Transition and rebirth

dried up scarlet runner bean and pods

Instead of fastidiously cleaning up plants and vegetable vines dried up and past their prime, in the winter time I like to leave some remnants in the garden. Birds like to eat some of the dried seeds, and some dried pods look very interesting. Eventually in the Spring the birds will also pick at and pull dried grasses and thin stems for their nests.

In our backyard among other things there are wispy dried fennel stalks fanning out at the top with seeds. I observed bushtits and sparrows feeding on these seeds as well as those of various salvia plants.

While we observe the quiet transition of once lush green vines into brittle twine and watch pods pucker, new growth occurs in other plants.

Although the Lisbon lemon tree is still plagued by white fly, it continues to produce new buds that blossom and develop into fruit.

This is always a hopeful sign, but we are still very concerned about the tree and wonder if we should severely prune all of the dried branches to keep the damage to a minimum. Hopefully all of the rain we are getting will help the tree revive completely.