I’m excited about our spears of purple flowers that are on the verge of popping open under the spring sunshine today.
LAVENDER:
LILAC:
Neither of these flowers are throwing any scent yet, but SOON!
I guess it’s not the best ending to Native Plant Appreciation Month to post about non-native plants on WetNW.com on this final day of April, but other than yesterday’s post about the groundcone, I didn’t really do anything the previous 29 days of the month to recognize the event.
I believe our little lavender is Spanish Lavender. The kind my mom and sister think is ugly because its flowers remind them of bees (??????? why is this ugly?????). We’ve never had it before, but the silver foliage has been very showy year-long while we’ve had it, and seems to exude aroma itself in addition to the flowers.
AI is telling me that Spanish lavender (Lavandula stoechas) is “also known as butterfly lavender”. The unique flower shape my mom and sister think looks like bees distinguishes it from other types of lavender (English). “It has dinstinctive ‘rabbit-ear’ bracts or bracts that form a cluster above each flower, adding a visually striking element to its appearance.”
I can understand why some people might prefer the more prim and prissy-looking English lavender, but ALL lavender is beautiful to me, and I’m happy we have this one.
Maybe we’ll even get its home tidied up next to our “prayer rock” (the fourth / final station of a loop we sometimes do, meditating or praying a specific different prayer at each location in our yard).
We actually crouch down at this “station”, placing our four hands or fingertips on the rock, and do our own silent minute of grounding meditation. It is special whether it smells like lavender or not.
Sometimes it just smells like wet dog or carrion because this is also the place where “our” raccoons emerge and tramp through when they sleep under the decrepit deck next to it. Sometimes they get into tussles here and swirl around snarling and grappling with each other in the middle of summer nights, releasing superdoses of lavender oil that wafts up to me through the open window of our cabin, filling the whole space with nightmarish animal squealing and the smell of a spa that spilled a whole bottle of potent aromatherapeutic MMMMMmmmmmm.
We don’t have a ton of intentional non-native plantings of things, so our lilac and lavender are our backyard show-stoppers (actually more like subtle private highlights or very private scene-stealers for my wife and I, both of them being in our backyard and hidden from everyone’s view except ours. And surrounded by untended areas that would make them appear quite neglected by other people’s gardening and yard-keeping standards.
Even though these plants are not native to the Pacific Northwest, lavender is a HUGE favorite around these parts in the rainshadow of the Olympic Peninsula. A whole lavender farming, products, and tourism industry has grown up around it, in fact, in the next “big” city/town west of us. We should plant more of it since it does so well here, is drought-tolerant, and has some practical functionality in addition to being a gratifying ornamental.
With the climate changing so rapidly, it seems native plants and trees are actually a bit of a lost cause anyway. They’re saying our native evergreen trees, for example, should start being migrated northwards and we should be planting more Redwoods if we want to see thriving forests here in the decades and centuries ahead.
I’m trying to be emotionally neutral about many aspects of these environmental changes. I try to look on the bright side with curiosity; it’s going to be very interesting to see what western Washington looks like (and how it is governed, and what it is known as) fifty years from now. That curiosity is something I use to fuel my will to live a long life without regard for fear or pessimism. While there will be many changes and losses, I know there will also still be massive amounts of beauty. I want to be around here to smell the future’s lavender! And see and hear lots and lots and lots of bees and butterflies, I hope. Both flying around and in flower-shapes.
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