“He made two or three peculiar observations; as when shewn the botanical garden, ‘Is not EVERY garden a botanical garden?”
― James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson
Well … at heart, or at root, I guess all gardens are botanical. But sometimes — for instance, when winter loiters unseemingly and greens and even browns are thin on the ground — we recognize other gardens overlayering, or existing in a parallel universe with, the botanical, and they, it turns out, are as much Eden as any fruit guild with its pomegranates, lavender, nasturtiums, dill, and chives.
Did I mention that we had another three inches of snow on Wednesday night?
Yet among the snow, the ice, the bare budding of trees, the birds, the squirrels, I feel lately that I am living in a fully imagined magical realm: a niveous, avian garden of Eden, complete with apple tree.
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First, the botanical, and another kind of magic, the magic of crowd-sourcing plant identification questions online. From photos taken this week of ice-encased sticks and buds, I learned what almost all of the already-existing trees in my yard are, including these two:
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The botanical-nivean world:
When there’s snow on the ground, I like to pretend I’m walking on clouds. ~Animal Crossing: Wild World (Nintendo video game)
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The avian world, with snow abounding:
sparrows
juncos
goldfinches
pine siskins and redpolls
cardinals and a robin
purple finches
downy woodpeckers and red- and white-breasted nuthatches
chickadees
mourning dove, grackle, crow, cowbird
turkeys
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And finally, varmints in the niveous garden:
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“It’s snowing still,” said Eeyore gloomily.
“So it is.”
“And freezing.”
“Is it?”
“Yes,” said Eeyore. “However,” he said, brightening up a little, “we haven’t had an earthquake lately.”
― A.A. Milne