A Little Horticulture

Parrotia persica (aka Persian Parrot Tree or Persian Ironwood) is my favorite small (relatively) deciduous tree, even more favorite than the fifty or so Japanese Maples in my garden.  I have four Parrotias, one of them — Vanessa — a cultivar rather than the species.  Here are some photos to give you an idea of some of the reasons I love them ~

That’s the late afternoon sunlight dancing in the leaves of the same tree as the first photo.  Now here are two of the others ~

Sorry for the first of this group — taken high up in the tree (Vanessa) with a zoom, and the focus wouldn’t settle.  But the colors are obvious, which was what I wanted you to see.

One of the joys of these trees is that they don’t color up at the same rate, they develop different colors or amounts of color, and all of them are glorious as late Summer and Autumn advance.

Why do I even mention them?  Here’s why ~

This is the Parrotia persica warp, first wrapped around the breast beam ready to thread onto the loom, then run through the reed and neatly through the heddles, ready to wind onto the warp beam at the back of the loom.  It’s a hand-dyed silk noil, rough and earthy, that I’ve had in my collection for at least ten years.  I thoroughly love it!  Here’s more ~At the back of the loom, all wound on between layers of tough brown paper and under tension, the three-ounce fishing weights attached to the floating selvedge threads.  And finally, the first scarf in process ~

That’s woven with a fine olive green tencel, so the resulting scarf will shimmer like the leaves on the eponymous trees, and the pattern will peek out intermittently.  There will be three more scarves after this one; I’ll post pictures as I go along.  I may keep one of these for myself!