Seen on 4th Street

Saw a grotesquely large sunflower in a small community garden. It's head was so monstrous I just had to take a picture. Got a few amused stares from two people, but hey, I'm not from around here really. I'll get more stares this fall again when I'll feel the need to dress as if it were already winter.

As I was saying, I found the sunflower near the 4th Street entrance to the Chester Park Hiking Trail. The little 6 by 6 foot square of community flower garden wasn't one of the better ones I had seen around the city. It looked forgotten and somehow dusty. I felt just a little bad treating the sunflower like a circus freak.

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To my understanding these gardens are cared for by neighborhood volunteers, usually a garden society. At the beginning of spring or summer, they get together to plant flowers in several parks and little garden nooks all around the city. Soon, these little nooks become bursts of color.

It amuses me sometimes to think about how passionate the locals are about their gardens. When I go for walks I often see couples, sometimes just the man or woman of the house and sometimes even college roomates puttering around with little shovels and trowels in their front yards. There are special gardening gloves, little stools, special plant food and fertilizers. Even special gardening bags and trays.

It amuses me because back home, people don't spend much time or money on gardens. I remember my mom would sometimes plant tomatoes or go to gardening stores to buy potted plants. But any sort of regular gardening activity in the Philippines consisted mostly of standing around with a water hose in hand and gossiping with the neighbors. The really nice looking gardens in rich naighborhoods are often cared for by house help or hired gardeners and are mostly decorative. Only the the passionate orchid collectors tend to their own gardens. I also think we tend to take gardening for granted because plants did not need much coaxing to grow. My childhood is full of memories of picking avocados and atis in the rainy season, indian mangoes, chicos, guyabanos and aratilles during summer. Guavas were there for the picking year round. I marked the seasons by the fruits I could pick.

In a parallel sense, time here in Duluth is marked by the precious three or four month that flowers can survive. Perhaps that is part of the thrill and the excitement and I guess the wistfulness in flower gardening. Flower, in all their delicate, exquisite, beauty are nothing less than an appreciation or celebration of a season of sun. By the time the season of fall arrives, gardens wilt away, leaves and bushes turn from green to gold, to yellow.

I find it difficult to let go of summer here in Duluth, probably because back home it feels like it's summer more than half the year. I agree that fall is beautiful, and winter has it's own mystique. But these days I feel a mild panic when I see trees and bushes that are starting to turn. I feel a strange compulsion to protest the snow and steady approach of winter.

Clearly, I need to leave Duluth as soon as my studies are over.