MILESTONES
Eight weeks ago I wrote about my resolution to spend this calendar year making a concerted effort to perfect my garden. By agreeing to open the garden for a local garden tour in early September, I managed to suspend an additional small but sharp sword of Damocles over my head. This in turn led me to speed up my evaluation of the whole layout, create lists of chores and necessary purchases, and put together a timetable for getting the place in shape. After four weeks I almost broke my arm patting myself on the back for my vigorous efforts. A new fence was already installed, replacing its predecessor, which was in the last stages of decrepitude. I was in the process of repairing the damage caused by the fence installers’ dainty feet and I had purchased a number of beautiful new plants.
The back patting came to a screeching halt when I got a call from Lynne, my former college roommate, who is also a dear friend and my daughter’s godmother. “I’m getting married in August,” she said.
After the congratulations were over, Lynne told me that she wanted to have a simple civil ceremony on a Friday, followed by a small afternoon reception the next day.
“I don’t want you to feel pressured,” I said, as an emotional high tide of hearts and flowers swamped all practical considerations, “But we would love to host the reception here.”
She agreed to think about it, and after we hung up, I started thinking too–about the realities of hosting a wedding reception in the house and garden. In my dreams that night I had visions of a tornado, its funnel full of swirling to-do lists, touching down in my garden and uprooting all the plants. When morning finally arrived I decided not to get really upset until Lynne called back. Then the phone rang. “I’d love to have the reception at your house,” she said.
I looked at my timetable, carefully plotted so that everything would be done by the first week in September, and wondered how I could possibly get most of the jobs finished a month earlier. After some amount of thought I came up with the answer–a little simplification and a lot of mulch.
Simplification means that there are some big things that just won’t get done before the wedding reception. The ornamental wishing well in the back that I planned to decapitate and turn into a raised planter will remain a wishing well until after August. The long narrow strip behind my garage, which will someday make a lovely ribbon border, will stay unplanted for now. I’ll block the area off with a couple of big plant pots full of colorful annuals.
My plan to eradicate all the English ivy on the property has been scaled back. I may not have time to smother all of it with layers of newspaper and mulch, so I’ll save the mulch for places where it will count the most. The area between my front privet hedge and the sidewalk is a no man’s land where grass grows sparsely and broad leafed weeds spread rapidly. My plan to make this entire long strip into a new garden bed will not come to fruition until after the celebration. I’ll content myself with getting the area weed-free and mulching the privet.
Trips to the nursery take time, so until early August comes and goes, I will concentrate on planting the specimens already in my holding area and using divisions from existing perennial clumps to help fill in the gaps.
Every garden looks better with neat hedges and edges. I set clipping and edging goals for each day, even if I only add a few feet of clipped hedges or newly defined edges to the total. If I am persistent, I should get all the hedges and most of the edging done.
I love weeding and find it relaxing–most of the time. However, right now my goal is to get each bed weed free and keep it that way. I try not to leave bare earth, because weeds from as far away as Nebraska can smell it and will project seeds in this direction in the hopes of covering that earth. I mulch as I go, and if I am out of store-bought mulch, I revert to the time-tested newspaper and compost technique, using the piles of newly plucked weeds as the compost. This controls new weeds, and can even stand in for more expensive mulch behind big shrubs and in other out-of-the-way areas. Eventually the weeds turn brown and wither, and begin to look like regular mulch. In more public areas I use the newspaper and trimmings as a temporary weed blocker until I can put shredded cedar bark or other “fancy mulch” on the spot. The dried out weeds then go in the composter, and the newspaper goes back into recycling. This cuts curbside waste as well as bagging time.
The week before the reception, I will see if anything is blooming, and augment the offerings with whatever colorful specimens I can find at the garden center. Hopefully the end result will say “conscientious gardener” and not “desperate housewife.” After all, on the day of the celebration the garden will be a mere backdrop–and not even a big clump of crabgrass can detract from a really good party.