SIXTY-FIVE DAYS
The weather is unseasonably warm. The snowdrops and early crocuses have thrown in the towel and are beginning their slow disappearing act. The daffodils are coming on strong. Flowering quinces are right behind them and all the other spring plants are revving up. On quiet days you can almost hear them. The sap is rising along with my anxiety level. The garden tour is only sixty-five days away.
Unseasonably warm weather acts on plants like time-lapse photography, making them open, bloom and fade at lightening speed. I fear this will happen to all the fresh young daffodils that look so brave and hopeful right this minute. Even extra water only slows the too-rapid progression from bud to withered stalk.
I watch the roses like a hawk, as they leaf out a little more each day. Tiny buds will begin forming any minute now. If those buds develop too quickly, the flowers will have bloomed and faded before the garden tour in late May. In my nightmares garden visitors will have nothing colorful to look at except the green, metallic backs of hundreds of Japanese beetles perched triumphantly atop denuded rosebushes.
I cope with the unseasonable weather by making a concerted effort to live in the moment, reassuring myself that all things, with the possible exception of aphids and crabgrass infestations, will work out for the best. This is easiest to believe when I look at plants like erodium. These tiny, absurdly vigorous plants are sometimes known as “heron’s bill,” and are related to hardy geraniums. They feature lovely, lobed foliage and small pink flowers with five petals apiece. Like others of their clan, they have the unique ability to spit their seeds great distances, which they do with wild abandon. As the result, baby erodiums edge many of my beds. Even now, when much of the garden is in a state of post-winter ennui, the erodium are a vibrant, attractive yellowish green. The leaves will darken over the next few weeks and the flowers will appear in late spring.
Since erodium is so profligate in creating offspring, I can be generous in digging them up and spreading them around the garden. Japanese beetles and other pests disdain them, so I don’t have to worry that they will disappear in the night. Erodium are a comfort.
For several weeks I have stepped daintily amid the hundreds of erodium plants, raking the winter accumulation of leaves from the beds. This is absolutely essential so that I can get a handle on the amount of onion grass that has popped up in various parts of the garden. Onion grass is tenacious and must be removed–bulbs and all–with the garden knife. If you miss even one bulb, a new clump will start forming as soon as you turn your back. When it infests the lawn, you can cheat and whack off the tops of the onion grass with the lawnmower or string trimmer. This keeps the plants at bay for about half an hour. In garden beds, however, onion grass must be dealt with promptly and without mercy.
The seasonal pruning, clipping and lopping chores are proceeding nicely and my butterfly bushes are now thoroughly disciplined. Most of the rampant roses of Sharon are under control. This week I will start moving plants around, dividing the emergent hostas to cover bare spots in shaded areas and adding bits of color with some new, inexpensive primroses. I also bought two incredibly cheap hellebores to install in the pots that flank my front steps. I stole this idea from a gardening friend, but if anyone asks, I will be absolutely shameless about claiming the inspiration as my own.
This past week, I made it through the inspection by the garden tour organizers, who seemed enthused about my still-messy landscape. I am lucky that they have either good imaginations or excellent poker faces.
If I had any financial savvy, I would find a way to invest in mulch futures, so that I could profit from my impending large-scale investment in mulch. Unfortunately, my garden, like most similar endeavors, eats money and provides returns that are either ephemeral or intangible. A few of them, like the cherry tomatoes, are also nourishing, but that is as far as it goes.
In his wonderful garden book, The Gardener’s Year,” Czech playwright Karel Capek wrote a prayer, encouraging God to provide perfect garden conditions, including gentle daily rain from midnight to three am. He concludes by asking “that there may be plenty of dew and little wind, enough worms, no plant lice and snails, no mildew and that once a week thin liquid manure and guano may fall from heaven.”
I am not sure about the practicality of “thin liquid manure and guano” falling from the skies–especially here in the suburbs–but the rest of Kapek’s requirements align perfectly with my own. I think I will repeat his prayer every night at bedtime.