On Tuesdays, Two Writing Teachers hosts the Slice of Life. Everyone is welcome to share writing and comment on others in this special community.
Last week, winter planters sparked my curiosity, and I spent time looking at different combinations of greens that could color up the grayness of my outdoor spaces. Lo and behold, facebook offered video after video of creative approaches for arranging white pine, cedar, and holly. Those digital algorithms were working in my favor.
My mom loves flower-arranging, so on Sunday morning, I brought over an arts and crafts project that included several planters, vases, floral foam, dried hydrangea blooms, and six yards of mixed green roping. With clippers in hand, we pilfered her backyard evergreens for additional offerings. Her gardens are spectacular, even in late November on cold gray mornings, so it didn't take long to have a pile of rhododendron branches, leucothe stalks, andromeda sprigs, weeping hemlocks sprays, red twig dogwood branches, and holly swatches.
"Think about heights and textures," she said as we clipped. I've grown up as a gardener thinking about heights and textures because she always thinks about that in her gardens. "But don't take any of the branches with berries on them. Those are for the birds." I've also started to plan my gardens around birds and butterflies, inspired by her commitment to nurture the backyard wildlife.
Back in the kitchen, we went to work.
"How about a border of the hydrangeas?" she suggested.
I sat on the floor, clipping and snipping, aware of the mess I was creating, but also with a vision of planters and vases.
By the end of our arts and crafts session, I had planters, vases, and pots that were rivaling some of the facebook videos.
I used to love being on the lookout for the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon has to do with the concept that once you learn about something, you keep seeing that something or something to do with it all over the place. Social media has messed that up. Now, once I see something that's new to me or curiosity-sparking, I'm apt to google it. And then, that something shows up all over the place. I've learned the importance of selective googling.
Turns out that googling holiday planters produced some inspiration for a memorable November morning and some beauty for the gray spaces of home.
