Colour therapy

Photo by Liz Mitchell

Full glory, the display that deciduous trees put on as we head into winter. What a gift to humanity, so healing, that zap of energy when we stop and gaze in wonder. Who can focus on woes of the world when you come across a red maple at its peak of perfection? Or a trembling aspen shaking its golden leaves. Forest bathing at its best, surely, immersing yourself in the fiery oranges, scarlets and yellows of the rainbow spectrum in an autumn woods.

And adrenaline. Autumn colours get your blood pumping, reminding you of fall chores that need to be done. Firewood. Snow tires and shovels. Boots and mitts to hunt for. Rescuing stuff from the garden before the chilly night that really does drop below freezing.

Big lakes act as a heat source after summer, often putting off the inevitable for a while. My sister’s purple petunias an hour’s drive north of us were pretty sad-looking last week, while here on the shore of Lake Ontario our nasturtiums are still holding their own, cheerful orange and gold on the garden fence. But you can’t take a chance with treasured houseplants, so in they come, after being sprayed with soapy water and washed in the rain to discourage aphids from coming along.

More colour therapy, all winter, the scarlet and pink blossoms of our two hibiscus trees. One is super heavy, so my big strong neighbour, Cameron, comes over and lugs it in for me, along with our Ficus benjamina, trimmed to reach up to a skylight. All three trees are precious, gifts from dear friends who are gone now. The double-petaled pink hibiscus started from a shoot Molly snipped from her grandmother’s beloved tree in Kerala, India, shading the well where neighbour women came for water, companionship, gossip. Molly asked me to tend it for a little while when she was in “transition” after selling her house in Toronto. I’m taking good care of it still, for her and her grandma.

What early culture discovered that flowering plants placed by a window bring hope and cheer to a household during the dark months? I learned that from my mom and mother-in-law, who each kept geraniums, hardy survivors that bloom continually, readily root from a slip and are freely passed on from neighbour to neighbour, generation to generation.

There are wild geraniums native in North America, but the genus that makes popular house and garden plants comes from South Africa, one of the most biodiverse countries in the world. I’m sure it must have been Dutch farmers moving in after the Dutch East India Company set up shop in Cape Town in 1652 who saw the possibilities and took geraniums in hand, growing the kajillion colours and varieties available today. Just as they cultivated tulips, native to Central Asia and introduced to the Netherlands in the 16^th century by the Ottoman Turks.

My salmon-coloured geranium descended from the one my mother kept in the bay window of the living room, next to the piano. She had a green thumb with bushes, wildflowers and trees but was hopeless with houseplants. Until someone gave her that geranium, which bloomed and grew and bloomed and grew, scattering petals over the tabletop and floor, salmon confetti. My free-spirited mom wasn’t much of a housekeeper but she sure appreciated beauty. I’m glad I take after her.

Dennis’s mom’s geraniums, a bright fuchsia pink, bloomed all year in a wooden planter by the living room window—also next to a piano. She watered them with a small tin teapot I can picture to this day; where did it go when we cleared out so much of what she’d collected in the farmhouse, having grown up in the Great Depression? But her wooden planter is mine now and still holds her fuchsia geraniums, moved in and out, front porch to sunroom and back, with the seasons.

My sister Annie gave me my orange-red geranium, which adds Mexican pizzazz to the mix, as does the variegated-leafed one my sister-in-law Cathie gave me. Squeezed together at the sunroom window, underneath the hanging Christmas cactus from Dennis’s grandma, and a leggy scarlet orchid cactus also from Molly, they make me smile and think of summer on the coldest, gloomiest winter days.

Rescued from the frost

Molly’s pink hibiscus

and in the other corner, the red one

Mom’s salmon geranium

Happy all winter! A friend from Peterborough uproots her geraniums in fall and strings them up to dry in the basement, replanting them in spring, like Dennis’s mom did with her dahlias. I’m kind of glad we don’t have a basement.

New generation sprouting

First bud of more than fifty orchid cactus blossoms that should brighten our days this winter.

Nasturtiums before the frost

Annie’s autumn blaze

More colour therapy