Window Geranium, looking inside the potting shed window at a geranium stored there until winter’s last frost, photo © 2009 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
one morning in march
nose pressed against the window
i spy spring’s arrival
-related to posts WRITING TOPIC – WINDOW, haiku 2 (one-a-day), late winter haiku, and WRITING TOPIC – NAMES OF FLOWERS
redravine.wordpress.com 
This is a sweet and airy haiku! I love the childlike feel of this one!!
And that photo of the geranium is lovely! I’d imagine that it’s more vibrant than what’s shown in the photo! 8)
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Ah, ybonesy, what a fetching tribute to the coming of Spring. I actually am sitting in my writing corner with the little heater at my feet. It’s FREEZING and windy here in Minnesota today.
Beautiful geranium! For some reason, they always remind me of New Mexico. BTW, is this geranium part of your mother-in-law’s geranium collection? Thought it might have been passed down.
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I love that word “fetching,” QM! It’s a lovely day here, was quite cold this morning but the pasture has greened a bit from the recent rain, and it’s not windy. Ah, blue sky. I have to wonder if we’ll get a last wollop of winter to freeze all the recent apricot blooms. Hopefully not, hopefully just more rain.
No, QM, this particular geranium was one of a batch I either bought or was given last summer, but not by my mother-in-law. My brother- and sister-in-law gave me one of the bright orange/coral ones, possibly even the one in the photo. It’s one of my favorites colors of geranium.
And this plant also reminds me of New Mexico, of old adobe homes and window sills. I should check into it to see if the geraniums came with the Spaniards or what.
My mother never liked the smell of the geranium. It’s a musty strong smell, I love it, but an acquired taste. Something happened where just about two years ago, maybe even last year, she changed her mind and decided to get geraniums. She has a green thumb although she would deny it, and now her geranium plant is thriving. But her’s is spidery and without blooms this winter, whereas mine are bushy and full of blooms. We were wondering if it’s the amount of water. I only waters ours once every two weeks; she waters hers every week.
My mother-in-law, of course, is the queen of geraniums. Hers are magnificent. She has inspired me to take up my own, and I think I’ve mentioned that this year Jim decided that since we had so many, he’d move all the pots into the potting shed/green house. I used to be lazy and allow them to freeze, then get new ones the next year. Silly of me, I know. I’m so glad he brought them in for winter.
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A~Lotus, thank you. I’m glad it has a childlike quality. That’s how I feel about the coming of spring. Kind of giddy.
And yes, you’re right. The color is or was at the time I took the photo vibrant. But I noticed that this particular color is hard to photograph. I don’t know the technical details, perhaps QM will, but it’s a certain red that I think somehow clashes with the film. Same thing happens with this color of red when I try to photograph Indian Paintbrush, a wildflower in the mountains.
Oh, but also, the geranium is on the other side of the window, so the reflection also washes out the color a bit. To me it looked like the bloom was floating in space.
It has since died or withered (the bloom, that is, not the plant). I “dead head” all the blooms (cut them off) to encourage new ones. They’ve bloomed all winter.
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ybonesy, I saw you linked to your mother-in-law’s geranium, too, in the very last post about to roll off the front page. Geraniums do have a musty smell. It is an acquired taste, like marigolds. I’m not fond of the smell of marigolds, but I love their yellow-orangish color.
You’re right about the coral color of this geranium being hard to photograph. I think you captured it though. I don’t know if I specifically know the details of why some reds and corals can be hard to capture. But I remember some general characteristics of color from some research I did. It can depend on what medium you are using.
Most recently when preparing one of the mandala posts and researching color, I read how color on computer screens (which would include from digital film) is additive and based on the primary colors red, green and blue. And pigment based colors are subtractive and based on the primary colors red, yellow, and blue. In old color film (real film, not digital), colors are subtracted from white light by dyes or pigments and the most common primary colors are cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK).
I worked in a color photo lab for a while (back in the day) and I did notice that certain colors could really be washed out, depending on the light source, flash, daylight, tungsten. Light can be a complicated subject!
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The color of my mother-in-law’s geranium, in that post I linked to called late winter haiku, is also a type of coral, but more of a blush. It’s probably my favorite color of geranium of all.
I don’t much like the smell of marigolds either, QM, but I love the flower. Especially after traveling to India and seeing how revered this simple flower is. We saw fields of them, reminiscent of the fields of poppies in Wizard of Oz. They are a beautiful flower and so easy to grow.
Geraniums are a salt-of-the-earth flower in my mind. And the way they grow over time, their stems thick and winding, remind me of gnarly trees or an old person’s thick, knuckly fingers.
Hey, QM, in your next mandala post, will you be talking more about colors for digital? Interesting stuff.
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yb, I’m with your mother on the smell of geraniums. It reminds me of rusty forks for some reason (not that I have smelled a lot of rusty forks).
The crocuses bloomed last week. They appeared in yards in the city. Today’s freezing temps may do them in. We have two more days of lows in the high 20’s and low 30’s before we creep back into above freezing weather.
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Bob, I was going to ask how in the world you were gardening this week in Kansas City. We don’t have that option here in the cold North. The ground is still frozen solid.
ybonesy, I like the word fetching, too. Sounds kind of old-timey (there’s another old word). Well, I’m barking up two different trees for the next mandala post and relationship to color. The next post might be a different subject, still related to color and emotion. I’ll have to see which pops into the scene when I get down to the final writing!
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Our crocuses also bloomed, popped up through the debris of last year’s cottonwood leaves. I hope yours weather the cold. BTW, do you remember the children’s book, Goodbye, Moon? Doesn’t the baby bunny ask about what happens if s/he turns into a crocus plant, and the Mama bunny says she’d become a gardener? I love that book but haven’t read it for a loooong time.
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Yb, despite the glass reflection and all of the things you’ve mentioned, the geranium is lovely!
When I first read it, I thought you said that the geranium petals pressed their noses on the glass!! lol (Hey, that might still work too in a ‘ku!!) After all, plants do know spring and welcome its arrival even before humans do! 😀
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I’ve been meaning to come back and respond, A~Lotus. Thanks for picking up on that. I meant it all ways—the geranium pressing against the window waiting for spring, but also my pressing against the window and seeing the flower, being reminded of spring. 8)
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[…] hard as if she were panting. (Do snakes pant?) I’d gone into the potting shed to water the geraniums, and as much as I wanted to open her cage and relieve her thirst, I was afraid she’d moved […]
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