Someday I am going to create a new series for PBS. It will be an adaptation of the much-loved BBC series, “Call the Midwife.” My version will, of course, be somewhat altered to suit American tastes and interests. I will rename it, “Call the Landscaper”, and it will feature stories about suburban landscapes, some nine months after spring garden conception. The landscapes are now heavy laden and about to deliver large clumps of onion grass, fallen leaves and overgrown hedges. Their owners, unable to cope with garden labor unassisted will “call the landscaper.” An attractive lawn and garden crew will show up and, in short order, deliver the homeowners from landscape woes and the scorn of the neighbors. The episodes will have all kinds of complications and some interesting story arcs, but by the end of each episode viewers will be entertained and inspired.
Like all good works of fiction, “Call the Landscaper” will be drawn from real life stories. I see them happening all around me right now. Sadly, I can only write about them, because the state of my pocketbook dictates that I go through autumn garden labor on my own. It is a daunting task and rivals spring in its urgency and complexity.
It has been an exceptionally busy year, with incessant work and not enough garden time. Now the chores stretch endlessly before me, the daylight dwindles every day, and the holidays loom on the horizon. Boxes of bulbs are sitting on my dining room table, and house plants, newly returned from outdoor summer vacations, languish in my indoor holding area awaiting relocation to their winter homes. Outside the leaves are piling up and the grass is still growing underneath them. The New England asters, which were breathtaking four weeks ago, look derelict now. Shrubs have grown large and those that self-seed promiscuously, like the five roses-of-Sharon, are going about that business with unbridled enthusiasm. If I don’t get to them quickly, I will be grubbing out their offspring for weeks next March, April and May. It is clear that either I will finish the garden chores or they will finish me by Thanksgiving.
Multi-tasking is the order of the day, though it would help if I had extra sets of arms and legs, plus the need for only two hours of sleep each night. In my desperation I turn to power tools, especially my prize possession, a new cordless electric hedge trimmer, which works equally well on shrubs and New England aster stalks. I have resisted acquiring a leaf blower, but I may have to rethink. Gass-powered blowers are deafening, but the electric ones are less noisy. It seems appropriate that once I have swept through the hedges, specimen shrubs and asters like an avenging angel with an electric arm, I should be able to blow the debris to a central location where they can be bagged.
I can accelerate through mowing because I never bag leaves. My electric mower shreds the leaves and mows the grass simultaneously. After laboring through the grass and shrubs, I turn my attention to the perennials, all of which need cutting back, and the annuals, all of which require removal. Removal creates holes, which I enlarge to accommodate spring bulbs. I use fall desperation to create excellent spring landscape effects by creating large, deep planting holes that can house five or seven bulbs side by side. The bulbs also go in lasagna style, with big ones like daffodils, hyacinths and the larger tulips on the bottom of each hole. They are then covered with a layer of soil that serves as a base for smaller tulips. The middle layer of smaller tulips is covered with more soil, which in turn serves as a base for crocuses, chionodoxa and other diminutive bulbs. Once a hole is filled with this bulb lasagna, I lay a layer of lavender trimmings over the spot. This means that I don’t have to bag up the lavender trimmings, and, with luck, the garden varmints will be deterred by the pervasive fragrance.
I try to do all of the above at high speed, but hindered by my own clumsiness and other limitations and distractions, I can never go as fast as I intend. By Thanksgiving, I am thinking about the General Confession that I say each Sunday in church, seeking forgiveness for things done and—especially–left undone.
And that is why I intend to write “Call the Landscaper”. If all goes according to plan, the proceeds will relieve my garden labor and deliver a tidy landscape.