So, What Has Changed? -- Peki Ne Değişti?

Mountains near Niğde, Turkey

 As I've gotten back to gardening in Seattle, I've realized that  just like we can have "culture shock" in a new country, the way we see plants and gardens can also be affected. Our decisions in the gardens we make are informed by many different things; not only the climatic realities of where we live, but also what I like to call our "inner garden."

The garden in Istanbul...

I've often thought of this scenario: Imagine three different people looking at a beautifully planted and maintained garden. One might find it pretty and appreciate the colors of the flowers, and be reminded of something their grandmother grew. Another might feel "at home" because something in it echoed the place where they grew up. Yet another might see something almost alien - perhaps fascinating but still inscrutable. That was me when I first moved from Iowa to the Pacific Northwest with all its coniferous forests and endless variety of broadleaf evergreens, not to mention plants I never even knew existed. I may as well have moved to the Mediterranean, it was that unfamiliar.

Four O'Clocks by old Istanbul house

And then I did, or at least the semi-Mediterranean. Istanbul is a city of microclimates; the northernmost parts affected by the cool moist climate of the Black Sea, the middle Bosphorus climate is something like Northern California, and the area along the Marmara coast is much more Mediterranean. I remember sitting in the hot sun on a patio in Kocamustafapaşa, looking at my parched garden, as storm clouds shot out lightning bolts and flooded Taksim just two miles away. The landscape around you affects the landscape in your mind. You plant what you want, learn what works and what doesn't, and find out about new things it has to offer. But within each of us is our own private mental landscape (or several) against which the things we see either resonate or don't. How that gets expressed in our gardens is a fascinating question for me. I don't pretend to have figured it out, either.

Trillium in Thornton Creek Park, Seattle

Now I'm back in Seattle, with a couple trips back to Turkey behind me as well as several visits to Denver as well as Arkansas, where my mother now lives. Both of those places, and the very different gardens I see there, have served to shake things up a bit. Not only have I seen unfamiliar things that tempt me to stretch my tastes in new directions, but I've also gained a new appreciation for some of the "weeds" of my youth; plants I never had any antipathy toward but never really thought about planting in a garden. My "inner garden" is still in flux. And so is my outer one; a bit of a jumble, which will certainly have another shakeup after the next move.

Sarracenia 'Adrian Slack',
Jerry Addington

The other thing that has happened since my return is reconnecting certain old threads. Since the age of 12 or so, I've been fascinated with insect-eating plants, starting with the first mail-order Venus Flytraps that I killed in almost no time, through the Pitcher Plants that grew famously until I couldn't figure out how to get them through winter, to the seed-grown Nepenthes in high-school. (I did get better at not killing them by the way!) They were an extreme challenge to grow in Istanbul because the water there has so much lime in it  that your tea kettle will turn into a rock quarry in a few months if you don't take measures. But here conditions are much more favorable, and there are so many people to buy from and trade with. So I'll be writing a lot about those too.

Starting Again - Yeniden Başlamak

We have to start somewhere!

Well, let me start by being honest: Liminality can be a waste of time. We don't always get to choose what comes to us. We can choose how we deal with it, but even that can take a while. I did actually plan to continue blogging here, and even started a post, but this adjustment thing has not been a picnic. (That post will be shared, and I've been back a second time since then and have things to write about that trip as well!)

When I came  "home" to Seattle, I knew it would be rough at times, and that did help me at times when I was tempted to get bogged down in negativity. Still, some things just need time, and I'm grateful to have had it.

Back in the 1980s, I left Greece after almost three years there, and returned to my home town of Iowa City, Iowa. Talk about a change of environment. I dealt with underemployment and more, but perhaps because it was such a radical break at a time where nobody had heard of this thing called the "Internet," it was something like jumping into a pool and learning to swim.

This has been different. Now we all carry these little boxes around in our pockets that let us talk with our friends real-time and keep up with developments "back home" almost as easily as those where we live, and the result can be something like standing at the pool's edge, making tentative forays into the water but never really letting go of the handrails.

So you move on, but as who? The person you were during your 14 years in a completely different culture? Or do you pick up where you left off when you went there? Or do you make a fresh start?

I can't "un-live" my time in Istanbul, and I'd never want to. There's no "picking up where I left off" when the place I left off no longer exists in many respects. And unless we develop amnesia, there's really no such thing as a completely "fresh start." So of course it ends up being a combination as you move ahead. Some things you think would always be yours might drop off rather quickly. You meet new people, find new environments. And you also rediscover parts of yourself that had languished during that time of separation.

At time it's been a little hellish, but as things drop away, you also see what is permanent, and my love of plants, of seeing things grow and develop, has never gone anywhere. And like meeting an adult who was 12 the last time you saw them, it's fun seeing what has changed.

So then, what about plants, what about gardens?

In the Seattle of 2016 with its skyrocketing rents and increasing sprawl, I was very fortunate to find a place where I could have a garden. It wasn't as comfortable a situation as where I lived up until 2000; I don't have that unlimited freedom, and the house will likely go on the market by next fall. Still, I've had two summers here and may have three, and it's helped me learn to just do the thing I love to do instead of worry about the "what-ifs." As Seattle garden writer Ann Lovejoy wrote way back in the year that I first moved here, "A garden is not something you 'have,' it's something you do." So what do do, but do it?

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İlk önce dürüst olayım: Arada kalmak, zaman kaybı olabilir. Başımıza geleni her zaman seçemiyoruz tabii. Nasıl başedebileceğimizi seçebiliriz fakat o bile zaman alabilir. Aslında blog yazmaya devam etmeye planlıyordum, hatta başladım bile fakat bu alışma fazlı hiç kolay olmadı. (O gönderi paylaşılacak, Türkiye’ye ikinci kez bile döndüm, o yolculuk hakkında da yazacaklarım var!)

Seattle’a, “sılaya” geldiğimde, bazen zor olacağını da biliyordum, ve karamsarlığa kapılmaya eğildiğim zamanlarda onu bilmek yardımcı oluyordu. Yine de bazı şeyler sadece zamanla geçer, ve zamanım olduğu için memnunun.

1980 yıldında Yunanistan’da 3 yıl yaşadıktan sonra ABD’deki memleketim olan Iowa City, Iowa’ya döndüm. Ortam değişlikleri var ya... Yetersiz iş vardı, dahası da vardı fakat “İnternet” adlı şeyin daha duyulmadığı o dönemde öyle kesin bir kopma idi ki, denize dalıp yüzmeyi öğrenmek gibi birşey idi.

Devam ediyorsun işte, fakat kim olarak? Tamamen farklı bir kültürde yaşarken olduğun kişi olarak mı? Yoksa giderken bıraktığın yerden devem mı edeceksin? Yoksa taze bir başlangıç mı yapacaksın?

İstanbul’daki zamanımı unutamıyorum, istemiyorum ki zaten. “Bıraktığım yerden yeniden başlamak” da yok çünkü bıraktığım yer, birçok açıdan artık yok olmuş. Bir de hafızamı tamamen kaybetmezsen tamamen “taze başlangıç” diye birşey de yok. Dolayısıyla ilerlerken sonuçta hepsinin bir rolü oluyor. Sonsuza kadar senin olacağını düşündüğin bazı şeyler bayğı hızlı olarak yok oluyor. Yeni insanlarla tanışıyorsun, yeni ortamlar buluyorsun. Aynı zamanda ayrılık döneminde kısmen çürümüş olan bazı kısımlarını yeniden de başlıyorsun.

Ne kaldı? Bitki sevdası, büyüyen, gelişen şeyleri izlemek zevki hiç yok olmadı, olmaz da. Hatta son görüştüğünüzde 12 yaşında biriyle erişkin halinde yeniden tanışması gibi, nelerin değiştiğini görmek çok da zevkli olabilir!

Peki ya bitkiler? Bahçeler?

Fırlayan ev kiraları ve gittikçe hızlanan büyümesi ile 2016 Seattle’ında, bahçem olabileceği bir yer bulduğum için kendimi çok şanslı hissediyorum. Önceki durumum kadar rahat değil tabii, o sınırsız özgürlük yok, hem de yaşadığım ev büyük ihtimalle gelecek sonbahara kadar pazara sunulacak. Yine de burada iki yaz geçirebildim, üç de olabilir, ve “ya falan olursa” korkularına kapılmak yerine bana sevdiğim şeyle uğraşma şansını verdi. Seattle’lı bahçe yazarı Ann Lovejoy, bu şehre ilk taşındığım yılda yayınladığı kitapta, “Bahçe, sahibi olacağın değil, yapacağın birşeydir.” Sonuçta yapmaktan başka ne yapalım?

Carpetblogger: Trump Trumped by Central Asian Dictator with Better Brand, Hair

Carpetblogger: Trump Trumped by Central Asian Dictator with Better Brand, Hair

I'm here, but here is not where it used to be. Buradayim fakat burası, eskiden olduğu yerde değil.

If anyone has been checking in to my blog to see if there is anything new and wondering why there isn't (not that I haven't had lapses here and there), it's because I'm no longer living in Istanbul. It was the result of several factors, including an aging mother that I'd like to be able to visit more often, as well as changing - though not insurmountable - residence laws. And in the background of my mind there has been a desire for a change, to be back in the States for a while and enjoy the communities there. The political situation in the region had less to do with it as I rarely felt any direct threat from it, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't concerned, especially for friends who live in Turkey's southeast.

Community means different things in different places. In Turkey it can usually be defined in terms of city/region of residence or origin, and religion. In the U.S. it can be those things, though it seems to be less and less related to where we live and more a matter of the people we choose to spend our time with. That's the kind of community I was missing, especially gardening and music communities, in which people with a passion for something share and support each other, and enjoy their passions together.

So on October 1 of last year, I arrived back in Seattle after fourteen years away. I had made several visits while in Istanbul, but it's one thing to visit a city for a week or so and hang out with your friends, and quite another to come back, navigate its changed social and economic realities, and make a new start. The details of that new start aren't really relevant to this blog, but suffice it to say that I have found a place where I can garden. It may not be a long-term garden but planting things, watching them grow, and being able to share with people with the same addiction to green things is wonderful! I'm not psychic but I do have a distinct feeling that gardening is going to have an even more important place in my life.

And what of Turkey? Well, you don't live in a place for 14 years and then forget it, much less when that place is Istanbul. Anyone who has spent any time there will know exactly what I'm talking about. as one writer said (and I wish I could remember her name to credit her): "You love it, and you hate it, and you feel alive."

Actually, I have already been back. I flew to Istanbul on July 4 to join Panayoti Kelaidis, Outreach Director of the Denver Botanic Garden, along with Lefteris  Dariotis, a plant biologist who runs a seed business from Greece, and Erik Hsu, Plant Information Coordinator at Chanticleer Garden in Wayne, Pennsylvania, on a trip up Uludağ near Bursa. An unexpected bonus was a trip to Kazdağı,  the ancient Mt. Ida. Both were fascinating, quite different from each other, and home to many endemic species. There will be a post about that trip soon. Afterwards I stayed at the same house I lived in for the last seven years or so. All I can really say about that is that it's incredible what can happen to a garden in nine months without care, and it's not good. Maybe I'll share those photos later, but now I'd like to keep the mood positive!



Blogumu arada bir yeni gönderiler için kontrol edip, neden olmadığını merak eden varsa, sebebi şu: Artık İstanbul'da yaşamıyorum. İstanbul'dan ayrılma kararı, hem yaşlanan ve daha çok sıklıkla ziyaret edebilmek istediğim annem, hem de aşılmaz olmayan fakat değişen yabancılara yönelik ikamet yasaları. Ayrıca herşeyin arkasında, bir süre Amerika'da kalıp buradaki toplumlarının tadını çıkarmak istediğim de yatıyordu. Bölgedeki siyasi durumun daha az alakası vardı çünkü hiçbir zaman doğrudan bir tehdit hissemedim fakat özellikle Doğu'da yaşayan arkadaşlar için bazen endişelenmediğimi desem yalan olur.

"Toplum" kavramının, değiş yerlerde değişik anlamları oluyor. Bir genellemeye kaçsam kusura bakmayın fakat kaçacağım işte: Türkiye'de genelde memleket, ikamet edilen yer ve din kavramlarıyla tanımlanabilir.  Amerika'da da o unsurlardan oluşabilir ancak yaşadığımız yerle alakası gittikçe azaldığı, zamanımızı kimlerle geçirmeye karar verdiğimizle artıyormuş gibi geliyor. İşte o tür toplumu özlüyordum, özellikle insanların ortak bir tutku paylaşıp birbirine destek verdiği bahçivanlık ve müzik toplumlarını. 

Dolayısıyla geçtiğimiz yılın Ekim ayında, ondört yıl dışarıda yaşadıktan sonra Seattle'a döndüm.  Türkiye'de yaşarken birçok ziyaret etmiştim tabii fakat bir şehri ziyaret edip arkadalşarla takılmak başka, geri dönüp değişen toplumsal ve ekonomik gerçeklikleriyle uğraşığ yeniden başlamak, bambaşka birşeydir. O yeni başlangıcın detayları, bu blogla pek alakadar değil, yeter ki bir bahçe kurabileceğim yerde buldum. Çok uzun süreli bir bahçe olmayabilir de, bitileri ekip büyümelerini izlemek, ayrı bağımlılğa sahip olan arkadaşlarla da paylaşabilmek, harika birşey. Kahin değilim fakat bahçivanlığın, bundan böyle hayatımda daha da önemli bir rolü olacağını güçlü bir şekilde hissediyorum.

Peki ya Türkiye? Bir yerde ondört yıl yaşanıp unutulmaz, hele hele İstanbul'da; orada az zaman bile geçirenler bile demeye çalıştığımı mutlaka anlar. İsmini maalesef hatırlayamadığım bir yazar yazdığı gibi: "Hem seviyorsun, hem de nefret ediyorsun, ve yaşadığını hissediyorsun."

Zaten döndüm aslında. 4 Temmuzda Denver Botanik Bahçesi'nin Uzanma Müdürü olan Panayoti Kelaidis, Atina'lı tohumculuk sahibi ve bitki biyologu olan Lefteris Dariotis ile Wayne, Pennsylvania'daki Chanticleer Gardens'in Bitki Bilgiler Koordinatörü Erik Hsu ile beraber Uludağ'a çıkmak için İstanbul'a geldim. Kazdağına bir yan yolculuğu ise beklenmeyen bir haz oldu. İkisi hem son derece ilginçti hem de değişen iklim koşulları itibariyle birbirinden çok farklıydı. O yolculukla ilgili bir yazı olacak. İstanbul'a döndükten sonra son yedi yıl boyunca kaldığım evde kalıp eski bahçemi gördim. Bakmazsan dağ olur derler ya... O fotoğrafları belki daha sonra paylaşırım fakat şimdilik daha olumlu şeyler için yazalım!

Snowdrops

These came up in my garden on their own, probably as seed. Originally one plant,  they've become a nice little clump.

A Post? What the Hell?

Yeah, it's been a long time. No need to go into details, but circumstances over the last year or so were not really conducive to gardening, much less blogging about it. I barely kept up with the flower garden, and as I had to be out of the country during prep/planting time last spring, there was very little in the way of vegetable gardening either. Now I've started digging out, and in addition to updates on what was there before, there are also some new developments.

I'm very glad to have chosen lots of very tough plants. Still, desert training perennials doesn't make for a stunning garden, unless they are cactus and succulents. (My cacti and succulents have done famously by the way!) But when the fall rains - skimpy as  they've been - began this year, I was pleased to see that some old friends I thought I'd lost have returned. Top on the list is the Zauschneria californica. Even in the odd mixture that passes for "soil" in the upper garden, it seems to be in for the long haul.

One pleasant surprise this winter was a nice bloom on a Helleborus x orientalis from seed sent by a friend back in Seattle. It's  no surprise that this plant should do well here; the original species is native to the area. However, you won't see any rich pinks or yellows out in the wild; they're a very unassuming shade of green. Interestingly I also got one shoot on the plant that produced pure white flowers. At least I think it's the same plant; I don't think there was a second seed in there!

Most Iris are pretty hard to kill, so not much trouble there. The Pacific Coast Iris are looking great as ever. The Epimediums...well, they've survived, but could have done with some more attention. The Cretan iris (Iris unguicularis) has just exploded, much to the delight of the tiny slugs for whom an almost-opened iris bud is a delicacy. Still, a few blooms do manage to open before they get munched.

One thing I did find time for before taking off to the US last spring was to try my hand at layering Clematis. Clematis are somewhat notorious for being picky rooters from cuttings - you have to get them at just the right time, and if you miss it, it's no dice. Some are harder than others as well. But layering is nice because you put the stem to layer underground and when it's ready to root, it's already in the ideal environment. What I did was to choose two fresh stems coming up from the rootstock last spring, and train them downward so I wouldn't accidentally break them later. Then when they were long enough, I buried a node of each one under an inch or so of soil and placed a brick on top of that. The brick serves a dual purpose: It keeps the stem from coming up (which put an abrupt end to the previous year's attempt) and also shades the stem, maintaining a cool slightly moist environment. The variety in question is "Betty Corning."

And then I forgot about them.

And then as I was cleaning out the garden ("digging out" wouldn't be too inaccurate) I remembered them. In this case, neglect proved to be a good thing. One is definitely rooted, though I'm not sure whether the pale shoot visible near it is from it or if it's a seedling of something else. Better not to disturb it finding out. But the second one is not only rooted but sending up a great, thick shoot! I'll be vigilant about snails and especially cutworms, then see if I can pot them up while they're still actively growing.

Actually, I did have one vegetable success last year as well. While in Virginia, I was at a party and got to taste several interesting kinds of peppers. One that really made an impression was an unusual one called "Lemon Drop." The peppers are  narrow and symmetrical, with a distinctive ridge down the middle, visible in the pepper at the bottom of the photo. The peppers stayed in the starter pots way too long, but when I got back I potted three of them up in a large pot. They took a bit of time to recover but then took off. The flowering came late and though they set a lot of peppers, none were ripe when I had to go back to the U.S. in the autumn. But when I got back there were lots of ripe ones, and the green ones ripened within a couple of days after picking.

The name refers to the pepper's unique citrus-like flavor. They're also very hot but one sliced up into an omelet gives a lot of flavor in proportion to the heat. The extra added bonus is that these are perennials. I brought the pot in and it's been overwintering in the kitchen with no problems except a bout of aphids, so I'm hoping for a bumper crop this summer! In Virgina, the friends had made theirs into pepper jelly, and I had just enough for a good batch, so that's what I did with them. Definitely try this pepper! (In the interest of disclosure, the habaneros are not from my garden; they're from a Safeway in Seattle!)

Signs of Spring / Baharın Habercileri

Every place has its special signs of spring. Back in Iowa, it was the first robins, even though they don't all migrate. Here, it's the first swallows, returning from their winter vacations in Africa.

In my neighborhood, we have another, more human sign of spring: Rom (Gypsies) who come to collect snails. Having multiplied and grown throughout the winter, they appear in droves underneath the thick spring mat of chickweed and creeping Veronica, as well as in thick clusters anywhere they can find a bit of moisture and shade. And they are ravenous, able to reduce a clump of emerging iris to shredded stubs in a night.

The women can gather a couple of buckets of them from our garden; less than in the past when there was a larger lower level full of fruit trees. That has now been turned into a gravel parking lot...

People don't eat snails here as a rule. They collect them to sell to cosmetics companies, who make skin-rejuvenating creams from their slime. Last time I asked, they were getting around a lira a kilo, not much money in a city like Istanbul. These aren't local Rom by the way, they all seem to come from around the town of Adapazarı a few hours east of here.