6th October
I’ve written about mulleins before, a middle of the night musing. This time it’s daytime and I have noticed them in the garden this morning: two plants in particular. It’s October and they are preparing for winter – well one of them is. The other is experiencing a flood of late flowering, as the weather continues to be favourable. Mulleins send up a spire of flowers in the early summer, citrine yellow blooms all up the stalk. Then the blooms fade and set seed and the whole thing darkens to a soft brown. The leaves shrivel a little, but still retain enough structure to loosely embrace the stalk. Sometimes the side shoots extend to compete with the main stem, and multiple rockets reach for the sky. This is one of the things I noticed this morning, this multiplicity, and that each of the reaching stalks has turned in on itself to produce a series of large rings, hoops really, ready to catch imaginary basketballs falling out of the sky. They have a magical magnificence standing there in the garden nine foot tall.
The other mullein I noticed has a different plan. It’s at the end of the garden and it is no longer upright. The stalk has fallen sideways, and it does not have the competing reaching side shoots. This one has decided – I feel certain there is agency in this plant – that all the faded flowers and set seed are not enough and it is flowering again. It has sent up mini flower spikes all along the length of the now horizontal stalk. These mini spires range in length from a few inches to almost two feet, and the bright yellow flowers are ready to please any late bee that happens to pass by.
Mulleins, eh! Rather fun.
9th October
I’ve made a bookcase out of a bookcase. The old one was very big and fat, the new one is very tall and thin and fits in the space available. I still can’t fully engage with the garden. There are still many indoor things that need doing. We have had plenty of rain, though, and I’m excitedly watching the new rainwater tank fill.
I’m pausing. I’m rolling things over in my head looking for the next thing. It’s not arriving, so I will have to be content – until next week…
