Garden setting with musical frog. All photos by Kathy Blavatt
By Kathy Blavatt
Covid-19 has given me a chance to become closer to my plants, thinking about their future, and analyzing their health. While I am confessing, I will admit I sometimes sing to my plants. Okay, it might be a little weird, but the plants have never complained.
I recently read an article that brought a smile to my face and warmed my heart. Over two thousand plants were special guests at a concert. The article read, “Barcelona Opera House Reopens with a Concert for 2,292 Plants” By Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch, June 23, 2020
A Barcelona opera house played its first concert since mid-March to an unusual audience: 2,292 plants.
Chrysanthemums enjoy their first concert in Spain.
The “Concert for the Biocene” at the Liceu opera house came the day after Spain finally lifted an emergency order put in place to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus, Reuters reported. A string quartet played Giacomo Puccini’s “Chrysanthemum,” bowing respectfully before and after to its leafy audience.
The potted plants came from local nurseries. After the concert, the plants were donated with a certificate to 2,292 healthcare workers on the frontlines for recognition of their work fighting a battle unprecedented for our generation.
The concerts press release said: “After a strange, painful period, the creator, the Liceu’s artistic director, and the curator Blanca de la Torre, offer us a different perspective for our return to activity. This perspective brings us closer to something as essential as our relationship with nature.”
The New York Times, Thursday, June 25, 2020, featured a story by Jessica Shaw, “Long Nights of Flower Flashing” about a NY florist Lewis Miller – a guerrilla artist – who is creating street art from flowers, putting large elaborate arrangements, that includes giant hearts, along roadways, a hospital lamppost, and in areas that they can be seen by passing passersby. These flash flower creations have become popular on social media during the pandemic. Praise and heartfelt letters of Miller and his arrangements have won the admiration of many views.
The day following the article, while walking in my Ocean Beach neighborhood, I found a garden on the corner of Orchard Avenue and Ebers Street with a large heart made of lights in a front yard.
OB garden has a bright heart with a cute dog!
Also, among tropical trees, floral leaf wall-mural, and succulents were corner signs sending caring and thoughtful messages.
Orchard and Ebers’ garden setting with messages displayed to passersby.
Recently I had lunch at Bread & Cie in Hillcrest and was greeted with the delightful smell of freshly baked bread, art on the walls, comical flowers sitting at tables, and other assorted characters in some of the seats used for social distancing.
Flowers and a chicken happily fill seats Bread & Cie.
My friend and I split a healthy vegetarian lunch and topped it off with a slice of rhubarb pie, as we sat at the outdoor tables. The food was yummy, and I didn’t have to cook.
Pre-Covid-19, my husband Ray and I had lunch at Bread & Cie ran into Charles Kaufman, the owner. Charles said, “I am so happy that you still come to Bread & Cie. You two were a couple of first customers I had when we opened.” We also use to see Charles out in the surf bodysurfing in OB when he lived in Point Loma. He now lives close to his bakery restaurant.
Exploring our relationship with nature through the arts, messaging, and food is a path that may help people get through these rough times during the pandemic.
In my garden this summer, fruit production includes harvesting figs, tomatoes, mulberries, spices, and root crops.
My yard is going through it’s summer seasonal changes. Many of the spring plants have gone to seed. I’ve been collecting seeds for future planting and to share with other gardeners. Enrique Gili, a local OB writer, has recently written an informative article, “Seed libraries help communities grow food in a pandemic” that includes seed sharing at the San Diego Library & Ocean Beach Library.
Parsley going to seed.
Due to a lot of trimming, and plant pulling, I have run out of room in my compost pile, so I have started compost piles in several sections of my yard. These piles are smaller mounds filled with dying annual seeding plants that decompose in my in the yard. The winter and spring rains will sprout the seeds creating naturally flowering mini-meadows among my perennial plants and trees
Sweetie Petee cat is in paradise in the yard.
As I look at my goofball cat, “Sweetie Petee,” peacefully laying around his yard (I am just the gardener), I’m happy that he and his sister enjoy the lush garden I have created, that is their territory and playground.
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