{"id":51,"date":"2007-05-14T12:55:58","date_gmt":"2007-05-14T20:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=51"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:33:25","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:33:25","slug":"this-is-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/this-is-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"This Is the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

THIS IS THE YEAR<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Every February baseball fans wake up at the beginning of Spring Training and all of them say, “This is the year!”\u009d\u00a0 You know the rest: “This is the year the Mets–or Cubs or Cardinals–will go all the way.”\u009d\u00a0 There is a palpable feeling of excitement and a renewed sense of expectancy.\u00a0 If you are a gardener, especially if you are a passionate gardener, you know the feeling very well.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I had it beginning in February and I have it still.\u00a0 The only difference between this and other years is that this is definitely “the year.”\u009d\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sometime around New Year’s I made the astonishing discovery that I am not getting any younger.\u00a0 After that sank in, I decided that instead of becoming a contestant on American Idol or getting a tattoo or flying off to Patagonia or doing any number of other wild and crazy things, I would take one year and make my garden as perfect as it could be.\u00a0 I resolved that I, like the late great garden writer Beverley Nichols, would make my garden so lovely that I would feel comfortable writing a book about it and inviting the whole world–or at least that portion of the world that could get to my place–to see my beds and borders.\u00a0 Nichol’s book was Garden Open Today<\/em>, published in 1962.\u00a0 I haven’t decided on the title of my book yet.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Then a funny thing happened.\u00a0 A friend called to ask if I would open my garden to the public one day next fall for a fundraiser. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In horticultural parlance, an offer like that is called “motivation”\u009d.\u00a0 My impulsive self said “yes”\u009d before my sane self was able to say “no”\u009d.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 About twenty seconds after I committed myself and the garden, I started to think about the long list of chores that I have to do before September.\u00a0 The old fence around the back yard is about to disintegrate, which means a new one is absolutely necessary.\u00a0 It will need to have a gate so that people can go from the front garden to the back garden on either side of the house.\u00a0 Two or three shrubs, which have been pruned into the shape of small trees, will be moved to facilitate the flow of traffic through the layout.\u00a0 Of course this must be done very soon to minimize the stress on the plants.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As I go about the business of spring garden clean-up, I contemplate the enormous amount of mulch that I’ll need to augment the large amount of mulch that I put down last year.\u00a0 It would be nice to have helpers to do this work, but even if I could afford them, my garden is so densely planted that they would probably tromp all over the plants and smother the seedlings.\u00a0 If I start now, and put down a few bags a week, the garden will be fully mulched by Labor Day and the weeding chores will be manageable.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 At this time of year my plant holding area fills up with all the “must haves”\u009d that I have acquired from catalog vendors, local nurseries and spring plant sales.\u00a0 I also need to get them into the ground sooner rather than later, if only so I don’t have to water them as often.\u00a0 Then there are all those seeds that I ordered back in the dead of winter when I was absolutely dazzled by catalog prose.\u00a0 They are not going to grow unless I get them out of their packets and into something more comfortable, preferably nice fresh potting mix.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If this is truly “the year”\u009d all the plants will have to be grouped attractively, edited carefully and trimmed with care.\u00a0 Losers will be unceremoniously evicted.\u00a0 The beds all need to be edged or re-edged.\u00a0 New stepping stones should be positioned in high traffic areas.\u00a0 My back lawn is now a completely unplanned medieval-style flowery mead full of purple and white violets, runaway ajuga and extraordinarily prolific Spanish bluebells.\u00a0 It could probably benefit from the addition of some actual grass.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The composter, currently holding court at the very back of the back garden, will be moved to a place where it is completely out of site.\u00a0 The ornamental wishing well, installed in the middle of the backyard by my predecessor will be decapitated and made into a giant stone planter and filled with enough tall specimens to make it a credible vertical accent.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 All of this is daunting if I obsess about it for too long.\u00a0 Fortunately when I am actually in the garden–rather than thinking about it late at night–the process of weeding overtakes the process of worrying.\u00a0 Everything looks beautiful right now, in the first giant flush of spring bloom, and it is tempting to just stand in the middle of the back or front garden and enjoy it all.\u00a0 But, as baseball fans know, you can’t get to the World Series if you lollygag early in the season.\u00a0 Perfectionism will not stand in my way.\u00a0 Laziness will not stand in my way.\u00a0 Crabgrass will not stand in my way.\u00a0 Even drought will not stand in my way.\u00a0 By the end of the summer my garden will be as lovely as I can make it.\u00a0 Then I can channel Beverley Nichols and invite him and everyone else to stop by and look at the flowers.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THIS IS THE YEAR \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Every February baseball fans wake up at the beginning of Spring Training and all of them say, “This is the year!”\u009d\u00a0 You know the rest: “This is the year the Mets–or Cubs or Cardinals–will go all the way.”\u009d\u00a0 There is a palpable feeling of excitement and a renewed sense of … 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":[6,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-spring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51","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=51"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1727,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions\/1727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}