About
I’m Alexa B. Johnson, a mom, wife, friend, listmaker, copywriter, comfort baker, and (mostly ornamental) gardener living on a small suburban lot in Zone 8b near Portland, OR.
How small? Maybe we’ll call it “just right.” The backyard is 25’x-35’ and the front border I’m constantly negotiating with the HOA’s mowblow+go team is about 10’x10’.
The average annual rainfall in my community is 47". About 75% of the total precipitation falls between October and March. Some of that precipitation may be snow (or, eek, ice) in December or February, but usually* it’s not more than a few inches every year. Most years, there’s no rain between Independence Day and the Autumn Equinox, and I hand water (read: don’t travel far).
*What is usual in the face of climate change?
One of the reasons why I’m privileged to garden here and call my house home is because of the sacrifices forced upon the indigenous communities who’ve lived here long before European colonizers moved in. I want to acknowledge the ancestral, present, and future people of the Chinook, Clackamas, Tualatin of the Kalapuya, and Grand Ronde tribal community: Thank you for the care and respect offered to this land and the spirits of the land.
My lineage
My grandfather, Alex
loved to plant evergreens, strawberries, and marigolds. He lived on three acres along the south shore of Lake Ontario.
His daughter, my mother, Wendy
gave up gardening for the company of four big dogs when she moved to the rocky, oak forests of the Pocono Mountains.
My grandmother, Flora
had an interior garden flush with houseplants like Monstera, Schefflera, and Rex Begonia. It took up half her living room.
Her son, my father, CR
wasn’t a gardener. In fact, one of my earliest memories is coming upon him razing a lilac-scented rhododendron while it was in bloom.
Why “Invisible Bees?”
Years ago, a colleague shared Denise Levertov’s “Second Didatic Poem” with me. It stuck.
The honey of man is / the task we’re set to: to be / ‘more ourselves’ / in the making: / ‘bees of the invisible’ working / in cells of flesh and psyche, / filling, / ‘la grande ruche d’or.’
This place, Invisible Bees, is a creative space to support my making (and remaking). Welcome. And thank you for sharing in this part of the journey. May your hive be made warm with nectar, fine company, and ambrosian gold.
P.S. Josh Emrich is the creative genius who designed the Invisible Bees identity. Thank you!
P.P.S. The photo on the home page is courtesy of my favorite Unsplash photographer, Annie Spratt. All other photos (unless otherwise credited in captions) are my own.