{"id":52,"date":"2007-05-30T03:32:53","date_gmt":"2007-05-30T11:32:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=52"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:33:25","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:33:25","slug":"growing-growing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/growing-growing\/","title":{"rendered":"Growing, Growing"},"content":{"rendered":"

GROWING WILD
\n<\/font><\/font><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>In 1961 author Irving Stone published a best-selling biographical novel, The Agony and the Ecstasy<\/em>, on the life of Michaelangelo.\u00a0 I could use Stone’s title to describe my garden at this moment.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The “ecstasy”\u009d part is easy.\u00a0 The first roses have finally begun to bloom, ending their long winter and early spring nap.\u00a0 Within the next few days scores of them will open up.\u00a0 Even though most will rebloom later in the growing season, this is the biggest and best show of the year.\u00a0 Not to be outdone, the peonies and iris are flaunting their showy flowerheads and the cranesbills are compensating for their shorter stature by producing a multitude of five petaled blossoms.\u00a0 Weigela, deutzia and ox eye daisies are also bursting forth.\u00a0 Even the shade garden is the scene of frantic activity as the hostas seem to double in size every day, threatening to elbow out the heuchera, which are indulging in their own growth spurt.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The abundance is breathtaking.\u00a0 I can make bouquets until the house is full of flowers and greenery and still have plenty left in the garden.\u00a0 Going outside, even for five minutes, is a joy, and the whole experience makes me understand yet again why poets, composers and artists have exhausted themselves for centuries trying to portray the wonders of the season.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Then there is the “agony”\u009d.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Every plant in the garden–desirable, undesirable or somewhere in-between–is working overtime, obeying the biological imperative to be fruitful and multiply.\u00a0 The beds, grass and even the sidewalk cracks are home to ten million tiny maple seedlings that all leaped from the ground in unison about ten days ago.\u00a0 My neighbors share the problem, as we all have maple trees, but that is faint consolation.\u00a0 I mow the maples down, pluck them out and smother them with mulch, but I still find more wherever I look.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

The maples are going head to head, or leaf to leaf with hundreds, if not thousands of fiendish perilla mint seedlings.\u00a0 A few clumps of perilla make nice bronze-leafed accents in the late summer.\u00a0 However, after year two of perilla cultivation, there is no such thing as a few clumps of perilla.\u00a0 I only wish that the groundhog, who has already attained an amazing degree of early-season plumpness, would take a liking to perilla.\u00a0 Of course, if the groundhog ate all the perilla, he would get so fat that we would have to roll him out of the garden like an unwanted whiskey barrel. \u00a0Even that would be less effort than getting rid of all the little purple seedlings.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The grass itself is growing rapidly, sometimes requiring mowing more than once a week.\u00a0 Doing that prevents me from clipping more of the privet hedge, which is having its own seasonal growth extravaganza.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And if I had the time necessary to keep the privet in check, I could also get at the rampant poison ivy and oriental bittersweet that are twining themselves around its branches.\u00a0 I clip these noxious hedge-wreckers whenever I see their tenacious tendrils, but they appear to grow most vigorously at night when I am asleep or during the day when I am working on deadlines.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Even the “good”\u009d plants are growing too fast.\u00a0 My Alma Potschke asters will bloom in September whether or not I cut them back now.\u00a0 However, if I don’t cut them back during this rapid growth surge, they will grow to be six or seven feet tall and need a lot of time-consuming staking, lest they flop over, victims of their own exuberance.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Flopping over is happening right now amidst the daffodil foliage.\u00a0 Having bloomed themselves silly several weeks ago, the daffodils are now busy photosynthesizing and building strength for next year’s display.\u00a0 To cut the foliage now would also cut off their ability to rejuvenate themselves.\u00a0 An older generation of gardeners got control of the situation by braiding the long leaves into nice neat little packages, but this too limits the plants’ ability to build strength.\u00a0 It is tempting, though, to try and impose that kind of order on these disorderly spring stalwarts. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So how is an avid gardener supposed to keep sane in the midst of this botanical bacchanal?\u00a0 It helps to remember that this happens every year, and that Nature often seems to be ruled by a feast and famine ethos.\u00a0 It also helps to prioritize.\u00a0 I generally try to decide which upsets me more, the perilla and maple seedlings or the vigorous poison ivy.\u00a0 After I decide, I take twenty minutes and deal with as much of the worst offender as possible. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Sometimes I simply vow to make one area of the garden tidy, if only for a single day.\u00a0 That satisfies me–as long as I impose tunnel vision on myself. \u00a0Occasionally I just throw up my hands, pick a nice big bouquet and park myself in the shade to admire it.\u00a0 At this time of the year, I can usually afford to do that for five or ten minutes–about the same amount of time that it takes for a Virginia creeper tendril to identify me as a potential support structure and start clinging to my ankle.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GROWING WILD \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In 1961 author Irving Stone published a best-selling biographical novel, The Agony and the Ecstasy, on the life of Michaelangelo.\u00a0 I could use Stone’s title to describe my garden at this moment.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The “ecstasy”\u009d part is easy.\u00a0 The first roses have finally begun to bloom, ending their long winter and early … 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":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52","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=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1726,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions\/1726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}