OK I have a gardening book I have to write.
The impetus: The deck redo( still in progress)
This work is pushing a general look around and clean up. Whoa. Who forgot to do any gardening for the last couple years?
I live in a village on the side of a mountain. Some people living here have gorgeous well tended gardens but there’s lots of room for those who prefer the little bit wilder look. Whew.
But things had gotten a little out of hand and last week my brave helper and I took a deep breath and dove in. Hack and slash gardening at its finest.
This is just some. It turned into twenty-five bags of green stuff, with more to go.
I highly begrudge how small that pile looks. In real life it looked like it would dwarf an elephant. I swear.
So, the book. Here’s the Jennifer Tan method of gardening. Pick away for a while, a couple of years or whatever, plant some hopefuls, but at some point just leave it. Maybe eight years or so. Do the odd bit, take off some rhododendron heads or wave a set of clippers at the ivy occasionally but for the most part adopt the, “Garden? What garden?” philosophy.
When you go back in use the biggest clippers, the hackiest pruning saws. I definitely saw an axe. Dress for battle.
And in the middle of the raze you’ll come across some old friends. Things you planted hopefully years ago and assumed had breathed their last under the ivy or periwinkle but have somehow held on, thrived even, and have been patiently waiting to be rediscovered. Bless their hearts. For such an overgrown spot I’ve found so many beautiful little corners where the things planted years ago have worked together to make a whimsical little spot.
And where I used to agonize over where to plant things, what to plant beside what, now things have on their own creeped across and bunched up in groups that look so fun and playful. And I’m so grateful! Maybe the book will have to be called “Grateful Gardening: Loving the Things in your Garden You Had Nothing to Do With.”
“Giddy Gardening: Hey it’s Still Here.”
“Hack, Slash, and Gush: An Exuberant Treasure Hunt for the Ones that Held On.”
Maybe?
I have a confession too. I was especially grateful to some of the plants above and to some nearby grasses. I remembered buying them one day three or four years ago while I talked to a friend on my phone, and we tried to solve the world’s and our kids’ problems as I shopped the sale rack at the nursery. It was off season so there were lots of deals for plants who weren’t looking their very finest. I brought them home and set them out waiting to plant them, and then didn’t. Ugh. Summer got hot and they looked at me sadly, asking at least for a sip of water if I wasn’t going to give them a proper home. Life continued to keep me out of the garden I guess and I was so mad at myself for the waste of buying and not planting but still they didn’t get planted. So last week when I was rediscovering them I remembered this and was so delighted that they’d hung in somehow and looked so great. In the back of my mind I was surprised that I must have gone back and planted them at some point.
Then as the week went on I got suspicious. I went out and dug my hands way down in the periwinkle that these are set into and… yup. There they were. The pots. I never did plant the poor things. And now I’m stumped. Do I mess with them now???
Maybe I’ll at least give them a drink of water.
Although today mother nature is doing that a little too well. November is revisiting the Coast, with buckets of rain and chill temps. Ugh.
Another tough soul — because only the tough ones survive around here, as you can see — is the honeysuckle from out on the porch. While the deck is torn up I have cut back the honeysuckle, moved the pot to the side of the house with some of its trellis and am telling it to hang on and soon it can go back to the front and go nuts. But that one stem is telling me to go suck eggs and heading for the hills right now. There’s always one. Hang on little honeysuckle.
It was so nice being out there slashing and hacking, and then filling up those bags. Did I tell you how many? Thirty-five? No decisions needed except when to start on a new bag.
I have a humming bush as the bees are going nuts for this right now. I stood there trying to catch a picture of one but they just never stop moving and it’s impossible to know what direction they’re going in next. I started just taking pictures and then looking to see if there were any bees in them. This bee seemed to be rocking his blurriness quite well. There’s an especially large number of bees this year because it turns out they’ve made a nest at the base of the deck in the side of my house so they are enjoying both this California lilac and the short commute from home. My home. Crossing my fingers we can figure out their nest. They are not happy about the work being done around them and when my builder drops a tool they come out to give him a good look (brave soul), but I so hate to get rid of them. Bees are having a hard time, I think.
But also… get out of my house!!!
This little guy was knocking on my door as I went past one time. How does he make his butt curl up like that? I think Pippin is going to need to do some fancy butt-ed bugs.
So that was the start of the catch-up gardening saga. Hope to continue plugging away as the summer moves along. I’ve rediscovered that this garden that I’ve felt so guilty over has beautiful bones. And a forgiving heart. Thank goodness!
I’ll let you know when the book comes out. It will be $19.95 or you can come and bag 20 bags of trimmings.
Because I told you I filled so many right? At least fifty.
