Black as my heart

Pulsatilla rubra ssp. hispanica

Just kidding about my heart: I'm pretty light hearted--except when I hear about mass shootings or when Republicans threaten to shut down the government because of "spending"--gimme a break! Then my heart darkens like this pasqueflower that came back even stronger this year: I hope it keeps getting stronger! I'd love to have a little coven of these smouldering and humming together like Macbeth's wayward sisters! I hope they bring me better luck than they did him!

Fritillaria caucasica

There are some who aren't crazy about fritillaries: there are a lot of sad people out there. I am pretty crazy about the genus--especially since the they seem to like me too! This Fritillary comes up through a tangle of Hymenoxys herbacea and more(I know it's supposed to be Tetraneuris now), and is unfazed by competition, expanding a tad over the years and developing big fat seedpods. It blooms by the end of March...

Fritillaria nigra

But its Greek cousin only opens its flowers in late April--a similarly starkly black flower that I have not grown quite as long--but has come back a bit stronger each year.

Fritillaria pyreneica

 Not quite as dark (and somewhat variable) I have several plants of the tallest of Fritillaries (if you can forget imperialis and its cousins, and thunbergii too) that are almost embarrassingly tall among the little alpines growing around them: so be it! They certainly stick out in every sense of the phrase.

Trillium recurvatum

Although there IS a native Trillium in northwest Colorado (not too many miles north of where I was born), trilliums aren't ideal garden plants for most of us: they like rich, woodsy soil, dappled shade and lots of water (I'm stingy when it comes to water)....this species thrives in a neglected corner of my woodland bed--spreading even a bit more enthusiastically than I expected. And the flower is satisfyingly dark. 

Arum nigrum

There are a lot of black aroids--and this has been the best of them for me over the years. Nearly thirty years come to think of it (first brought to me by the redoubtable Brian Mathew as a house gift when he came to lecture one late summer.) All the other photos have been taken recently or even just yesterday (the last one yet to come) but the Arum will not bloom until I am twelve time zones away in a week or two, so it's an older picture. But that black! Something to look forward to!

Iris reichenbachii

OK, a tad more purple than truly black: but it's been uncharacteristically cloudy the last few days in Colorado (and promises to be so for several more days): on an overcast day this comes across as black. Why do so many of us love black flowers? I yearn to grow Lilium martagon var. cattaniae and Paeonia parnassica and the black Turkish form of Papaver dubium (even though pinky-orange Papaver dubium is such a weed in my garden I've given up trying to control it). 

I at least yearn for Spring come summer--and by Autumn I feel Spring will never come...and Winter really is interminable. When spring arrives with noisy fanfare of snowdrops, crocuses, Eranthis and Adonis blaring between snowstorms (for such is early spring for us), the bright colors are like a tonic. Come March and a veritable tsunami of flowers emerge every day, washing over our winter-starved spirits are relieved--it's hard to take it all in. e.e. cummings captures the rapture of Spring in so many of his poems, perhaps I'll end on one...

But these black flowers tucked here and there, among the vivid Giotto-like pastels of spring are a sober reminder--like the Hail and Tornado warnings we've been getting the last few days--these are the tokens in our garden, heralds of reality that remind us that the dark side is always with us. We must not deny or try to obliterate that element, instead let's celebrate it (within reason of course). Who doesn't have a bleak streak, a embarrassing blotch in their character--some nasty bit that we try to curb, to kerb. What better way to manage our shadow selves than to embody them in graceful flowers that we can relish and celebrate (with restraint) in the midst of the rosy cacophony of Spring.

Chansons Innocentes: I

e. e. cummings - 1894-1962

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

in Just-
spring       when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles       far       and wee

and eddieandbill come 
running from marbles and 
piracies and it's 
spring 

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer 
old balloonman whistles
far       and        wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's 
spring
and 
        the

                goat-footed

balloonMan      whistles
far
and 
wee

(this poem popped up when I Googled "cummings" and "spring"--I didn't remember it. I associate cummings so much with spring I haul out his collected poems whenever I'm particularly yearning for this time of year (and especially this time of year--trying to capture and keep it). I spend so much of my year looking forward to spring, and when it comes it is so fleeting. My childhood love, whose ashes were scattered two years ago on the Sangre de Cristo, introduced me to cummings. She and so many others I have adored return like shadows in our dreams and in our gardens. Yes! That's it--these black flowers are really just their (please don't reference the gloomy movie with those hideous creatures) avatars.