Whenever I am away from the garden for any reason I make a habit of greeting it when I return. This process involves a tour of the front and back and includes noting which plants are flourishing, pulling out an egregious weed here or there and reacquainting myself with my little slice of Eden. The whole exercise helps me regain perspective and defines my sense of place. I love it—or at least I did until I returned from this year’s summer vacation.
This time around the garden was a mess. To begin with, Mr. Antlers and his ever-increasing family had eaten a good number of my beloved Hosta plantaginea or August lilies, leaving only mournful, leafless stalks. For reasons known only to themselves, the Antlers family left some plants completely untouched. I suppose I should give thanks, but the intact plants made the other ones even more sad-looking. The Antlers family also did a number on the Japanese anemones and asters. The asters, if protected by deer spray now, will bloom later in the fall. That ability, in fact, is one of the redeeming virtues of the garden aster tribe. The plants may even be more bushy for having been “pinched back” by deer choppers.
The summer has also been very dry, especially during my two-week vacation, so some stems and leaves have the brown and weary look of parched survivors. We don’t have a sprinkler system so in my absence the plants had to get by on the available moisture. Tough ones, like the peegee hydrangea and the ajuga take it in stride, but there are enough brown specimens to give every bed a desolate appearance. Drought has made flowering species’ blooms smaller, so there is less color overall.
In the meantime, drought-tolerant crabgrass has had its way in the beds, borders and sidewalk cracks. Mr. Antlers apparently ignores it, finding it distasteful or beneath his notice—literally and figuratively. The crabgrass looks even more menacing because the other plants languish.
So, the place is a mess and I look around me trying to figure where to start on the rejuvenation project. After seeking inspiration by clutching a handful of desiccated daylily stalks in my fist and cursing Mr. Antlers for fifteen minutes, I finally decided on a first step—water. Retrieving the sprinkler from the garage, I hooked it up to the new, lightweight hose and started hydrating my landscape. By moving the sprinkler from place to place every fifteen minutes or so, I will prevent myself from getting any real work done for the next two days, but the garden will be on the road to resurrection. It is a worthy sacrifice.
Of course all the watering will inevitably make it rain, but it doesn’t matter. The earth is like dust even six inches down and it will take a lot of irrigation and rainwater to bring it back to life again.
Now that the watering effort is underway, I’ll begin the process of cutting back anything brown and removing the corpses of the plants that didn’t make it. The Antler-eaten hostas can be cut to the ground, as their roots are undoubtedly healthy. Being plantagineas, they may just put forth a few new leaves.
The great cutting-back will reveal the holes that are crying out for something colorful. My pocketbook is somewhat depleted, but my coleus plants all made it through the vacation and they are a fount of potential cutting material. Coleus are members of the mint family and, as any gardener knows, mints are like vampires—they are immortal. Not only that, but their tribe increases regularly. The only thing they don’t do is drink blood, but I am convinced that they offset that deficiency by being able to turn dust into water. Coleus cuttings can be rooted in a glass of water, but in a pinch they can also be planted directly into well-watered ground. As long as you get a healthy cutting about six inches long, remove the bottom leaves, firm up the soil around the newly planted stems and water every single day, the cuttings will most likely root in situ. You will know for sure within a week or two.
If you can, amp up the color quotient by laying hands on some dahlias, fancy-leaf begonias and even Persian shield or Strobilanthes dyerianus. The latter two plants can come inside when temperatures start to drop and continue providing color in sunny windowsills. I especially love the iridescent purple-blue of the Persian shield. It likes sun, so you can pair it with yellow dahlias or mums to good effect.
As September starts, I figure I have at least two more months to enjoy my garden and I don’t intend to look at desolation. With the addition of water, a little garden discipline, some good squirts of deer spray and a few non-traditional species, the garden will not only revive, but thrive.
In her book, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Japanese de-cluttering expert Marie Kondo talks about keeping only the things that give you joy. Colorful plants give me joy and I am going to devote the rest of the gardening season to keeping them.