Ume (Prunus mume) flowers. Once again we find ourselves borrowing from Peter Tea. This photo and the next three photos shown here are from a post of Peter's that provides a sweet moment's glimpse into a small private bonsai show. Something you don't see everyday.
Can’t go too long without borrowing from our archives (and indulging our passion for flowers). This one is from March 2013. At that time Galway Kinnell was still alive and writing and reading his poetry. I had the pleasure of meeting him at a poetry reading couple years ago through a good friend who was his personal assistant the last few years of his life. I had just turned seventy at the time and he told me that the 70s are the best years of life… “because you know.”
“The last memory I have
Is of a flower that cannot be touched…”
Excerpt from Flower Herding on Mount Monadnock, From A New Selected Poems by Galway Kinnell (Mariner Books). Galway was Vermont’s poet laureate from 1989 to 1993, a Pulitzer Prize winner and one of America’s greatest poets. He was also a true gentleman.
'Boke' flowering quince (Chaenomeles speciosa). This photo (also by Peter Tea) provides a peek at a piece of one of the many paintings that were featured in the aforementioned private bonsai show.
'Boke' flower up close. Some people consider the colors of quince flowers to be among the purest of them all.
Another quince from Peter's post. This one is a Chojubai (Chaenomeles japonica ‘Chojubai’). It's a strange little tree, but the flowers are undeniable.
Many flowering bonsai are relegated to the back bench when they're not in flower, but this charming Chojubai is fully capable of standing on its own, flowers or no flowers (though best, of course, with flowers). This photo is from Micheal Hagedorn's Crataegus Bonsai.