April 29, 2024
Walk with me, on a rain drenched Sunday in the Pacific Northwest. First we trudge through my garden – have the galoshes ready.
These are columbines, some of the early bloomers in spring, dainty as they come, and, as it turns out, a delicacy for wandering visitors. As are the apple trees.
These are deer. They have made daily appearances in the yard for the last week, and as of Sunday afternoon, when I am writing this, there are no more columbines. Blossoms completely depleted. Disappeared. Digested. Man.
I have a choice: mourn the destruction of my flora or celebrate the fact that I look out of the window to see four frolicking creatures, feeling at home, at a location that is a 15-minute ride from Portland city center.
You can see the remnants of the destruction of the winter storm – still a lot of windfall around.
True to form I do both, and then I go visit a friend’s wondrous garden that is carefully deer-proofed and full of spring’s signifiers: growth that is tender, soft colored, dripping with wetness and sending out tendrils and shoots to claim the next cycle of life.
It feels like walking through a watercolor painting when you look at the bloom.
The tree peonies proud like queens,
Just the maple leaves show sharp, contrasting rims, but they, too, are softened by their unfocused surround, enveloping them with diffused light.
They come in so many different colors
Such beauty – let it help start the week on the right note, grateful for what is, not what’s been lost. Now tell me what I should plant that the deer won’t eat….
Here is a romantic period Ode to Spring by composer Joachim Raff.
No ode to the deer, but grudging admiration.
Ron Bushner
For several decades before 2021 home was a hillside adjacent to Mt Tamapais’s open space. Home to many, many deer. Gardening authorities called plants they suggested “deer resistant”, acknowledging the deers’ advantage from the outset. Deer proof was not an option. What I planted the deer consumed without pause. Apparently they hadn’t read Sunset’s Western Garden Book. I checked Amazon to see if an audio version was available to broadcast in the hope deer so near civilization might understand our language and get the message. It was a slim chance anyway, but no audio was available. After exhausting the list of deer resistant plants, I surrendered and learned to enjoy watching the deer’s consumption of nature and nature replenishing its supply.
Sara Lee Silberman
By my lights, you were very generous to those deer! The spring flowers – incl. yours while they lasted – are beautiful!
Joe Cantrell
“Feels like walking into a watercolor!” Comrade Poet!
Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett
Some 3,000 miles away, I am reading your essay in the near-dark living room at 3:30 am. We’re lagging behind you; the forsythia next door just lit up last week. More traffic than deer outside my window. I am grateful for your writing and photos that remind me that all these things (gorgeous flowers, feisty deer) roll out in stages. We just need to watch for them.