"If winter comes, can spring be far behind?"

During the week-end, I raked dried leaves, cut dried stems of iris sibirica and pruned hydrangeas.

Facing old shrubs of hydrangea with pruning shears and saw marks the official beginning of spring. There is a first group of hydrangea macrophylla Mopheads close to the house, against a wall with primroses at their feet. The second group is in a hidden corner, exuberant hydrangeas quercifiolia with their long rusty-brown panicles intact after the freeze of winter. The third and last group of unhappy hydrangea macrophylla Lacecap is in the back of the house, in an open lawn too exposed and besieged by uncontrollable weeds to develop properly. 

I eliminated old wood and dead branches, proceeding fast and determined to behead faded blooms reducing the length of the lateral branches to the suggested number of buds. At least, for the first three or four shrubs.

Primroses and narcissus are just an idea in this north exposed area where snow lingers for long time. I spread a generous layer of manure at the base of these old shrubs in the hope of immediate abundant rains and summer gorgeous flowers. I stopped for a cup of mid-morning coffee and wasted time in the vain search for the book where I had read a romantic and improbable story about this shrub. With the name Hortense, the French plant hunter and botanist Philibert Commerson celebrated in 1771 his brave and reliable assistant Jean Baret. In Thaiti, circumstances forced Jean to reveal his true nature of young woman. When the dangerous expedition around the world finished, Jeanne changed her name in Hortense and assisted her master till his death. Then, she returned in Paris and married.

I moved to the hydrangea quercifolia after lunch. I heard someone calling me when I was deciding if two peonies needed to be transplanted a little farer from the expanding hydrangeas. My neighbour, with red summer shoes and glossy red hairs, had appeared close to the fence. She was happy to see me after the long winter months and we updated each other following a random list of names that included relative, friends and acquaintances. Then, we talked about the plants that had died during winter. A cruel fate, she remarked but, from her wise seventy years old, she affirmed that it was better their dead to our and disappeared among her clipped azaleas. The magic moment of decision was gone. I thought I needed to know more about the growth of hydrangea quercifolia and I decided to suspend any radical action in this area crammed with epimediums, peonies, anemone japonica and spring bulbs.

The third group was waiting for its moment of attention and care but it was late and I was tired. I looked at these frail shrubs knowing that they deserve energy and concentration.

I put down pruning shears and saw, rake and wheelbarrow and I took my time for the last task of the day: smelling the white lonicera fragrantissima, investigating the growth of the red buds of peonies, finding the first narcissus exactly where it was last year, counting snowdrops, cyclamens and iris ungucularis and touching the fat blooms of daphne. The sun was hidden by soft, grey clouds and it was getting cold again. But...

“If winter comes, can spring be far behind?”(1)

Note:
(1) Ode to the West Wind, Percy Bysshe Shelley, written in 1819 near Florence, Italy.

Photos:
Travelinagarden.

Matrioshkas.

I would like to have a room, an empty room.

In a snowy winter day, sitting on the wooden floor, I would open a case full of Russian matryoshkas wrapped in old newspapers sheets. I would open each doll again and again, until the tiniest one would be deployed. Then, looking out of the window, I would be in a world of violent snowstorms, dark forests and small houses where high stoves fill rooms and hearts with their warmth.

Vassily Zviozdochkin and Sergej Malyutin created the first Russian nested doll around 1890, in the Abramtsevo estate, seventy kilometres north of Moscow. They were inspired by a similar Japanese toy, which portrayed an old wise Buddhist man called Fukuruma. Each of the eight dolls, except the last one, could be divided into two halves revealing a smaller doll inside. Malyutin, who illustrated children’s books, painted the barrel-shaped dolls as happy and smiling peasant women, dressed with coloured headscarf and aprons while clutch a black rooster or a bowl. The smallest doll was a sleeping baby.

Raw material is seasoned wood. Lime wood, the most common, requires at least two years of ripening before the woodworker could start his job with the turning lathe, knives and chisels. Then, dolls are painted in bright, basic colours and finished with several coats of lacquer. Today, decorations are more important than thickness, which once showed the skill of the artisan and determined the beauty of the dolls. Traditional patterns developed in different styles, some focused on the face, others on the costume. The expression of the eyes or the hairstyle competed with birds, fruits, vegetables and flowers or, in recent times, with the ironic portrait of famous people. Each element was a symbol that, with elements taken from country life, recalled prosperity and happiness.

Matryoshkas enhance rural life and the traditional values of family and simplicity, with both their image of fertile, little mothers and with their name, derived from the popular female names of Matryona or Matriosha. Actually, this hymn to popular life was invented in a laboratory for the production and sale of toys. The Children’s Education Workshop was part of a wider project intended to preserve Russian folk crafts in the Abramtsevo estate. Here, artists coming from the whole country created art in everyday objects with techniques and patterns learnt from skilled artisans. Studies ranged from music and dance to furniture, or from lace to jewels. The owner was an industrialist and patron of art named Savva Mamontov. He was sincerely interested in the conservation of folk works and in the business generated by an increasing demand for objects recalling the true Russian style, especially in the area of Moscow. This emerged as a rich, lively town after a period of decline started with the forced westernization wanted by Peter the Great. In the first years of the XVIII century, he had imposed European manners and French language to Russian nobles, and rigid, classical facades to palaces built in Saint Petersburg. The town he had created on the water "…as a work of art”(1) despised Moscow for its lifestyle rooted in popular old traditions. But, this reputation allowed Moscow to become the “mother”, the symbol for Russian people of their true past with its customs and beliefs that new economy endangered with a fast railway and cheap industrial products.

Matrioshkas were a great success and were sold in millions not only in Russia. With the World Exhibition held in Paris in 1900, Russian style invaded European capitals with its exotic, cheerful and coloured allure inspired to an ideal, peaceful, rural world. An image that, in a few years, a war and a bloody revolution would destroy with their foolish violence and brutality.

Sitting on the floor, surrounded by coloured, smiling families, I would read the story of this country while the snow falls.



Notes:
(1) page 6, Orlando Figes, La danza di Natasha – Storia della cultura russa (XVIII-XX secolo), 2002 Torino, Biblioteca Einaudi



Further reading:
Orlando Figes, La danza di Natasha – Storia della cultura russa (XVIII-XX secolo), 2002 Torino, Biblioteca Einaudi

Cherry Gilchrist, Russian Magic: Living Folk traditions of an Enchanted Landscape,
From google book

Photos:
Travelinagarden