By mid-to-late-August, my garden is not fresh as a Daisy anymore. The Daisies are, in fact, looking a bit stale. The Peonies are well past their best-by date. The perennials are pooped. The Hostas have gone hostile. And the Day Lilies said "night night" weeks ago.
Now begins the task of putting these plants to bed for the fall — aka, cutting them down. They were my little friends back in mid-July when they were all cheerfully blooming and I didn't need to do a thing to keep them happy. But this week, as I look around the yard at the hundreds and hundreds of stems that will need clipping in the coming weeks, I'm facing the enemy! "Curse, you, you plants you! You're doing this to spite me!"
Gardening has long been touted as a fine hobby for retirees. Who the heck said that? They're out of their mind! I'm too old for this! I don't know about you, but I just don't bend like I used to. I only recovered in late June from the pinched nerve in my neck and the carpal tunnel syndrome I got from last year's clipping calisthenics. I see why old people move to condos with HOA fees and a landscape company that comes in every week.
Then again, maybe it's just me. You true blue Green Thumbers are out there checking the Ph balance of your soil and mulching with properly stirred compost. You're using your Preen and your Miracle Gro and your diatomaceous earth. You're mollycoddling your sweet green babies with positive affirmations. "Lookin' good, Gladioli!" "You're awesome, Asters!" "Be all you can be, Bee Balm!"
Not me. I get the weeds out of everybody's way, but after that they're on their own. A bunny nibbled some Coreopsis right down to gnarly green twigs. That's life.
And yet, I am such a sucker for beautiful gardens. This is the third house out of the four we have bought in our married life that has flower beds way out of scale and proportion to my horticultural ability. We never learn apparently.
Our first house was on a corner lot where an elderly widower had tended lovely English-style plots with all manner of pretty posies. We were young. We thought, "We can become gardeners! What could be so hard?" This from two Prairie Canadians whose parents never interred anything more than scrawny petunias that they left to die.
The first summer in the English garden, as tender perennials sprouted out of the soil, we couldn't tell a weed from a wisteria. We called in professional help. The Mister had a passing acquaintance with the head gardener at the university who hosted a nationally televised gardening show. He agreed to come over to give us some tips. I heard the man gasp from twenty feet away. Witless, we had been cultivating a crop of weeds, as high as an elephant's eye, that had choked off the very air that decent plants underneath were clamoring to breathe. I can still see him in my mind's eye — this nationally recognized TV celebrity — yanking weedy infiltrators out by their dastardly roots.
Our learning curve was steep, but we did better after that. Two other gardens before we purchased this house. "Oh! What a lovely garden!" I could be heard saying as we toured the yard at our soon-to-be current address. Sold.
The previous home owner, who is a bona fide, certified Master Gardener, started this dang garden. She did a drive-by this morning. I saw her. She was wearing dark glasses, but I know it was her. I heard her laughing as she sped off. Probably moved to a condo.
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