Page 10 THE SAUGUS ADVOCATE – FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2021 SAUGUS GARDENS IN THE PANDEMIC Here’s what’s blooming in town this week to make your walks more enjoyable By Laura Eisener I t's an eventful week for holidays: Chinese New Year is today and February 12 is also Abraham Lincoln's actual birthday. Sunday is Valentine's Day, and on Monday we will be celebrating President's Day. Mardi Gras is Tuesday, followed naturally by Ash Wednesday. Wednesday being the 17th of February, that also happens to be the 206th anniversary of Saugus being set aside from Lynn and becoming a separate town. Valentine's Day decorations can be found peeping out through the snow. Our ponds are mostly frozen over, so the swans that dare to winter over are spending more time on the tidal areas of the Saugus River since they don't freeze over. It won't be long before we'll see spring flowers but meanwhile we may have to look inside for spring. Several of the bulbs I potRED FOR WINTER: Andromeda with reddish flower buds at St. John’s Church–flowers will be pink when they bloom. (Courtesy photos to The Saugus Advocate by Laura Eisener) ted up in the garage around Christmas are beginning to poke up above the soil. The one sitting in my dining room window, of blooming tulips, miniature daffodils, and a budding pink oriental hyacinth were a present from my niece. All of the popular spring bulbs Flowers A Valentine’s Day poem to inspire Saugus residents who go shopping for flowers to express their love or friendship By Joanie Allbee F lowers say so much without ever a word. How can this be? Well haven’t you heard? It’s in the Bouquet that’s where the floral secrets lay. Out in the open for visual display. What form does it take? Look for the line it’s very opaque. A horizontal line implies rest, plenty of time don’t toil. Vertical and straight? Punctual, formal and royal. Is the line more angled than straight? This implies energy like a horse coming out of a gate! can be forced to bloom in the house, a little earlier than outdoors, if they get their required cold period before being brought inside and introduced to light–real or artificial. It's a great way to stretch out the flowering bulb season despite snow swirling outside. Always have a focal point where the eye will zoom. Give a showy piece plenty of room. Make the composition like a peacock plume. Give a smaller version for a friend in a hospital room. Love in your heart but you can’t say? A bunch of red roses will pave the way. They may even already portray what you can’t display. The container speaks volumes too. For there is another component to the clue. Smooth and shiny formality of brass. Gentle elegance of glass, baskets and pottery informal ease. A garden flower filled basket for a nice country breeze. Such a sensory gift to cherish, please and appease. Editor’s Note: Saugus resident JOANIE’S HEART GARDEN: If the weather is warm and sunny, Joanie Allbee can always enjoy this heat-shaped flower bed right outside her Saugus apartment. She notes that it doesn’t take up much room. Joanie Allbee, a local artist and frequent contributor to The Saugus Advocate, offers this poem as a Valentine’s present for Saugus. She hopes it might be beneficial to people picking flowers out for Valentine’s Day and flower painting — perhaps inspiring others to buy flowers with a little understanding of the languages of flowers known by florists. Allbee acknowledges that being born on Valentine’s Day has inspired her arJOANIE’S FOREVER KITCHEN FLOWERS: No matter what season it is, Joanie Allbee can always go into her kitchen if she wants a fresh bouquet of flowers to look at — the floral moral she painted. (Courtesy photos to The Saugus Advocate by Joanie Allbee) tistic talents and interests. “My birthday, Feb14th, that’s why I think I love roses, hearts, and the color ‘red’ so much I believe it’s been embedded and enmeshed throughout my DNA,” she says. “The poem I wrote for my book, “Tapestry,”...many moons ago, came out of the knowledge I learned from taking a Floral Design Program (After work hobby). With all the fascinating floral design knowledge learned, I wanted to find a way to share the knowledge with others so I wrote it in the form of a poem; short, concise and factual. One way to have flowers on Valentine's Day is to paint them! or grow them in the shape of a heart and replace flowers as seasons change! “Albee has such a “heart garden” outside her home. She has also painted a floral mural in her kitchen so “I always have a fresh bouquet of flowers to look at and enjoy, especially on Valentine’s Day!” DINING ROOM BLOOMS: Tulip, daffodil, and budding pink oriental hyacinth in pot in my Window. Reminders of the season are everywhere. After walking a mile or so in the snowy woods of Breakheart recently we came upon a fun discovery of a festive group of red hearts! I hope whoever put them up will remember to carefully cut off the zip ties before too much time has passed though, or they will kill the tree, which was surely not the intention. As the trunks expand, the plastic will prevent the cambium from growing, effectively cutting off circulation of sap if it is not removed. Anything encircling the trunk or branch GARDENS | SEE PAGE 11
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