Flowers for Mother's Day

[First published May 15, 2015] Back in the interior of British Columbia, Mother's Day is traditionally the day when it's considered safe to plant your petunias and lobelias and other bedding plants in the garden and not lose them to an overnight frost. Here in Zibo, flowers that i'm used to seeing in June or late May appear in April. 

Wisteria flaunts its blossoms over wooden trellises in the park. Along the roadside of our three campuses, little blue flax flowers exude sincerity. I hope they have a calming effect on the students here at the campus this weekend to write the spring college entrance exams.

And this week the dianthus arrived with a pink flourish and a deliciously spicy aroma. In a few weeks -- or sooner? -- we'll have hordes of hollyhocks.

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The boulevards in town are thickly planted with trees, shrubs and flowers. Here's a bed of iris and some glamorous roses:

I've noticed that the Chinese gardeners plant their shrubs and trees much more closely together than we do. Below left is a bed of little abelia shrubs, each about six inches tall. In a few years they will grow to be one solid mass of abelia. I hope I've named all the flowers correctly.  I had sort of a running gag going with my husband; if someone asked me the name of a plant I could usually answer confidently -- "oh, that's a cotoneaster," or "that's lobelia." But sometimes I didn't know the name, and I've forgotten a lot of names over the years, so I would just make up a name, like "oh, that's creeping weatherwort." Ross caught on eventually and now he doesn't believe me about any plant names. I told him that lilac was called syringa vulgaris, and he thought I was joking. 

The newly-planted trees often have their trunks wrapped 'round with sisal and bamboo stakes are used for bracing. You can see the trees, and more dianthus -- such an innocent flower! such a sultry scent! -- below left. This is a pathway alongside a canal near the campus. We've been watching for the past few months as dozens of laborers have shaped the ground, laid the bricks, moved massive decorative boulders into place, planted the trees, shrubs, flowers and grass. Below right, a tree has two IV drip bottles of fertilizer, something else I've never seen at home. 

We've seen hundreds of trees go into the clay soil since we've been here. The roadside plane (aka sycamore) trees arrived late last year as twenty-feet tall poles, completely sheared of branches. Now they are bursting forth, or at least most of them are. A snatch of a Dylan Thomas poem comes to mind, The force that through the green fuse drives the flower/ Drives my green age....

One consequence of the close planting is that many laborers are kept busy shaping and pruning everything, Another is that the trees soon form a complete canopy, even on urban boulevards, as with these young plane (sycamore) trees. I have strayed from the topic of flowers to trees, but never mind. 

My sons got the perfect gift for their ex-pat mother, an Amazon gift certificate so I can download all kinds of goodies onto my e-reader. I'm going to give the "kindle unlimited" program a try. And Ross cooked Sunday brunch, which was especially good because we've finally found some decent sliced bread. Most store bought bread here is slightly sweet and sweet toast just doesn't taste right with the poached eggs. So, my Mother's Day --  which is coming to a close as yours begins back home on the West Coast -- was very nice; a chat with my mother and my sons on Skype, Sunday brunch, a long bike ride to snap pics of the flowers, and a cup of decaf at Starbucks before heading home again. One of my students works at the nearest Starbucks and I'd promised her I'd drop by sometime and embarrass her. So, mission accomplished.


I was also pleased with the class activity I designed for making Mother's Day cards, too, but that will keep for another day and another post.

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