Ivy beauty: Heady over hedera

I live at the botanical epicenter of Baltimore County known as Catonsville. It was settled in the mid-1600's, and by the 1830's the town had become known as a popular rest stop for travelers along the Frederick Turnpike. As businesses and churches were established (many of them multi-cultural), new visitors became attracted to the lush, rural landscape. Wealthy Baltimoreans would visit in the summer to escape the city heat. They built lavish homes around the verdant woods and hills. It's easy to see why; there are some magnificent old sycamores, oaks and sweet gums that bring shade and beauty to the area. Every season, these old trees continue to offer gorgeous scenery , even in winter.


While most everything living in our gardens lies dormant, I've still managed to spot some greenery here, but only if I look up. When I do, I see many of these famous old trees thickly covered in deep green vines known as " Hedera helix ." This common tree ivy continues to thrive, despite the chilly temperatures.


Hedera ivy may be common, but there's nothing ordinary about the way it attaches itself to things. Hedera helix is an evergreen plant that likes to climb its way on to all sorts of surfaces like trees, cliffs, and walls, and if it doesn't find any of these, it will cover a ground.


From the late summer to late fall, hedera helix produces tiny flowers that are greenish-yellow in color and very rich in nectar. They are an important autumn food source for bees and other insects. In late November, the berries turn purple-black in color and are fruit to many birds, but not to humans, so don't eat them. Instead, I suggest going for a walk to admire them hanging from limbs of the giant trees.


I've spotted ivy everywhere and even found an old branch covered in it across from the Royal Farms store. It had severed itself from its root which was a large elm. Of nicer quality and more seasonal than the greens from my wholesaler, the berry-covered plant works well in my arrangements. It's good to be green with the greens.


If you can't cut it, you can certainly enjoy it by pointing your head towards the sky. Here are some images Balance Photography and I found in our Catonsville backyard. Pretty nice view for such a dismal time of year.


At dusk, some of the trees look scary and monster-like. These are some of my favorites.


For some reason, this one reminds me of The City and the Sea, by Edgar Allan Poe...


Lo! Death has reared himself a throne

In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.

No rays from the holy heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently —
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free —
Up domes — up spires — up kingly halls —
Up fanes — up Babylon-like walls —
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers —
Up many and many a marvelous shrine
Whose wreathéd friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in the air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol's diamond eye —
Not the gaily-jeweled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass —
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea —
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.

But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave — there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrust aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide —
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow —
The hours are breathing faint and low —
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.
~Edgar Allan Poe


All pictures by Balance Photography