I discovered what Tommy James intended – which was likely the direct opposite of the pastiche of images in the music video below (viewed more than 11 million times).  I’ll get to the real meaning at the end of this blog. Meanwhile, the song offers a great musical introduction to my own version of bewitching ‘crystal blue persuasion’ in the garden.

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Blue in the Garden

I’ve never had to be persuaded to use blue flowers in my garden. That colour is a favourite of mine as it is for many gardeners. Crystals… now that’s a different thing. The closest I’ve come to coveting a crystal is an indigo-blue gazing globe. (And yes, that’s me reflected with my camera.)

As for flowers, a burst of blue hits my garden pretty early in the season, when the little Siberian squill (Scilla sibirica) comes into flower.  I try to appreciate each little blossom…..

….. even though it tends to flower in big carpets of blue.  I wrote a blog on how this exotic bulb attracts loads of native cellophane bees to my spring garden.

Around the same time as the Siberian squill flowers, drifts of blue glory-of-the-snow (Scilla forbesii, formerly Chionodoxa) also begin to bloom. I love it when they nudge into my pink ‘George Baker’ Corydalis sempervirens.

If you have a shady spot, it’s easy to ‘persuade’ blue lungwort to take up residence. This is the very cultivar Pulmonaria ‘Blue Ensign’.

Grape hyacinths always bring a grape-scented touch of blue into the spring garden, but Muscari aucheri ‘Dark Eyes’ combines all the blues.

The veronica or speedwell clan boasts a lot of blues into lavender-blues. Among the earliest to flower is the groundcover Veronica umbrosa ‘Georgia Blue’.  It is often seen in rock gardens.

Where would the spring garden be without the frothy supporting role played by blue forget-me-nots (Myosotis sylvatica)? Answer: nowhere near as beautiful!

I often wish I still lived on Canada’s mild west coast (for a lot of reasons), but the ability to grow the various Ceanothus shrubs (California lilac) is a compelling one. This blue lovely is the bee-friendly hybrid Ceanothus ‘Dark Star’.

Speaking of bees, there are lots of blue flowers that attract bees and I’ve had fun capturing the buzz.

Soon after the “little blue bulbs” of spring, there are a few blue-flowered perennials. One that has become deservedly popular is Siberian bugloss or Brunnera macrophylla. This is ‘Jack Frost’.

It makes a good companion to a host of mid-spring bulbs and perennials. I liked this pairing with the white form of Greek windflower (Anemone blanda ‘White Splendour’).

Speaking of “blue and white”, I’ve also spent time focusing my lens on some crisp, seersucker-like combinations of blue and white flowers from spring to autumn, below.

Top row, left to right: Anemone blanda ‘White Splendour’ with Siberian squill; Narcissus ‘Thalia’ with grape hyacinths; star-of-Bethlehem (Ornithogalum nutans) with forget-me-nots; white bleeding heart (Lamprocapnos spectabilis ‘Alba’).
Second row: blue false indigo (Baptisia australis) and ‘Duchesse de Nemours’ peony; Evolvulus ‘Blue My Mind’ with white verbena and Thunbergia alata ‘Sunrise White‘; white spider flower (Cleome spinosa ‘White Queen’) with Salvia farinacea ‘Victoria Blue’; dropwort (Filipendula  vulgaris) with catmint (Nepeta x faassenii ‘Blue Wonder’).
Third row: Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia) with white blazing star (Liatris spicata ‘Floristan White’); white swamp mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos ‘Blue River II’) against a blue wall; Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia) with flowering tobacco (Nicotiana alata); fall snakeroot (Actaea simplex) with fall monkshood (Aconitum carmichaelii ‘Arendsii’).

 

A groundcover spring perennial that is not very hardy in my climate but seen a lot in milder regions is Cappadocian navelwort (Omphalodes cappadocica).

Similarly, I enjoy photographing sky-blue Lithodora diffusa ‘Grace Ward’ in Vancouver in the spring, but wouldn’t chance it in my own cold Toronto climate.

An azure-blue star of mid-late spring borders or wildflower plantings in the northeast is Virginia bluebell (Mertensia virginica).

Though a spring ephemeral (it disappears after blooming), it makes a big impact when in flower, as it is here with yellow wood poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum).

On a June garden tour one year, I was entranced by this semi-shaded planting of indigo-blue columbines (Aquilegia vulgaris) and Jacob’s ladder (Polemonium caeruleum).

For those in cool summer regions (Alaska, British Columbia, Maritime Canada and the U.S.), there is nothing more alluring in part shade than the brilliant, blue flowers of the Himalayan blue poppy (Meconopsis baileyi).

When I was at New York’s High Line one June, I was impressed with the tidy, mounding manner and clear-blue flowers of Amsonia ‘Blue Ice’. It also turns a nice golden-yellow in fall.

Nothing says ‘romance’ in the early summer garden like delphiniums. They come in a range of heights and colours from pure white to dark purple (often with contrasting “eyes”), but for a hit of sky-blue you cannot beat the ‘Blue Bird Group’.

Many veronicas or speedwells range into blue hues but none is as vibrant as June-blooming Veronica austriaca ssp. teucrium ‘Crater Lake Blue’.

When I was in Denver last June, I was mesmerized by this foothill penstemon cultivar (Penstemon heterophyllus) called, appropriately, ‘Electric Blue’.

Although they don’t last long in my garden (they’re known to be “short-lived”), I do adore the silky, little flowers of blue flax (Linum perenne var. lewisii).

People who live in Texas might ask “where are the bluebonnets”. Indeed! Though I wouldn’t recommend a species so niche-specific, even if it’s a gorgeous spring wildflower, I will say that, generally, there are lots of lupine species that kick up the blue quotient in any garden by several notches.  And yes, depending on where you live, there is probably a native lupine for you. Wild lupine (Lupinus perennis) is mine, and though they’re usually more purplish, sometimes I get a sky-blue one in my meadows — and the bumble bees adore them.

They’re a reason we have a colour called gentian blue…. If you look at the intense colour of trumpet gentian (G. acaulis), it’s easy to understand why. In fact, many gentian species make wonderful ‘blue garden’ stars.

In my own Toronto pollinator island garden, I like the soft effect of long-flowering, lavender-blue Nepeta x faassenii ‘Blue Wonder’, shown here in June with purplish meadow sage Salvia nemorosa ‘Mainacht’.

Although the globe thistles often read a little too lavender-blue for me to include here, there is one I like called Echinops bannaticus ‘Blue Pearl’.   Isn’t it lovely?

And here it is at Montreal Botanical Garden in a soft, blue cloud of Greek catmint (Nepeta parnassica).

The sea holly hybrid Eryngium x zabelii ‘Big Blue’ is very striking, and easily-grown in well-drained soil in a sunny spot.  Don’t overwater it or it will sprawl.

The sub-shrub Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia) has become deservedly popular over the past few decades with its small, light blue flowers. Here it is with ‘White Swan’ coneflower (Echinacea) in the background.

I grow tender and borderline-hardy sages in pots to attract hummingbirds and the hybrid below was new for me last year. Bred by Betsy Clebsch, it’s called ‘Big Swing’ and my ruby-throated hummer gave it the seal of approval (but not as popular as the Argentine sages, especially S. guaranitica ‘Black and Blooms’).
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Gentian sage (Salvia patens) is not hardy for me, but it’s perennial in warm places. This is the sky-blue cultivar ‘Cambridge Blue’.

Bog sage (Salvia uliginosa) is a wonderful late summer perennial for soil that can be kept reasonably moist. It’s also a bee favourite!

The late summer-early autumn blue of leadwort (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides) is almost startling in its intensity, thus its other name hardy plumbago.

The latest perennial to flower in my garden is autumn monkshood (Aconitum carmichaelii ‘Arendsii’).  In fact, I have one clump that reaches its peak bloom just as my Tiger Eyes sumac (Rhus typhina ‘Bailtiger’) is changing colour from chartreuse to bright apricot. Autumn monkhood flowers are “indigo-blue”, a deep shade of purplish-blue that gets its name from the natural plant dye originally used for blue jeans.

Beyond perennials, there are a few hardy shrubs that can add a touch of blue to the garden. In late summer, blue mist bush (Caryopteris x clandonensis) makes a beautiful companion to pink border sedums and goldenrod.  And the bees love it!

Mophead hydrangeas (Hydrangea macrophylla) are familiar to gardeners and feature many blue-flowered cultivars. In milder regions, you see them as beautiful hedges but they can be stunning in planters and urns, as well – especially at Easter time when every greengrocer has pots of them, along with Easter lilies. This is my beautiful neighbour Judith’s blue front door in spring. She keeps her hydrangeas watered for months as they age to delicious shades of olive-green and deep navy-blue.

Then there are all the tender plants…. bulbs, annuals, tropicals with blue flowers. Lily-of-the-nile (Agapanthus africanus) is a bulb that makes a strong exclamation point in the summer garden.  Sadly, it’s not hardy for me – unlike New Zealand, where it’s considered an invasive weed!

If you’ve grown borage (Borago officinalis) in your herb garden, you’ll know how crazy the bees are for the nectar in its sky blue flowers.

Another bee-favourite summer annual is also the ingredient in a lot of wildflower mixes, along with corn poppies and other European natives. Blue cornflower (Centaurea cyanus) has intense, azure-blue flowers atop willowy stems.

I photographed Chinese forget-me-nots (Cynoglossum amabile) in spring at UC Berkeley Botanic Garden, where they combined nicely with the little yellow Kamchatka stonecrop (Sedum kamtschaticum).

Who doesn’t love morning glory? Especially the bluest of them all, Ipomoea tricolor ‘Heavenly Blue’!  Yes, the flowers do close in the afternoon, but for the cost of a few plump seeds, you can have a twining treasure like the vignette below.

I’ve never had much luck with blue pimpernel (Anagallis monelii), even as a pot annual. I’ve seen it used in springtime in California, which tells me our hot, humid summers do not agree with it. But those navy-blue flowers…. swoon!

Lobelia! Even your grandmother loved annual lobelia (L. erinus).  Nothing adds a shock of blue to a pot or basket like this frothy annual. But keeping it looking vigorous for a long time is a challenge. It likes regular feeding and a summer cut-back to revive it. Here it is with salmon ivy geraniums (Pelargonium), frothy yellow bidens and white bacopa (Sutera cordata).

Baby blue eyes (Nemophila menziesii) has all the colours of a summer sky. It’s another cool weather California native annual that turns up its toes in a hot northeastern summer.

Not only does it have the prettiest common name of any annual, love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena) has intricate blue (or white) flowers that self-seed in conditions they like. Its seedpods are pretty in dried flower bouquets.

If you’ve spent time in tropical climates, you will undoubtedly have seen blue plumbago (P. auriculata) clambering over walls or trained as a vine. Though an evergreen shrub in warm regions (it’s native to South Africa, thus its other name, “cape leadwort”), it also makes a good container subject in summer gardens in colder regions.

I’m going to close my blue flowers ‘persuasion’ with a Texas species whose many selected varieties range from powder-blue to deep indigo-blue (all with a touch of purple), mealycup sage (Salvia farinacea).  But the one that says “blue” most clearly to me is the light, lavender-blue one in the photo below, from Montreal Botanical Garden. It’s called ‘Fairy Queen’, and it is combined with S. farinacea ‘Evolution’ (dark purple-blue), fragrant purple heliotrope (Heliotropium arborescens) and brilliant chartreuse sweet potato vine (Ipomoea batatas ‘Illusion Emerald Lace’)

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And now for those song lyrics.  In 1969, like a lot of 60s era rockers, Tommy James was in the grips of addiction, both to alcohol and drugs. His bottom, he said in an interview, came in a Holiday Inn motel when he opened the desk drawer to find a Gideon bible. He opened Ezekiel and, as he said, read the greatest UFO story in history. He said he knew “God was talking to him”, that God was “in the now”. He took the bible away and three months later wrote a song while listening to Billy Graham on television, He said he “got saved” that night as he “found Jesus”. In 1986, he went into the Betty Ford Center to dry out from pills and alcohol. So my song today, to my surprise (as a formerly religious person, now an atheist) is actually a psychedelic ‘hymn’ about “becoming a Christian”.  Here are the lyrics.

CRYSTAL BLUE PERSUASION (Eddie Morley Gray, Mike Vale, Tommy James, 1969)

Look over yonder
What do you see?
The sun is a’rising
Most definitely

A new day is coming, ooh, ooh
People are changing
Ain’t it beautiful, ooh, ooh
Crystal blue persuasion

Better get ready to see the light
Love, love is the answer, ooh, ooh
And that’s all right

So don’t you give up now, ooh, ooh
So easy to find
Just look to your soul
And open your mind

Crystal blue persuasion, mmm, mmm
It’s a new vibration
Crystal blue persuasion
Crystal, blue persuasion

Maybe tomorrow
When he looks down
On every green field, ooh, ooh
And every town
All of his children
And every nation
They’ll be peace and good brotherhood

Crystal blue persuasion, yeah
Crystal blue persuasion, aha
Crystal blue persuasion, aha
Crystal blue persuasion, aha

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This is the 17th blog in #mysongscapes series of winter 2020 that combine music I love with my photography. If you enjoyed reading it, have a look at the others.  And please leave a comment if you enjoyed any of them.

  1. Joni Mitchell’s ‘Night in the City’;
  2. Paul Simon’s ‘Kodachrome’ and my life in photography;
  3. Vietnam and Songs of Protest;
  4. Galway Bay and memories of my grandfather and Ireland;
  5. Simon and Garfunkel’s Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme;
  6. The John Denver lullaby I sang to my first grandchild, Today While the Blossoms Still Cling to the Vine.
  7. Gordon Lightfoot for a Snow Day
  8. Madame George by Van Morrison – my favourite song in the world
  9. Brown Eyed Girl(s) – Van Morrison’s classic and my black-eyed susans
  10. Raindrops – on flowers and in my gardens
  11. Miss Rumphius and the Lupines
  12. Bring me Little Water – on water in the garden
  13. Amsterdam… Spring Sunshine
  14. Both Sides Now – a reflection on clouds and Joni Mitchell
  15. Crimson & Clover and Other Legumes – a love letter to the pea family, Fabaceae
  16. Mexico – James Taylor serenades in my travelogue of a decade of trips to Mexico

Amsterdam…. Spring Sunshine

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I’ve been to the Netherlands a few times, but the first time in 1976 (below) I was there without a camera. It shocks me to think about it now, but there was actually a time when I walked around just… looking at things. I suppose I used my mind to remember things instead of filming them. Sometimes I even forgot things I’d seen. I didn’t have a computer then, either; instead I used a Selectric typewriter at my job each day. On that trip from Vancouver to Amsterdam, someone else took my photo as I arrived on the inaugural flight of CP Air (now part of Air Canada) to the Netherlands on a route over the polar region. Why was I on the flight? Evidently, the company I worked for did so much business with the airline that we were invited to send one employee as a free guest. So here I am with my 70s hippie headscarf on my very first trip to Europe. I do remember that there were tulips in flower and I was enamored with the Rijksmuseum and the funky houseboats on the canal. I recall seeing the bulb fields on that Dutch sojourn (but who can be sure, if they’re just memories and not Kodak prints?) I flew to London a few days later and stayed near Earl’s Court with some backpackers from Australia.

All of this is my way of confirming that I did actually visit the city of Amsterdam itself once in the spring sunshine (which relates to #mysongscapes). On my second visit to the Netherlands with my husband in April 1999, we drove from the airport in Amsterdam to the town of Lisse by way of the spectacular bulb fields, below, in order to visit the nearby Keukenhof Garden. By then I’d been writing a weekly gardening column for a Toronto newspaper for six years and a camera was very much part of my baggage. It was the beginning of a road trip to surprise our daughter, then an exchange student in French Alsace, for her 17th birthday. On the way, we would visit Hummelo so I could talk to Piet Oudolf, who was then becoming popular internationally for his landscape designs. (I wrote about that visit in a 2-part blog on the Oudolf entry border at the Toronto Botanical Garden.)

In the countryside near Lisse hundreds of colourful bulb fields tempt travellers to leave their cars and snap photographs.

You often see workers walking down the rows picking the withered flowers so the energy goes into the bulbs they’ll sell that autumn. The rows on the left were of early-blooming tulips whose flowers have been picked.  As with all spring bulbs, once the flowers are finished the foliage should be left to turn yellow; all that continuing photosynthesis improves the vigor of the bulb.

Given the long flowering season of tulips, from the earliest botanical or species tulips, to the late-flowering cottage tulips, the Dutch bulb fields are in flower for up to 2 months.

I arranged in advance to visit the Keukenhof early in the morning, before the tour buses arrived, so we had it to ourselves for an hour or so. Six hundred years ago, the Keukenhof Gardens were the domain of the Countess of Holland, Jacoba van Beiren.  The Countess hosted hunting parties on the grounds and grew herbs and vegetables for her castle kitchen in the rich soil.  (Keukenhof is Dutch for “kitchen garden”).  In 1840, the Keukenhof was laid out as park similar to one in Amsterdam.

It included the pond that still exists today, presided over by a coterie of pure white swans, below.  It wasn’t until 1949 that the mayor of Lisse, along with ten bulb-growers, decided to use the property as annual open-air showcase for the tulips, hyacinths, daffodils and other spring bulbs they grew.  The first year, 236,000 visitors passed through the Keukenhof’s gates to see the bulb show.

Today, Countess van Beiren’s kitchen garden has become the world’s biggest flower garden, a 32-hectare (79-acre) park filled with 7 million spectacular bulbs.  The growers now number one hundred.  But those “hunting parties” are still there:  in 2019, 1.5 million visited Keukenhof during its 8-week open period, arriving between mid-March and mid-May to wander along the 15 kilometers of paths hunting for that perfect tulip, narcissus or crocus for their garden back home. That’s the big Darwin Hybrid ‘Pink Impression’, below.

Each fall, thirty gardeners begin the gargantuan task of planting the bulbs that will bloom the following spring.  They’re planted in layers to ensure a long season of sequential bloom, placing late-blooming tulips deepest, then the early-blooming tulips, and finally the crocuses near the surface of the soil.

The garden styles at the Keukenhof are as varied as the bulbs themselves.  One grower will plant in natural drifts in the woods.

Another might plant in geometric rows that resemble a living Mondrian painting.

Another conjures up a broad, azure-blue river of grape hyacinths (Muscari armeniacum).  Few home gardeners would have the resources – or the desire — to landscape in vast blocks of color this way, but that’s not the point.  According to the Flowerbulb Information Center in Holland, the display is meant to inspire gardeners, showing them how to use color effectively and teaching how to combine certain bulbs with an eye to height and form.

There are many beautiful flowering Japanese Cherry trees on the grounds that enhance the beauty of the bulbs.

Throughout the Keukenhof, there are growers’ shops where visitors can order bulbs that have caught their eye, and through the magic of international commerce, by September or October, they’ll be digging those very same tulips into their own flower beds, whether they live in Paris or Peoria or Philadelphia.

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There are even places to sit and relax (something my husband did while I rushed about looking at bulb combinations.)

I visited Keukenhof that spring on April 24-25 and the gardens were at their very peak of perfection.  I chose that date because it coincided with the famous Bulb Parade, below, and I assumed that the growers would plan the parade for peak bloom time. For more information on the Keukenhof Gardens including specific opening dates, times and admission prices, visit their web site.

While at the Keukenhof, I made some abstract multiple-exposure photos: vortexes, swirls…

… and impressionist views of the colourful rows of tulips….

… and daffodils.

In the spring of 2000, I used one of those Keukenhof tulip abstracts as the cover for a marketing brochure for an upstart online company for which I’d been asked to provide content, below, in exchange for “future considerations”.

Later that year, just as we were starting to line up vendors for all our products, gardencrazy was purchased by a big book company, Chapters Online, a division of the bookstore Chapters. A big corporate expansion and lots of “seed money” followed. I was made garden magazine editor and we finally launched with my welcome editorial, below. Months later, we were purchased by the competing big-box bookstore, Indigo Books, and its owner closed us down. But I did manage to save my story pages onto my computer as relics of a long-ago career experience.

*******

So…. how does music fit into this Dutch-flavoured #mysongscapes blog? Well, that’s another interesting detour in my eclectic career moves. If you’ve followed my blog, you might know the story of the years from 2008-2010 when I worked on a theatrical adaptation of the music of the late California singer-songwriter John Stewart. It’s a bit complicated, but you’ll find that blog here under Daydream Believer – the John Stewart Songbook.  While I was working on it, I visited New York City to do some garden photography and bought a single ticket to the Belasco Theatre’s showing of Passing Strange.  The title came from Shakespeare’s ‘Othello’ and it was the semi-autobiographical, coming-of-age story of a young black boy from Los Angeles who visits Amsterdam and has his eyes opened to a very liberated way of looking at life. The author/composer was Stew (Mark Stewart) and his band The Negro Problem performed the music. I have tallied the number of Broadway musicals I’ve seen in my life and they number fifty-five from Kismet and Annie Get Your Gun and Carousel with my mom at Vancouver’s TUTS (Theatre Under the Stars) in Stanley Park when I was a pre-teen in Vancouver to Fun Home, Beautiful, Come from Away and Hamilton at this end of my life (I might have missed a few). But Passing Strange is my favourite; it was fresh and utterly original, but not terribly tourist-friendly like Phantom or Cats. After all, there was “hashish on the menu”!  It won a Tony for Best Musical Screenplay and was beloved  by critics and those audiences that did manage to see it. In fact, director Spike Lee decided to film it in its closing days. Have a listen to  Amsterdam which most definitely does not have anything to do with tulips!

********

This is the 13th blog in #mysongscapes series of winter 2020 that combine music I love with my photography. If you enjoyed reading, have a look at the others beginning with

  1. Joni Mitchell’s ‘Night in the City’;
  2. Paul Simon’s ‘Kodachrome’ and my life in photography;
  3. Vietnam and Songs of Protest;
  4. Galway Bay and memories of my grandfather and Ireland;
  5. Simon and Garfunkel’s Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme;
  6. The John Denver lullaby I sang to my first grandchild, Today While the Blossoms Still Cling to the Vine.
  7. Gordon Lightfoot for a Snow Day
  8. Madame George by Van Morrison – my favourite song in the world
  9. Brown Eyed Girl(s) – Van Morrison’s classic and my black-eyed susans
  10. Raindrops – on flowers and in my gardens
  11. Miss Rumphius and the Lupines
  12. Bring me Little Water – on water in the garden

If you enjoyed this blog, please feel free to leave a comment below. I love to read them.

Bring Me Little Water

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Water in the garden.  What garden doesn’t benefit from the sound of water, the reflective qualities of water, the ability of water to create a shimmering focus in any scene? Monet was a master at water in the garden; in fact, he was obsessed with trying to capture the light as it played on the water where he grew his famous water lilies. I watched the light play on his garden when I visited one spring.

And water, of course, brings an abundance of wildlife to drink and bathe.  Even a simple birdbath adds life to the garden. (The one below was custom-made for the gardener.)

My friend Marnie Wright has a birdbath in her garden near a bench where, if she’s quiet, she can watch them bathe.

Her birdbath is a little piece of art in itself.

But Marnie also has a meandering pond where she can indulge her love of aquatic plants and moisture-loving marginals. Have a look at my blog on Marnie’s beautiful garden in Bracebridge, Ontario in the Muskoka region near my own cottage.

 

Visiting public gardens can be inspiring for ideas on water gardens. At Chanticleer Garden in Wayne, PA (I wrote a 2-part blog on this, my favourite North American garden), the pond garden is large, with complex plantings. Here you see one side through a scrim of alliums….

……. and here through variegated water iris, I. laevigata ‘Variegata’…..

….. and then looking right into the pond at the water lilies (Nymphaea) and the pickerel weed (Pontederia cordata) on the far side.

Chanticleer’s ponds meander through a damp area with moisture-loving primulas and carnivorous plants just beyond; but the planting in the other direction is inspiring and very floriferous.

Near Chanticleer’s entrance, the Teacup Garden features a different take on water gardening…. a simple, sophisticated, overflowing “teacup” fountain.

At New York Botanical Garden, the Native Plants Garden makes extensive use of water, and moisture-loving plants like Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium) and cardinal plant (Lobelia cardinalis).  If you want to read more about this wonderful garden in the Bronx, have a look at my blog.

At Wave Hill in the Bronx, it’s always fun to see the formal pool with its elegant lotuses.  I included this gorgeous water feature in my blog on Wave Hill.

At New York’s fabulous High Line, water is introduced in a subtle way in the Scrim water feature. Moisture-loving plants flank this artificial wetland, where visitors – especially children – are known to cool their feet on hot summer days.

When I visited the Missouri Botanical Garden one incredibly hot July day, I enjoyed seeing Dale Chihuly’s blown glass ‘Walla Walla onions’ floating on the pond surface beside the large, platter-like leaves of the Victoria water lilies (Victoria amazonica).

At Filoli near San Francisco, formality dictates the perfect axis of the ornamental pools that lead the eye across the next garden room to the spectacular green hills in the mist beyond.

In my visits to Portland’s serene Japanese Garden, I’ve been impressed with the variety of water features, from the very large, below, to the small water basins. These all represent specific symbolism in Japanese landscape design.

This is the yatsuhashi zig-zag bridge, meant to deter the evil spirits that might follow you.

After my last visit to the Japanese Garden in 2018, I wrote a blog that included its wonderful water features. But you can see all of them here in my accompanying video, including the noisy shishi-odoshi or “deer scarer”.

At Vancouver’s Van Dusen Botanical Garden, a zig-zag bridge leads across an arm of the pond to the impressive Southern Hemisphere collections.

My favourite part of The Butchart Gardens just outside Victoria, B.C. in the sunken Japanese garden. Here is a wealth of water features, including a stone basin and bamboo spout fountain in a shady grotto…..

…. and a shishi-odoshi “deer-scarer” fountain that clacks regularly as the bamboo spout fills with water…..

…..and a few serene ponds, including this small one with a waterfall.

At Marjorie Merriweather Post’s Hillwood Estate in Virginia, the Japanese garden arrayed down a hillside features several water features, including these dancing water spouts.

On a tour of the D.C. area, I admired this multi-spouted fountain in the garden of Debbie Friedman, principal of Bethesda Garden Design.

Not far away was the garden of my friend Barbara Katz, with its impressive hillside waterfall and lily pond, below. I wrote a blog about Barbara and Howard’s beautiful garden.

In Austin, Texas, I was enchanted with the wonderful garden of Jenny and David Stocker. In one of their ‘garden rooms’, a galvanized stock tank is used to grow aquatic plants.

But their swimming pool almost seems to be a water feature in itself, given the flowery landscape flanking it.  How wonderful it would be to swim lengths beside all those blossoms! I wrote a blog about the Stocker garden.

Fun-loving Lucinda Hutson might know more about tequila than anyone else in North America! The Austin garden of the woman who wrote the best-selling book Viva Tequila is a colourful trip into the fantastic, indoors and out! Naturally, Lucinda got her very own blog.   Her little pond and its trickling fountain occupy a corner of a siren-themed patio, below.

A sophisticated Austin garden called Mirador featured a potager with a sleek concrete water feature. You can see more of this stunning Texas landscape in my blog.

Garden writer Pam Penick also features a stock tank in her garden (yes, I wrote a blog on Pam’s garden too) but she’s added a little faucet fountain to enjoy the trickle of water and keep the tank aerated.

Pam also has a pretty blue urn fountain, one of many blue touches in her Austin landscape.  It requires a receptacle below the rocks so the water can re-circulate, but is a less labour-intensive alternative to a pond.

My Denver friend and plantsman-extraordinaire Panayoti Kelaidis has a rectangular pond abutting his plant-filled patio at the base of a rock wall filled with alpine plants. Naturally, the pond features myriad plants as well!  I wrote about Panayoti’s garden in a June blog last year.

Although Tatiana Maxwell’s stunning Boulder CO garden featured a large pond, I loved this little touch of water using two overflowing bowls. This also utilizes a below-grade receptacle to circulate the water.

There were a few water features in the Fort Collins, CO garden of Carol and Randall Shinn, but I especially liked this Corten-and-concrete wall fountain because it’s such a good example of how to bring the splash of water into a restricted space. You can read my blog about the Shinn garden here.

In Rob Proctor and Dave Macke’s exquisite Denver garden, a little faucet fountain poured into a watering can, below. That was just one feature of hundreds of perfect vignettes in this well-known garden about which I blogged last year.

In the colourful, art-filled Englewood, Colorado garden of Dan Johnson (of the Denver Botanic Garden) and Tony Miles, there were a few brilliant touches of water. I adored this container water garden surrounded by a large plant collection…..

…. and look at this tiny little gesture, below. Anyone could do this, with a small pump and some ingenuity! (Okay, maybe some glass cutters and some silicone, too….)

Chicago Botanic Garden’s Evening Island is a landscape surrounded by lake, so water is always part of the view here. I made a video of my lovely August morning on Evening Island a few years ago.

Garden designer Kellie O’Brien’s lion’s head wall fountain in Hinsdale, near Chicago.

Further afield, my 2018 garden tour of the north and south islands of New Zealand offered lots of design inspiration. Naturally, the spectacular pond of Di and Ian Mackenzie’s Akaunui (my blog on their garden is here) might be a little ambitious for most of us, but it does point out the beauty of the reflective quality of a large body of water.

In the Cloudy Bay area of Marlborough, Rosa Davison’s large pond at Paripuma (see my blog here) has no reflection at all – but then she installed it as a sanctuary for grey ducks which, of course, appreciate all the duckweed on the surface!

At Upton Oaks near Blenheim, which I blogged about in 2018, Sue Monahan carefully sculpted a circular hedge to echo the contour of her formal lily pool.

The Giant’s House, Josie Martin‘s otherworldly Akaroa garden is filled with her mosaic sculpture (see my blog here) and water is used cleverly in a few places. But I loved this water feature surrounded by “mosaic swimmers”.

At Penny and Rowan Wiggins’s garden The Paddocks  near Auckland, a simple sphere sculpture burbled with the splash of water. There are many such fountains available in a range of sizes and styles.

Back in Canada, this large reflecting pool at the Montreal Botanical Garden features a collection of stainless steel “island containers” planted with moisture-loving flora.

At the Royal Botanical Garden in Burlington, Ontario, the reflecting pools also feature aquatic flora, but planted in containers below the surface.

At the residential level, I’ve stayed at James and Virginia Mainprize’s pretty bed-and-breakfast in Niagara-on-the-Lake where I admired their little water garden, which was nicely integrated into their border.

Garden tours are excellent sources of design inspiration and this Cabbagetown garden in Toronto inspired me with its Japanese-themed bamboo and copper spouts spilling into a small pond. However, the mechanics here might be a little beyond my skill level!

And I thought this wall fountain designed by Toronto’s Kim Price was simply stunning. What a way to take a garage wall and turn it into a thing of beauty!

Speaking of vertical wall fountains, the Toronto Botanical Garden where I spend a lot of time photographing has one of the coolest water walls. Designed by PMA Landscape Architects , it offers the element of water without using a lot of space.

No matter what season…..

….. it adds a lovely splash to the entrance courtyard at the TBG.

On the Westview Terrace behind the front part of the Toronto Botanical Garden’s building, a lively focal point is the diagonal water channel that begins at a waterfall tucked between two raised plantings abutting the rear portion of the building. A stone slab bridge lets visitors cross the channel.

For parties at the TBG, they’ve been known to move containers into the channel.

In autumn, it’s particularly lovely when the grasses are in flower and the shrubs turn colour. That’s Indigofera kirilowii with the bright yellow leaves on the right.

Oh! I wonder how this old photo of my daughter and her groom got in here?  (Didn’t they look lovely? They’ve got three kids now…)

So… that brings me to my own pond. It’s pretty old now. I dug it myself in 1987, acquiring a shoulder injury that required nerve surgery along the way! But it continues to be the main focal point in my garden as it visually anchors the dining patio.

It has been rebuilt once after the liner failed.

At that time, I added the boulder fountain, drilled through to admit the PVC tubing leading from the pump.

It looked pretty and worked for a few years, but the pump eventually failed and was replaced by another pump, which also failed. Do you sense my theme?  Ponds like this are not low-maintenance.

In fact, if you’re not going to pay a pond service company to clean out all the leaves and debris that a pond like mine collects each season – as well as replacing the rocks that fall in during the freeze and thaw periods – you’ll have to do it yourself.  And from personal experience (those boots are mine), it’s not a job for the faint of heart.

Even though the only book I’ve written was called Water in the Garden, on behalf of Canadian Gardening magazine (1995), I would recommend thinking small on water features.

But I will add that, despite the work involved in keeping it somewhat clean-looking, my pond pays me back in spades on that spring or summer morning when I look out and see the birds taking turns to bathe in it.  Because the cardinals and robins simply don’t care how messy it is.

*****

Okay, let’s get to the title of my blog  How would someone “Bring me little water”? Maybe as the waiter did in the rainforest in Costa Rica, with a sweet stick insect sticking to the side?

El Remanso Lodge; Osa Peninsula; Costa Rica

Or maybe someone would bring me a little water in song. For me, the ideal person to do that would be Moira Smiley. A singer-songwriter, composer and teacher with her own group called VOCA, I would want her to use her famed body percussion (clapping, stomping, bodybeats) to “bring me little water”, as she did with these young people at the Los Angeles Choral Workshop, teaching her own version of the 1936 song composed by Huddie Ledbetter, aka Lead Belly (1888-1949).

And here she is with her own singers doing her official version of “Silvy”.

If you want to learn how to do body percussion, Moira will teach it to you, too!

When I was 12, my mother took me to see Harry Belafonte in Vancouver. He sang ‘Sylvie’ as a plea from an incarcerated man to his lover, the lyrics lamenting that Sylvie “brought me nearly every damn thing, but she didn’t bring the jailhouse key”. Here is Harry Belafonte singing the song from his Live at Carnegie Hall album that very same year.

And here’s the very rustic inspiration by Lead Belly himself.  When he wasn’t in jail or on drugs, Ledbetter sang to earn his money. He said ‘Sylvie’ was inspired by his farmer uncle calling for his wife to bring him water out to the hot fields.

BRING ME LITTLE WATER SILVy  (Moira Smiley, orig.Huddie Ledbetter, Lead Belly)

Bring me little water, Silvy

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Bring me little water now
Bring me little water, Silvy
Every little once in a while
Bring it in a bucket, Silvy
Bring it in a bucket now
Bring it in a bucket, Silvy
Every little once in a while
Silvie come a runnin’
Bucket in my hand
I will bring a little water
Fast as I can
Bring me little water, Silvy
Bring me little water now
Bring me little water, Silvy
Every little once in a while
Can’t you see me coming?
Can’t you see me now?
I will bring you little water
Every little once in a while 
Every little once in a while
Every little once in a while
Every little once in a while

*********

This is the 12th blog (marathon?) in #mysongscapes series of winter 2020 that combine music I love with my photography. If you enjoyed reading, have a look at the others beginning with

  1. Joni Mitchell’s ‘Night in the City’;
  2. Paul Simon’s ‘Kodachrome’ and my life in photography;
  3. Vietnam and Songs of Protest;
  4. Galway Bay and memories of my grandfather and Ireland;
  5. Simon and Garfunkel’s Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme;
  6. The John Denver lullaby I sang to my first grandchild, Today While the Blossoms Still Cling to the Vine.
  7. Gordon Lightfoot for a Snow Day
  8. Madame George by Van Morrison – my favourite song in the world
  9. Brown Eyed Girl(s) – Van Morrison’s classic and my black-eyed susans
  10. Raindrops – on flowers and in my gardens
  11. Miss Rumphius and the Lupines

If you enjoyed this blog, please feel free to leave a comment below. I love to read them.

Gordon Lightfoot on a Snow Day

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I used to think I was lucky to live in a part of the world with four distinct seasons. How could I appreciate the swan song of autumn without the colourful abundance that is summer?  How could I love summer, if not for the delicate opening act of spring that promised such fullness? And how was it possible to revere the first warm days and blossoms of spring, without living through the long months of winter, when hope seems as far underground as the resting shoots and roots?   But as I age, that last seasonal quid pro quo seems less attractive. Five to six months of winter is a long time. And the first snow, often as autumn leaves are still changing colour on the trees in November, is a shock to the system.

WINTER ON LAKE MUSKOKA

I am very fortunate, for I get to enjoy the beauty and rigour of winter in two places: at our cottage on Lake Muskoka a few hours north of Toronto, and at the house in the north end of the city where I’ve lived and gardened for more than 37 years now. Driving north to Muskoka in winter, we often pass cornfield stubble dusted with snow. Hopefully the roads aren’t bad for driving….

….. but sometimes, it’s a little scary.

Snow tires are a must and all-wheel drive is important, too, for the hills on the dirt road we have to negotiate to get to where we park. (Do you like my licence plate? That was the logo I used on my first business card and letterhead back in the late 1980s. It’s a good thing no one tried to speak to me en Français…)

We drag toboggans packed with our food and wine on a path through the forest. Hopefully the snow isn’t too deep because we’re getting a little old for tramping down a foot of powder.

And then we arrive. The deck and my summer pots are covered with fresh snow, the white pines look lovely.

I gaze through my bedroom window and….

….. down the hillside to the frozen lake, and the outdoors beckons.

I glance at my little west meadow as I head out. Another year I didn’t get to chop down the plants in November.

Then I pick my way carefully down the stairs towards the lake.

Sometimes, after freezing rain, the white pines on the dock wear a fringe of icicles…

… and above the frozen lake floats a soft mist.

Deep snow on the lake is beautiful, but it insulates with its warmth and works against the thickening of ice.  Extreme caution is needed and an official measurement of lake ice thickness before heading out on snowshoes or cross-country skis.

I am not an early riser, but once in a while I’ll catch a Lake Muskoka sunrise and it is definitely worth being on time for that after a fresh snow.

The swim ladder should be lifted each year to avoid mangling when the ice starts to thaw and move in spring. But sometimes we forget….

Showy goldenrod (Solidago speciosa) is a beautiful, late season lifeline for all the bumble bees that call my meadows home. Its fluffy spires always last through the first few snows.

When we’ve been assured that the ice is thick enough, we set off down the lake with our hiking poles and sometimes our snowshoes too.  It’s easy hiking.

Or we follow the path through the forest and walk the dirt road around the end of the lake and sneak a peek at our place from across the bay.  That’s the screened porch where we eat our summer dinners.

If we’re feeling energetic, we might get into the car and drive the 12 kilometres to the Torrance Barrens, where I like to hike in summer.  My four kids looked kind of like Goths invading the Barrens one December a few years ago.

It is so very peaceful in winter, all the sounds muffled…..

…. all the bog grasses sculpted into snowy hummocks.

The back of the cottage often looks like this after hikes….

….. and if we’re lucky there might be a rosy sunset as day turns to night and we retreat indoors with our books.

I made a little video that captures the flavour of winter in our little bay on Lake Muskoka.  (Listen for the train whistle at 32 seconds.) Oh, did I mention the wind-chill can sometimes freeze your skin in minutes?

WINTER IN THE CITY

In Toronto, winter is a time to work on projects that require long periods of time at my computer. And I can often convince myself to bring my camera outdoors – at least for those initial few beautiful snowfalls of winter – perhaps with a first stop at the living room window to view the Japanese maple through my witches’ balls…
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…. then a walk down the front steps to check on the pollinator island under a snowy blanket.

Maybe wave to the snowplow operator.

If I turn the corner down the driveway to the garden gate…..

…. I might peek through just to get that same ‘secret garden’ thrill I felt when I first installed the heating grate in the 1980s…..

….. then I open the gate and head down the side-yard path that was a driveway once, back when cars were narrow and fit this restricted space.

Under the arch of orange-fruited bittersweet, I see my six pots on the lower deck. They’re planted with hardy sedums and grasses that benefit from that snowy blanket, but it won’t last long since this winter, like 2010 and 2012, is forecast to be relatively mild.

The fruit of my Washington thorn tree (Crataegus phaenopyrum) and bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus) — yes, the evil Asian one — wear sweet little snow hats.

I wear a winter hat too, and snap a snowy selfie.

The pond garden looks so lovely when snow covers up all the weeds I didn’t get to pull in autumn and the yews I didn’t manage to prune.

And the sundeck looks pristine until my footprints mess up all the perfect snow. But that’s okay… it’s time to go indoors and take off my boots and turn on some music.

Speaking of music, have a little look at this video of my Toronto garden in winter. I actually forgot that when I filmed the snow falling from inside my kitchen, I was playing a favourite song by Greg Brown on my stereo, sung here on a tribute album by Leandra Peak and Neal Hagberg. Somehow, the lyrics reminded me of the power of winter snow to wash clean the detritus of autumn and this song captures that idea so beautifully. “Wash my eyes that I may see/the yellow return to the willow tree“.

********

Song for a Winter’s Night, Gordon Lightfoot (1967)

It wouldn’t be a blog in #mysongscapes of 2020 without a song. This time, I’m featuring Canadian musical icon Gordon Lightfoot and his beautiful ‘Song For a Winter’s Night’. Though it sounds like a love song he might have written late gazing out a window at the falling snow, the story goes that “the song was written on a hot summer night in Cleveland while Lightfoot was performing there. He was missing his wife of the time, Brita Ingegerd Olaisson, and his thoughts turned to winter.” As to his first wife, there’s actually a neighbourhood connection here. Gordon Lightfoot is a singular talent who has been writing and performing for more than 50 years with classic songs such as If You Could Read my Mind, Early Morning Rain, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, etc.  But when his first marriage to his Swedish wife Brita was ending in the early 1970s (he was married three times with numerous relationships in between), they were living in a rambling house on the corner of the Blythwood ravine just two blocks away from our house in Toronto. It’s long gone and redeveloped now, sold as part of what was (at the time) the largest divorce settlement in Canadian history. The final straw in the marriage breakdown was his affair with Cathy Smith, the subject of his song ‘Sundown’, and the femme fatale (literally) who injected John Belushi with his last speedball.

Okay, enough of the supermarket magazine gossip. Here is Gordon singing his lovely winter song live back in 1967. Try to ignore the goofy introduction and the fact that the audience looks to be hypnotized or perhaps temporarily drugged and just concentrate on the song.  And note the jaunty rhythm.

Now, to illustrate how a song’s arrangement can make a profound difference in how we experience it and connect to it emotionally, listen to fellow Canadian Sarah McLachlan sing the song 27 years later for the 1994 film ‘Miracle on 34th Street‘.

Need I tell you which version I prefer?

SONG FOR A WINTER’S NIGHT, Gordon Lightfoot (1967)

The lamp is burnin’ low upon my table top
The snow is softly falling
The air is still in the silence of my room
I hear your voice softly calling

If I could only have you near
To breathe a sigh or two
I would be happy just to hold the hands I love
On this winter night with you

The smoke is rising in the shadows overhead
My glass is almost empty
I read again between the lines upon the page
The words of love you sent me

If I could know within my heart
That you were lonely too
I would be happy just to hold the hands I love
On this winter night with you

The fire is dying now, my lamp is growing dim
The shades of night are lifting
The morning light steals across my window pane
Where webs of snow are drifting

If I could only have you near
To breathe a sigh or two
I would be happy just to hold the hands I love
And to be once again with with you
To be once again with with you

***********

This is the seventh blog in #mysongscapes series that combine music I love with my photography. If you liked it, check out the others beginning with Joni Mitchell’s ‘Night in the City’; Paul Simon’s ‘Kodachrome’ and my life in photography; Vietnam and Songs of Protest; a visit to Ireland and Galway Bay; Simon & Garfunkel’s Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. The last one recalled a John Denver lullaby I sang to my first grandchild, Today While the Blossoms Still Cling to the Vine.

And please feel free to leave a comment below. I love to read them.