Among Garden Spirits

A garden is a spiritual place. I have always created a garden, at each house I have lived. My garden in Tucson is maturing. By that I mean each shrub or plant, or seedling tree, is taking root more deeply or widely, depending on its strategy for collecting water. Roots and branches, vines and flowers intermingle providing support for another or shade; some compete for space and sunlight.

I let my gardens grow wild, following the shape of growth, surprised by fruits that pop up in odd places from my mad composting of kitchen waste. Under my bedroom window a new garden bed hosts a tribe of butternut squash seedlings rising from one spot. I'll let them all grow, determining among themselves which will prevail to grow the vine across my tiny backyard.

Pieces of pottery as seen above (a wall vase my daughter made when she was young) I hang on a wall, or I place bowls and vessels in the soil where water collects for ants, lizards, and a wild cat that drinks from a pitcher smothered by white allysum underneath the birdbath. Cat is a sleek, black panther just the right size for a small urban garden. He stalks unwary birds and about once a month manages to get one, leaving me a pile of grey feathers and white down as a marker of his work.

Salvia is flaming red and I noticed a ruby-throated Anna's hummingbird (Calypte anna) drinking from one of the carmine pockets this morning.

Because Tucson is experiencing a West Nile outbreak from mosquito bites, I have let my birdbath go dry. The usual feathered friends no longer drop by for a drink. But the Inca Dove (Columbina inca) flutters down when the coast is clear to eat small seeds from grasses and the over-hanging Foothill palo verde tree (Cercidium microphyllum) . The palo verde is a legume and my garden benefits from the nitrogen rich seed pods it drops profusely in the late spring.

Earlier I wrote a note about the Sacred Datura or Jimson Weed that sprung up in my front garden. This large leafed plant sprawled over a six-foot circumference, about two feet high. But, in only three days it was "mowed down" by the larvae of the Hawk moth (Sphingidae) which is a prime pollinator of Sacred Datura (Datura wrightii).

When I examined the leaves of the disappearing Datura, I came "face to face" with a garden shape shifter (below). This one was five inches long!

I left the horn worms to grow. After one more day the entire leaf canopy was gone, the only trace of the green spirits a pile of dark balls of dung left to enrich the garden soil. Where the larvae diappeared to I have no idea. Maybe they are under ground waiting until next spring when they will metamorph into the huge brown hawk moths that visit Datura on warm summer nights drinking from the white trumpet flowers.

One thing about gardens: they awaken a different sense of time through the cycles of plant and animal life that follow the moon and sun, the rain and influences of mountains, rivers, and wind. A garden holds my feet on the Earth.