Crazy Stable

Here comes the Rose Post...and it's not even June. This year, I'm struck by how many of my plants are somehow gifts. This "New Dawn" climber was a gift from...me. Meaning, I actually propagated it from the original bush across the garden. My dad taught me propagation, among so many other things, so it's also sort of a gift from him. The fragrance is that of absolute innocence.

"Climbing Don Juan" gives the gift of transformation...to a corner that stood bare and ugly for years. He's exuberantly covering up the set built by NBC for a "Law & Order" episode about a Mad Bomber, a.k.a. our garage.

"Perle D'Or" was dug up from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's Cranford Rose Garden and handed to me by their legendary rosarian, Stephen Scanniello. The garden was about to be renovated, and the bushes were being handed out to staff and volunteers. The buds really do look like golden pearls.

The gift of this lavender miniature rose: surviving from year to year in a dilapidated planter box, thus defying my abysmal track record for wintering over roses that are (a) miniature and (b) lavender.

"Maiden's Blush" is easy: fragrance. The scent is ur-rose, the intoxicating attar that every phony "rose" room-spray in the world tries to pimp out (with woeful, cloying results). It blooms only once a year; the rest of the year, I wrestle with its 6-foot canes.

The foxgloves are gifts from themselves. They have self-seeded year after year.

 And then there are Plants from Friends. Here are some spunky hosta divisions generously given from the native shade garden of Flatbush Gardener before his departure on a honeymoon with the lovely gent he gently dubs "Blog Widow." They, and the hostas, seem to be flourishing.

Just past the halfway mark in May, and I finally remembered to do a May Altar! This picture is loaded with Crazy Stable significance.

The Flowers. From left to right: a golden rose whose name I'm unsure of; Climbing Don Juan (red); a lavender miniature rose; a columbine; and sage blossoms, plus some of the wildly invasive ferns.

The Stuff. The statue, charmingly amputated by a long-ago bout of over-vigorous dusting, came from the guest room of my Aunt Rosemary, my mother's amazingly Catholic sister and my godmother. The painting came from my Uncle Don, my father's brother. Their side of the family were either morbidly fascinated and appalled by Catholicism, or drawn into the faith as converts. (Don, the exception, viewed it with the same childlike delight he expressed for all faiths.)

The Issues. As a child in St. Anastasia School in Douglaston, I yearned feverishly every year to be chosen to decorate the classroom "May Altar." This was often a flimsy box or frame, which would be lavishly appointed with crepe paper and artificial blossoms; Mary would then be "crowned" with flowers during her month, in a procession with a floral coronet. The boys could've cared less, but the girls--aspiring Martha Stewarts, some of us--keenly craved decorating duty. Every year, it seemed, the clueless sister or lay teacher would assign this juicy task to...one or two of the most jock-like, loutish girls in the class. Girls who frankly could've cared less. They would do, of course, what I perceived as a wretched and perfunctory job, while I fumed in silent frustrated artistry.

NOT ANY MORE!!! This baby's all mine! Mine, I tell you! (Yes, another Catholic tradition that imbued me with lifelong charity and humility...)

NEXT-DAY UPDATE: Some wretched, impious klutz of a cat knocked over the statue and decapitated Baby Jesus, and spilled one of the vases. Remarkably, no vases were shattered, but the most suspect cat was rapped sharply on the skull by Spouse with the walnut-sized marble head of Our Saviour. The tradition of May Altar Agony continues...

The song par excellence for May Crownings is "Flowers of the Rarest." To this day, it brings up in me a swelling tide of vicious jealousy and the desire to ram crepe paper down the throat of a stocky ginger-haired softball champion. Here is a wonderfully insipid version by Canadian tenor John McDermott, followed by the lyrics.

Bring Flowers of the Rarest

Bring flow'rs of the fairest, Bring flow'rs of the rarest,

From garden and woodland And hillside and vale;

Our full hearts are swelling, Our glad voices telling

The praise of the loveliest Rose of the vale.

Chorus:

O Mary! we crown thee with blossoms today,

Queen of the Angels, Queen of the May,

O Mary! we crown thee with blossoms today,

Queen of the Angels, Queen of the May.

Our voices ascending, In harmony blending,

Oh! Thus may our hearts turn Dear Mother, to thee;

Oh! Thus shall we prove thee How truly we love thee,

How dark without Mary Life's journey would be. [Chorus]

O Virgin most tender, Our homage we render,

Thy love and protection, Sweet Mother, to win;

In danger defend us, In sorrow befriend us,

And shield our hearts From contagion and sin. [Chorus]

Of Mothers the dearest, Oh, wilt thou be nearest,

When life with temptation Is darkly replete?

Forsake us, O never! Our hearts be they ever

As pure as the lilies We lay at thy feet.

Erastus Granger, AncestorMeet the great-great-great-grandparents. This is Erastus Granger, and his gloomy visage, in its battered frame, has reigned over the front hallway of the Crazy Stable for ages. I first propped him up there as a Lemony-Snickety Hallowe'en goof. I also confess to a shameful whiff of preppie pride at having such an obviously ancient glowering ancestor, and one who was Protestant and English to boot. (He's from my Dad's side, long before popery spread like wildfire through the clan via my Irish-American mother.)

 "Brilliant Bouquet," acrylic, Karen FriedlandOver the weekend, however, an artist friend in a rush of generosity gave me this beautiful painting. Karen Friedland, its creator, is an accomplished painter whose work hangs in collectors' homes, galleries and, now, here. (Well, it will be hung.) On a whim, I swapped out this flamboyant acrylic bouquet for old Erastus, and lo, the hallway was transfigured. The painting serendipitously echoed the faux Easter posies I'd tossed in the dough-bowl thingie. It bounced light around instead of sucking it into a gothic abyss. The brushstrokes even manage to party happily with the rather ghastly colors we painted the hall and its trim (respectively, peach and a hue I've dubbed "Shrimp Bisque Bordello." This photo doesn't show the walls' true color, for which you should be grateful.)

A gift of art from a friend is magical on many levels. Creativity is an absolute mystery, and it's a share of that mystery. Karen's work ranges from riotously color-drenched landscapes to vibrant abstractions, but all of them spring straight from her vision; thus, in a sense, they are all gifts. To see more of them (along with nifty homes), come this weekend to the Flatbush Artists Spring Studio Tour, which Karen founded to showcase, not just her own work, but that of many other talented artists in our neck of the woods. It's this weekend, May 19 and 20, from noon to 6 p.m., and it's free. Like a gift.