Posts Tagged ‘pink’
abandoned gardens: how they escape
“… some plants will
persist, some will languish
and die, some will escape into forest,
or edges of hayfields,
roads and ditches.”
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Escape artists. How do those plants we see in ditches and fields get there?
Some move by seed. Some by vegetative reproduction (by horizontal roots or by rooting of a part of the plant).
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A good example of ‘escape by seed’ is the lupin. The lupin sets its seed in pods. When they dry, the seeds are launched as projectiles and so can travel quite far in a single generation.
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A good example of ‘escape by vegetative reproduction’ is the orange day-lily. It only rarely sets seed. It moves along ditches or into other locations by rhizomes (horizontal roots).
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” … its names describe
where orange finds a home:
ditch lily, railroad lily
roadside lily, wash-house lily
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outhouse lily.”
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In New Brunswick, you don’t have to drive far to see an orange day-lily or a lupin.
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This work was made possible by a Creations Grant from artsnb!
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All my best.
Staying home,
wearing a mask when I escape.
Jane
harvesting colour – blackberry red and pink
Autumn is officially here; summer up and left last week. My complaints are suddenly of chilly evenings, not too-warm nights! But with this season comes a series of dyeing projects I have been looking forward to – dyeing with berries and autumn leaves.
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berries harvested at our cabin in 2013
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At our summer property, we have blackberries in profusion. They ripen slowly over a period of three weeks and we eat our fill. This year I decided to sacrifice a few for the dye pot.
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Dyeing with berries is easy. I brought three cups of berries to a simmer in three liters of water for about an hour. The strained liquid was a bright red, the colour of ripe cranberries …
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dye from blackberries
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I dyed alum-treated wool with a slow simmer and an overnight soak. The result was a pale pink, a welcome addition to my collection of ‘mostly brown’ …
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pink wool dyed with blackberries is front and center … other wools are dyed with (clockwise) oak (dark brown), meadowsweet (orange), bugleweed (brown), tansy (gold), lily-of-the-valley (grey), and beet root (deep pink), and in the center, carrot tops (green)
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I also tried dying linen and cotton with the blackberry dye, and these gave me the burgundy I had hoped for …
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back left to front: wool, linen, cotton and another cotton, dyed with blackberries
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I think I will be using the pink/burgundy cotton as the backing for the small ‘harvesting colour’ quilt I plan to make. I’ll hem the linen and use it in my kitchen.
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March 18, 2012 ‘blackberries’ Jane Tims
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Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
beet pink
Last week, I tried dyeing some wool roving with the juice of pickled beets …
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Yesterday I opened the jar and rinsed the wool in cool water. Looks like a lot of the colour still went down the drain …
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And the final result? A pretty pink. Reminds me of the pink batts of insulation we installed in our walls! The wool is not scratchy at all, but soft and fragrant.
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Gradually I am building a rainbow of colour on my drying rack …
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from right to left: wool roving prepared with alum as a mordant; wool dyed with Tansy; wool dyed with Old Man’s Beard lichen; and wool dyed with pickled beet juice
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I am still working on the poem to capture this experience … it’s not quite ready to share.
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Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
excusing the difference
On this cold and wintry day …
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When my son went to school, we often went to theatrical presentations at the school. The young people were so talented and the presentations so well executed, I often went away with the lines of a poem running through my head.
One evening performance was particularly memorable and inspiring. It was a production of Romeo and Juliet, and in this ‘version’ Rosaline was given an on-stage role. Rosaline is the character who does not appear in Shakespeare’s play but has a background role as Romeo’s first love.
The young lady who played the part of Rosaline was memorable for her costuming and her on-stage presence. She was dressed entirely in black Goth except for her hair – bright pink. I remember her soliloquy – she begged us to look past her difference and see the person within.
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heroine
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her hair
a stroke of pink
on the brown audience
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more compelling
than the script
or the decorated stage
not surprising to see her name
on the program
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Rose
in the part of Rosaline
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in black but for the hair
even her lips
implore the audience
to pardon the difference
to understand
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if only he had lived
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she, of course, the heroic one
not Romeo
or Juliet
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not the dead
but the left-behind
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Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
keeping watch for dragons #7 – Bog Dragon
Some dragons like to live in bogs.
When we were in Nova Scotia, near Peggy’s Cove, imagine my delight when I found, among the Pitcher-plants, a species of the orchid family, Arethusa (Arethusa bulbosa L.), also known as the Dragon’s Mouth Orchid.
Arethusa loves wet, boggy conditions. Among the greens and reds of the low-lying bog, it surprises a visitor with its splash of pink. Even the Pitcher-plants in the photo above look a little over-come with the beauty of the Dragon’s Mouth!
This orchid has a complex flower, with three thin flaring upper petals, two in-turned petals guarding its ‘mouth’ and a lower lip with yellow and white fringed crests.
Arethusa is named after a Naiad in Greek mythology. The Naiads were nymphs associated with fresh water features such as springs, wells, fountains and brooks. Nymphs, like plants, were dependant on their habitat… if the water where they lived dried up, they perished.
Perhaps a Bog Dragon is also absolutely dependant on the water held within the bog!!!
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Bog Dragon
Arethusa bulbosa L.
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naiad
masquerades as dragon,
claps her hands across her mouth,
sorry to have spoken –
her voice, her pink, her petals
lure them,
their large feet and tugging hands
too near
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© Jane Tims 2012
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