Hardhack Shrub, & Finding Hearts in Nature

July 2024 - Plus, stay tuned for photo products news

We’re entering into the first full month of summer here in the northern hemisphere. I’m enjoying the longer days, sunshine, and wildflowers. How about you? I have also been busy creating new photo products to sell - calendars and greeting cards - and will be doing another colouring book print run for my upcoming sales season which is starting in August. I’m pleased that the colouring books have been so popular! I am looking forward to sharing my new, updated catalogue with you next month. Stay tuned for more details.

Hardhack and Hearts in Nature

Strolling along the shores of Westwood lake, this bloom on a hardhack shrub caught my attention, as the purpley clusters formed a heart which looks a bit like it has a smiley face.

A member of the rose family, hardhack grows is damp and even boggy areas. Just a few years ago, I discovered a lone hardhack shrub on my parent’s acreage, in a corner of land that often floods with heavy rain. I’d never seen any on the property before, and I wonder how and when it must have gradually gown to a noticeable, flowering size. I suddenly remembered that about twenty year prior, I’d gathered some hardhack seeds at the road side about a kilometer down from the acreage and scattered some around the property. I remember looking for possible young shrubs in the following years but then forgot all about it. I suspect this now well-established shrub may have been from my seeds, and felt like I’d suddenly run into myself from two decades prior. A bit of a strange, bittersweet feeling.

Historically, First Nations on Vancouver Island have used hardhack wood in tool making. For one, the Nuu-chah-nulth created “broomlike bundles of Hardhack twigs or some other wood tied to a pole…” to create a tool for collecting submerged dentalium shells from the mud (Turner, 192). Dentalium, as ethnobotanist Nancy Turner notes, “have been a valuable form of currency throughout northwestern North America since ancient times” (192). In addition, “[t]he Vancouver Island Salish made blades, halibut hoods and cambium [inner bark] scrapers from the fire-hardened wood, and many peoples used the sticks to make salmon spreaders and roasting skewers” (Turner 193).

Hardhack blooms are long ‘spires,’ and the shrubs latin name is Spiraea douglassii. But that day at Westwood was the first time I’d seen hardhack blooms clustered like a heart. While I don’t believe that finding unexpected heart shapes in nature is necessarily a personal message or sign from the universe as some do, I believe we can take these sightings as an opportunity to connect with nature in a mindful, heartfelt way. These sightings can feel like a beautiful gift, and I often pause to take a snapshot of hearts that I come across in nature. Here are a few of those photos from recent years:

Snow on Doug Fir, Elfin Ear Mushroom, Aspen Leaf (?), Cloud, Cement with Flower, Deer's Hoofprint

Have you come across any special heart shapes in unexpected places in your life? I’d love to hear in the comments below. Or if you have a photo of one that you’d like to share, you can do so in the comments of this designated “Hearts in Nature” Note.

References

Turner, Nancy J. Plant Technology of First Peoples in British Columbia. UBC Press and Royal British Columbia Museum, Victoria BC. 1998

Blessings to you,

Lindsay