{"id":2422,"date":"2018-05-29T05:26:02","date_gmt":"2018-05-29T13:26:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/?p=2422"},"modified":"2018-05-29T05:26:02","modified_gmt":"2018-05-29T13:26:02","slug":"rain-delays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/rain-delays\/","title":{"rendered":"Rain Delays"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The garden is not perfect, but the new rose shines<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In his novel, An International Episode, <\/em>author Henry James says, \u201cSummer afternoon\u2014summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.\u201d<\/h1>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I agree with him, but the flip side of that quote might be something like, \u201cRainy weekend, rainy weekend; to me those have always been the two most disappointing words in the spring gardening season.\u201d<\/h1>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Last week I wrote about my quest to make my garden glorious\u2014or at least extremely presentable–in the eight hours of time that I reckoned were available before the Memorial Day Weekend.\u00a0 Now Memorial Day is upon us.\u00a0 The garden outside my window would be harder to mistake for an unmowed hay field, but it is nowhere near glorious.\u00a0 Rain\u2014pouring, soaking, cold, unrelenting rain\u2014accounts for the ongoing glory deficit.<\/h1>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I awakened clothed in hope last Saturday, and augmented that hope with a sweater, hooded raincoat, waterproof garden clogs and heavy garden gloves.\u00a0 It was a great day for weeding, with onion grass and dandelions popping right out to the ground.\u00a0 I filled half of a large lawn and leaf bag in the first thirty minutes, after which I was cold, soaked and ready for a cup of hot tea.<\/h1>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Instead of abating by afternoon, as is common for spring rain, the chilly monsoon continued all day, ruling out mowing, hedge trimming, or, in fact, much of anything else.\u00a0 I groomed the houseplants and seethed in frustration.\u00a0 There was nothing left to do except go grocery shopping, which I hate.\u00a0 By the end of the day, the cupboards were stocked, but the garden was practically under water.\u00a0 The only available enjoyment was watching the birds frolic in the vast puddles.<\/h1>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sunday was only marginally better, but I weeded again and plucked a great deal of ivy from various garden beds, the sides of my house, and the fence that surrounds the back yard.\u00a0 Ivy eradication is intensely satisfying, even as it brings to mind the myth of Sisyphus and his unending task of pushing a boulder up a mountain only to have it roll back to the bottom again.<\/h1>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 After the soggy weekend dripped into history, my only recourse was to labor in increments at the end of each weekday.\u00a0 I did that, working incrementally.\u00a0 The lawn got mowed, the string trimming happened and more weeds left the scene.\u00a0 While I worked, the roses, iris and clematis, which had been waiting patiently for a few rays of sunshine, moved closer to blooming.\u00a0 I took a break from the more back-breaking tasks to plant a new variegated iris and pot up a rose in a decorative container.\u00a0 I may install small bedding dahlias at its feet just before I walk out the door for Memorial Day Weekend.<\/h1>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In the end, I did not get my eight hours, but managed just over three.\u00a0 Shrub pruning is barely started, but I used up 70 of the 80 minutes I allotted for mowing and trimming.\u00a0 The south side of my front garden is now more or less clear of self-sown maple seedlings.\u00a0 I may have actually removed enough ivy so that it can\u2019t recover all of its lost ground before I resume the effort next week.\u00a0 The bags of mulch sitting beside my driveway remain untouched, as does the landscape fabric that will go underneath some of those cedar shreds.<\/h1>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In the fifteenth century, theologian Thomas \u00e0 Kempis wrote, \u201c”Homo proponit, sed Deus disponit<\/em>” or “Man proposes, but God disposes.” \u00a0Gardeners are among those who understand the real meaning of those words\u2014especially after a monsoon weekend.<\/h1>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Next week, I will look over the situation and get back to work.\u00a0 I\u2019ll check the forecast, water the bedding plants in my holding area and make a new deadline.\u00a0 In other parts of the country, Memorial Day is only the start of the gardening season, so I am probably way ahead of my fellow horticulturists in Anchorage, Alaska or Edina, Minnesota.\u00a0 That is enough to make me believe that the coleus will be in pots before Labor Day.<\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his novel, An International Episode, author Henry James says, \u201cSummer afternoon\u2014summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I agree with him, but the flip side of that quote might be something like, \u201cRainy weekend, rainy weekend; to me those have always been the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3],"tags":[85,1873,1848,540,824],"class_list":["post-2422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","tag-garden-maintenance","tag-henry-james","tag-spring-clean-up","tag-spring-gardening","tag-weeding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2422"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2424,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2422\/revisions\/2424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}