Stephani Maari Booker's Blog, page 4

A black-ish iris blooms

The photo on the left is a picture of iris variety “Before the Storm” in bloom in my yard from a few years ago. This iris variety is just about as black as a flower can get. Unfortunately, the iris plant died for some reason only a couple years after I planted it. On top of that, Before the Storm hasn’t been available at the online iris store I bought them from for a while; it’s always marked “sold out.”

The iris on the right is called “Midnight Oil”; I took this picture of it blooming only a few weeks ago. It bloomed for the first time maybe two years ago, and I was disappointed by it not being as black as “Before the Storm.” However, since the blackest iris died I’ll have to be satisfied with this one for now.

I have a third supposedly black iris in my yard called “Black Suited,” but it hasn’t bloomed yet even though I planted all three irises the same year. I moved Black Suited from its original planting spot about two years ago because it wasn’t flourishing or blooming. It would have bloomed last year, but somebody broke off the bud the iris had before it had a chance. This year, there’s more leaves but no bloom so far. I may have to move it again.

As you can see all over my website, black iris is a symbol of mine, and I love black flowers. People think of flowers as light and bright, so a black bloom blows all those presumptions out of the water. I would love to have a yard full of black flowers and plants in my front yard just to astound all the passersby.

Wildlife in the urban garden

I’ve written in a previous blog how much I love dragonflies. This year, I caught a great photo of a similar brown dragonfly sitting on a stake I’ve used to mark where I planted some aizoon stonecrop that I moved from my shady front yard to the full sun of my backyard. This plant, often called sedum aizoon, is a plant of Asian origin that I found struggling among the violets and creeping charlie in my front yard when I first moved into my house. After transplanting it, the stonecrop has flourished and, apparently, attracted the interest of this dragonfly. I know dragonflies are insectivores, but this one would fly away if I got too close and then land again on top of the stake when I backed off.

This is my first photo of wildlife in my garden this year. Hopefully I can catch more interesting species on camera in my yard this season.

Athena Persephoni Publications Summer/Winter Sale

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Along with participating in Smashwords’ annual Summer/Winter Sale, Athena Persephoni Publications is also putting the print versions of Cultural Etiquette: a Guide for the Well-Intentioned by Amoja Three Rivers and my own Secret Insurrection: Stories from a Novel of a Future Time on sale for the month of July. Both books will be offered at a discount depending on what part of the world you’re buying it from, and the discount will show on all selling platforms. This sale, like the Smashwords sale, will happen July 1-31.

Also, for anyone in the Twin Cities area, I will be performing on the Power to the People Stage at this year’s Twin Cities Pride on Sunday, June 26, at about 2:45 pm. Print copies of Cultural Etiquette and Secret Insurrection: SNFT will be for sale at the merch tent near the stage for $10.00 and $5.00 each, respectively.

Native garden beauties

Two wildflower plants native to this part of the world have bloomed in my garden: wild geranium (left) and Canada violet. Native plants are a very important part of my yard. Once established, natives almost never need extra water, even in drought conditions, and as perennials they come back year after year. Plus, I get bumblebees, monarch butterflies and even a rare hummingbird to come to my yard to feed thanks to my native plants. I’ll post pictures of any photogenic wildlife that comes to the yard as the season goes on.

Black squirrel in Nebraska

In the Before Times, I recorded this video of a jet-black squirrel in the parking lot of a senior community in Lincoln, Nebraska. Continuing my obsession with unusual all-black and all-white animals, I was determined to record the squirrel until it left my sight, despite my mom bugging me to come back inside to keep company with our in-laws we were there to visit.

White squirrel in the ’burbs

One the way to checking out a curbside giveaway at a suburban Minneapolis-area house, I stopped my car and pulled over to video a white squirrel who was among a group of ducks. As the squirrel was naturally fleeing me as I approached with my phone to record it, this was the best I could do in capturing an image of the little white rodent. Apologies for the shaky camera look as well.

I am obsessed with animals that are black or white, especially those that don’t usually come in those colors. I once saw a white squirrel a few blocks from where I live and I thought I was recording it, but I didn’t have the recording on with my phone video app. I’ll be posting another video I made of a black squirrel in another city next week.

Rainbow goddesses rising

Iris is the goddess of the rainbow, and she lends her name to a family of flowers prized for their colorful beauty. I’m pretty iris-obsessed, as you may be able to tell from the logos on this website, so I have a number of varieties of the plant in my yard. The first irises to bloom this year are “Nassau Blue,” with powder blue flowers, and an iris that has white flowers with powder blue beards, the fuzzy parts in the center of each petal.

In defiance of the continuing war against BIPOC, women, and LGBTQIA+ people being waged with guns in the streets, words in the media and laws/rulings in the legislative halls and courts, I will keep fighting the fire with flower power.

In fact, I always have fought the power with flowers. Here’s what I can remember of a poem I wrote when I was in elementary school:

Flower power
comes every hour
in the spring
nature brings
blooms of joy
for girls and boys
who run and play
every warm sunny day.

Violet of a different color

One of the violets of a color other than purple that I collected and planted last year has bloomed. It’s mostly white with a light blue tint on the inside of its petals. This is my first success in adding color diversity to my front yard violet ground cover.

There’s two more non-purple violet plants that have sprouted leaves in my yard. If my memory serves me right, they are Canadian violets, which have white flowers. I had some in the garden of my first home, but I had to leave them behind when I moved to my current house. I can’t wait to see these violets bloom.

More early bloomers

There’s more early bloomers happening in my garden. The showy blue-purple flowers in the foreground are commonly called grape hyacinths, even though they’re no relation to the bigger, more fragrant garden flowers known as hyacinths. These are scientifically categorized as Muscari, a group of bulb plants native to Eurasia but grown in gardens all over the world.

These grape hyacinths were part of a group of flowering plants in a pot that was given to my wife as a gift years ago. I recognized them as likely perennials and planted them in my yard after they finished blooming in the pot. Among those plants were the crocuses that I posted a picture of in a previous blog. In fact, the white-striped leaves surrounding the grape hyacinth blooms don’t belong to that plant. They are the leaves of the crocuses that are no longer blooming. Somehow, the corms of the crocuses got mixed in with the bulbs of the grape hyacinths, so the two plants are now mixed together in my garden.

In the background are wild violets, a great ground cover for those of us who don’t want turf grass. I’ve been trying to collect and plant other colors of violet besides purple. I have one and maybe two successful ones so far. I’ll be posting photos of them in this blog as they bloom.

A native wildflower blooms

Here is bloom number 2 from my garden. It’s a hepatica, a plant native to this part of the world. After it finishes blooming, broad leaves with three lobes each like wide clovers with sharp points will emerge to make a pretty puff of green foliage. I’ll post another photo when that happens.

I have a number of native wildflowers in my garden. Generally, I seldom purchase non-native plants unless they’re irises because I have a weakness for those beauties. I use a photo of a black iris from my yard as a symbol for myself on this website and on social media. Otherwise, I’m trying to make the plot of land I’m official owner of a habitat for native bees, butterflies, dragonflies, hummingbirds and other wildlife. I’m also covering my yard with a thick blanket of wood chips to kill the turf grass. I have no interest in maintaining and wasting water on a boring lawn.

The joy and calm I get from seeing my garden bloom and take shape every year helps to soothe me when the world is stealin’ my peace of mind, as a favorite song by Rhian Benson says. Current events are really being thievish now, so I need the mental refuge of my garden to keep me still and stable in these agitated and unstable times.