According to the Visit Mendocino, “The drive through Mendocino County is on many winding roads that will take a while to complete. It is never dull as the locations and views are majestic at almost every turn.”
How true. While summer in inland Mendocino reveals a landscape covered with scorched grass and heat blasted plants the spring is a whole different story. In the springtime whether you are driving or walking it pays to look down. Everywhere you look you’ll see an amazing amount of exploding green. Much of this green is wild weeds and invasive bushes but taken together as a splash across the countryside they are vibrant and beautiful. Vines twine and wrap, wildflowers bloom and trees are covered in tiny delicate buds.
Taking a walk in Yorkville on Easter I saw many plants that were flowering and this was before anything has been intentionally planted. Before I moved to the country I read about “carpets of flowers,” but I never really knew what that meant until I came to Anderson Valley and stumbled upon tiny white flowers so close together that they melded into a lacy scented rug. I have seen carpets of tiny orange flowers too. Blooming in several spots, borage, with its furry stems and purple flowers, is already intoxicating the bees. Rosemary bushes are rampaging this year covered with the blue flowers that also thrill busy bees.
The California Poppies are just beginning to show their flaming orange heads. Daffodils are in their last stages but still bob, bob, bobbing along. Patches of Oxalis (bane of gardeners with their rampant tendency to spread) are nevertheless pretty with bright violet blossoms. Calendulas in both orange and yellow are still going strong — those troopers that manage to bloom even in the dead of winter. Baby blue forget-me-nots are easily trampled they are so small. Larger shows are coming from the Magnolia trees, always spectacular with their heavy waxy flowers in early spring. This year the camellias are back in force after a poor showing last year — pink, white, vermillion and mixed. Euphobias with their pale green cupped bells will draw butterflies like magnets when the weather warms up.
So if you love springtime or are feeling gloomy about life’s general woes, take a look around at what nature is offering just now. Beauty is such a reliable friend.
And while you are at it check this out. There are no eating or drinking establishments in Anderson Valley that do not offer outdoor seating! That’s right, anywhere you go for a bite or a drink you can enjoy this glorious springtime with friends or on your own outside. The Brewery, Lauren’s, the Mosswood Market, Disco Ranch, The Boonville Hotel, The General Store, The Redwood Drive-In, The Company Store, The AV Market, Lemon’s Market, and Wickson all invite you to visit them and enjoy.
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The beauty of roses may lie in part in their tenderness, in the petals as soft as the cheek of a child—a youthful complexion was once described as “blooming.” The petals of this domesticated flower are fleshy without being thick or tough like a magnolia petal, delicate without being as frail as one of the wildflowers that wilts as soon as you pick it, and this quality that resembles human skin lasts as they lose their crispness and sag, as though gravity first arrived in middle age, before their smoothness erodes into tiny wrinkles that fracture the smooth surface as the flower begins to wither in earnest. The mortality of flowers is also part of their essential nature, and they’ve been used to represent the fleeting, evanescent nature of life again and again, with the implication that that which does not last is more precious for it.
— Rebecca Solnit, ‘Orwell’s Roses’
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Dandelions
Some young and saucy dandelions
Stood laughing in the sun; They were brimming full of happiness,
And running o’er with fun
.
At length they saw beside them
A dandelion old,
His form was bent and withered,
Gone were his locks of gold.
.
“Oh, oh!” they cried, “just see him;
“Old graybeard, how d’ye do?
We’d hide our heads in the grasses,
If we were as bald as you.”
.
But lo! when dawned the morning,
Up rose each tiny head,
Decked not with golden tresses,
But long gray locks instead.
.
Author Unknown
(from Poems of Flowers edited by Gail Harvey)
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