Well. . .not exactly away. I've traveled some, but mostly I've been right here -- taking a sort of vacation, burying myself in yard-chores. Gardening, too. . .which is not quite the same as performing yard-chores. Especially if your garden flourishes in a deep woods as mine does, gardening's a labor of love, its phases tied to the unfolding season. In early spring, when the first sharp-pointy fingers of established plants creep into view, it's the loosening and enriching of soil to ease their passage, gently tugging away the moldering remains of last year's stems and leaves, increasing bed-sizes, lifting and splitting starts to fill the new space, nestling them firmly into the soil, reshaping and extending the garden.
I define the whole of gardening a sort of responsibility, a guiding of natural loveliness that might otherwise run wild. As I say this aloud, I catch a whiff of my own arrogance. Who am I to seriously entertain the notion that human interference in Nature's work can somehow improve upon her own whims -- or purposes. Nevertheless, I'm part of a large and ancient fraternity that believes the effort be both useful and uplifting. After all, for those who chose to believe it, human life began in a garden.
I remember the sweet doggerel of my nursery-rhyme days:
Mary, Mary, quite contrary.
How does your garden grow?
How does your garden grow?
Never mind HER answer. MY garden was growing furious-wild. So I took a contrary hand.
Paid off, too. This has been a wonderful season for hasta and day-lilies. They put up fat-round, sturdy three-foot wands, loaded with full flags of blossoms, welcoming all who approached my front door. Astilbe and her larger country cousin, Queen of the Meadow, dominated beds alongside the pond, reaching deep into the woodland. Cone-flower blossoms grew large as the palm of my hand. I had to bunch and ribbon-tie their stems above their bases lest their sheer weight bend them to the ground. In the narrow raised beds following the sidewalk overlooking the pond, these corn-flower stems reached three feet out beneath the eaves to follow the sun. Approaching the entrance to my long driveway, beside my brick mailbox, my Black-Eyed-Susans became a dense golden riot.
All along that walkway, hybrid forms I can no longer name spread to fill the beds completely. Everywhere the colors shown, from deep-rich scarlet to bright yellows, golds, and shades of white. The few Hollyhocks Nancy had permitted me grew six-feet tall, their horn-like blossoms arranged in thick clusters nearly three-foot in length from mid-stem to waving tips. The humming birds came in flocks to elbow their way in for a drink of Hollyhock nectar.
Just yesterday -- perhaps ten days late -- I worked nearly three hours, patiently clipping back the long hasta and day-lily wands. The day-lilies had produced seed pods large as the first joint of my thumb. I worked slowly and methodically, gathering together four or five wands at once, clearing them below the leaves of each plant, snipping them with my hand-clipper. I filled the wheel-barrow twice before the job was complete. I alternated from clipper to hand-trowel, quickly and gently working the soil near the base of each plant, RE-energizing each plant with a general-plant fertilizer. Thus fortified, long practice assures me each plant will virtually leap from the ground come spring.
Lotsa bending and twisting at the waist. Lotsa stepping back periodically, my head lifted skyward, face and eyes squinting into the blue sky, stretching and straightening, my free hand working the small of my back -- all the while softly humming an endless string of old love songs, remembering aloud the old rhyme:
Paid off, too. This has been a wonderful season for hasta and day-lilies. They put up fat-round, sturdy three-foot wands, loaded with full flags of blossoms, welcoming all who approached my front door. Astilbe and her larger country cousin, Queen of the Meadow, dominated beds alongside the pond, reaching deep into the woodland. Cone-flower blossoms grew large as the palm of my hand. I had to bunch and ribbon-tie their stems above their bases lest their sheer weight bend them to the ground. In the narrow raised beds following the sidewalk overlooking the pond, these corn-flower stems reached three feet out beneath the eaves to follow the sun. Approaching the entrance to my long driveway, beside my brick mailbox, my Black-Eyed-Susans became a dense golden riot.
All along that walkway, hybrid forms I can no longer name spread to fill the beds completely. Everywhere the colors shown, from deep-rich scarlet to bright yellows, golds, and shades of white. The few Hollyhocks Nancy had permitted me grew six-feet tall, their horn-like blossoms arranged in thick clusters nearly three-foot in length from mid-stem to waving tips. The humming birds came in flocks to elbow their way in for a drink of Hollyhock nectar.
Just yesterday -- perhaps ten days late -- I worked nearly three hours, patiently clipping back the long hasta and day-lily wands. The day-lilies had produced seed pods large as the first joint of my thumb. I worked slowly and methodically, gathering together four or five wands at once, clearing them below the leaves of each plant, snipping them with my hand-clipper. I filled the wheel-barrow twice before the job was complete. I alternated from clipper to hand-trowel, quickly and gently working the soil near the base of each plant, RE-energizing each plant with a general-plant fertilizer. Thus fortified, long practice assures me each plant will virtually leap from the ground come spring.
Lotsa bending and twisting at the waist. Lotsa stepping back periodically, my head lifted skyward, face and eyes squinting into the blue sky, stretching and straightening, my free hand working the small of my back -- all the while softly humming an endless string of old love songs, remembering aloud the old rhyme:
The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The songs of the birds for mirth,
You are nearer God's heart in a garden,
Than anywhere else on earth.
The songs of the birds for mirth,
You are nearer God's heart in a garden,
Than anywhere else on earth.
I had to smile at myself: an aging Methodist choirboy, having long-since drifted into apostasy, I believe only that some strange and indiscriminate natural power is at work in this garden. I've settled my mind: things work as they do in my garden because they can work no other way -- given the intricacy of organic chemistry.
Never mind Intelligent Design? Of course gardening is intelligent. And wondrous too -- as are all things we lack the wisdom and perspicacity to capture and fully understand. But for me, to leap from wonder to superstition is too long a bound. I design and build the garden. The plants do the work. It's enough for me to rewrite the third and fourth lines of that song:
Never mind Intelligent Design? Of course gardening is intelligent. And wondrous too -- as are all things we lack the wisdom and perspicacity to capture and fully understand. But for me, to leap from wonder to superstition is too long a bound. I design and build the garden. The plants do the work. It's enough for me to rewrite the third and fourth lines of that song:
You are nearer to peace in a garden,
Than anywhere else on earth.
Than anywhere else on earth.
ENOUGH! I have no wish to give offense to true believers. I believe in gardening.
Yard-chores are a closely related enterprise -- at least in my mind. But they're more like grunt-work.
Maintaining the lawn.
Sheering and shaping
hedge-sorts and ornamental bushes.
Trimming trees.
Collecting and disposing of dead-fall
and other forms of rubbish.
Applying fertilizer as required.
Searching out and spraying poison ivy. . . .
Yard-chores are a closely related enterprise -- at least in my mind. But they're more like grunt-work.
Maintaining the lawn.
Sheering and shaping
hedge-sorts and ornamental bushes.
Trimming trees.
Collecting and disposing of dead-fall
and other forms of rubbish.
Applying fertilizer as required.
Searching out and spraying poison ivy. . . .
The list is endless. I suppose I view yard-chores as a responsibility of ownership. It's more than vanity, though I acknowledge there's a quiet pride connected with maintaining and improving property. So I tell myself. Perhaps taking care of property is nothing more than a peace-producing pass-time. Not everybody indulges the opportunity.
For instance, one of my nicest neighbors , whose deteriorating wire fence line forms the southeast margin of our shared woods, has long practiced the notion of benign neglect. He gardens but little. He performs no yard chores in his share of the woods. A huge tree falls, ripping others on its way down. . .he lets it lie. He disturbs no dead-fall. He loves what he refers to as the clutter of Mother Nature.
In the ten years I've known and liked him, only once have we discussed the differences in our approaches to our woods. It was the afternoon we met. He wandered over to his fence line where I was replacing a rotted fence post in what I mistakenly thought was my fence. Nope! It was his fence, and he had a lot description and graphic to prove it. He dug about and showed me the concrete survey marker. Ooooops!
Our discussion was all very amiable and informative. He began by telling me that his niece had been for two years the captain of my wife's competitive pompon squad -- a young woman I knew, respected, and really liked. Having sufficiently softened me up, he then informed me that our woods was a conservancy, a legal classification that forbids by law -- as he so nicely put it -- improving and maintaining its appearance. But he graciously helped me tamp in his new fence post, and held it firmly as I drove the new staples into place. And where one of his ancient trees had fractured and fallen across the fence onto my property, he watched with interest as I chain-sawed the large limbs that had flattened the fence, and graciously helped me stack the logs neatly on my side of the fence. Finally, he permitted me to set a second post and raise the fence back into place. That barely-shared yard-chore cemented our friendship. And we have not discussed my neat-nick fixation since. He keeps a neat black lab. I keep a neat woods. Between us we keep a civil relationship.
Anyway: that's what I've been doing: gardening and yard-chores. In a month or two I'll think about trimming back the gardens and mulching them for the coming winter. By then leaves'll be knee-deep, and brisk autumn breezes will have me working in a hooded sweatshirt and gloves. I'll rake leaves into long piles, run my mulcher through them, extend some flower beds, and work this new-made mulch into the soil. Come spring I'll split and reset my perennials into these bed extensions.
For instance, one of my nicest neighbors , whose deteriorating wire fence line forms the southeast margin of our shared woods, has long practiced the notion of benign neglect. He gardens but little. He performs no yard chores in his share of the woods. A huge tree falls, ripping others on its way down. . .he lets it lie. He disturbs no dead-fall. He loves what he refers to as the clutter of Mother Nature.
In the ten years I've known and liked him, only once have we discussed the differences in our approaches to our woods. It was the afternoon we met. He wandered over to his fence line where I was replacing a rotted fence post in what I mistakenly thought was my fence. Nope! It was his fence, and he had a lot description and graphic to prove it. He dug about and showed me the concrete survey marker. Ooooops!
Our discussion was all very amiable and informative. He began by telling me that his niece had been for two years the captain of my wife's competitive pompon squad -- a young woman I knew, respected, and really liked. Having sufficiently softened me up, he then informed me that our woods was a conservancy, a legal classification that forbids by law -- as he so nicely put it -- improving and maintaining its appearance. But he graciously helped me tamp in his new fence post, and held it firmly as I drove the new staples into place. And where one of his ancient trees had fractured and fallen across the fence onto my property, he watched with interest as I chain-sawed the large limbs that had flattened the fence, and graciously helped me stack the logs neatly on my side of the fence. Finally, he permitted me to set a second post and raise the fence back into place. That barely-shared yard-chore cemented our friendship. And we have not discussed my neat-nick fixation since. He keeps a neat black lab. I keep a neat woods. Between us we keep a civil relationship.
Anyway: that's what I've been doing: gardening and yard-chores. In a month or two I'll think about trimming back the gardens and mulching them for the coming winter. By then leaves'll be knee-deep, and brisk autumn breezes will have me working in a hooded sweatshirt and gloves. I'll rake leaves into long piles, run my mulcher through them, extend some flower beds, and work this new-made mulch into the soil. Come spring I'll split and reset my perennials into these bed extensions.
Mary, Mary quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
Coral Bells and Cockle Shells. . .
And little maids all in a row.
How does your garden grow?
Coral Bells and Cockle Shells. . .
And little maids all in a row.
A neat row, I hasten to add.
Which leaves me wondering: what are cockle shells? Can't find them in any of my plant directories. Oh well. . . .
Which leaves me wondering: what are cockle shells? Can't find them in any of my plant directories. Oh well. . . .
Forgive me, please.
I can't break the habit. . .
Of wanting to know.
I can't break the habit. . .
Of wanting to know.
I knew it was my uncle you spoke of before even reading that part of the blog. Hope you are doing well!
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