When I first began to aggressively engage in gardening (I was 30 years old and we had purchased our first wee house with a patch of lawn out front) I had this image, borrowed from magazines of English gardeners: you had your neat little tool set, painted green maybe, you purchased your baby plants, you cleared some space for them, put them in, as birds chirped and sun rays warmed the back of your neck. Or maybe you'd wear a sun bonnet -- so attractive! Straw, definitely.
Let me describe the reality, the details of which I'll take from my morning work today.
On my early walk to the barn, I survey the flower fields. I should never step outside in spring without putting on gloves, because always, always, I'll reach for weeds and my hands will get crusted with dirt immediately. No matter. Things are looking good out there (they always look great in spring!).
Let me hurry up with breakfast. (Finally: I took the shears to his beard!)
And get going with today's first big time planting regimen.
I'd listed all the perennial plants I have to put in and I noted where they may go. This is a rough outline. Reality will often shift things around once I start digging.
I have three roses to plant (again, what was I thinking??). Two are trailers and come bare root, so they have to be soaked and importantly, the hole for them has to be big.
One by the house. The soil quickly turns into clay as I dig away. I kneel on my one good knee. I keep at it. I'm still congested, so I need to pause to attend to that every now and then. I put in the rose. The crown should be covered. It's not. I dig it out and return to digging. Ed had brought over some compost, but the wheelbarrow cant be put into the dense flower fields with new growth everywhere, so I have to get up and get some every now and then. No big deal, unless you are two days short of 72.
One plant in. The next one -- I chose a place next to a stump. The stump is wobbly and I decide it's better to take it out now before the roots of a new plant get established. Out comes the stump. I'm panting, but I manage to put in the second bare root rose. I carry buckets of water over. Sure, there's a hose, but uncoiling it for two plants? Not worth it. Sneeze, snort. Go over to the wood chip pile, load up a bucket of those, disperse them over my work, watch the chickens scratch them out of place. Chickens! Go elsewhere! They ignore me. They've long learned that where there is a shovel in my hand, there will be worms.
Pause to use the facilities. Oh, what's this? The first baby tick of the season on my hand! Well, at least I found it.
And now it's noon and all I've done is put in three roses (what was I thinking??) and one clematis. My tools are scrappy, the creeping bellflower weed is again threatening all my flower fields, and the branches of all the farmette trees are shading too many of my plants.
Gardening is hard work. So why do it? I honestly cannot say what drives me to it. But this much is true: I cannot imagine a spring without planting. Like with travel, I have to think that at some point I wont be able to continue. But that seems as remote to me as a day without a milky coffee in the morning. My life, as I see it, has me planting flowers by my house. It has me writing. And traveling to far away places. I cannot imagine it being otherwise.
I pause to drive over to Madison Sourdough. I need to pick up a cake for tomorrow's dinner -- my one contribution to the Easter holiday. Well, that and the chocolates I picked up during my travels. While at the bakery, I purchase some croissants for the week. Ah, but fresh croissants, just sitting there in a box? Too tempting. I have one for lunch, with our own blueberry jam. Outside, taking stock of my work.
And now I go back to planting. A new hibiscus -- in. All new day lilies (only six this year) are in. Clematis, roses -- in. My glads and lilium bulbs haven't arrived yet, so I pause now. Ed tells me to go easy, but of course, it's hard not to overdo it because you want everything to have a good start. Our growing season isn't that long. The longer I wait with planting, the shorter it is.
One great surprise is in our weather: it was to be cold and cloudy and instead it's pleasant and partly sunny. I wore my Interlaken Switzerland sweatshirt and smiled recalling the day I purchased it, randomly, because I was in Interlaken and I was cold.
By early evening, I stop. The perennial planting will keep me busy for a few more days, but, too, I want to get going on the tubs of annuals. And I have seeds that should be in the ground shortly. All this is for another day.
The skies continue to give us a mix of clouds and streaks of evening sunlight. We go out for a walk, passing sandhills on the way to the park and deer on the way home.
At the end of the day, as I fix us a light supper, I think about all the stuff that's growing so rapidly now. To be part of that, to structure a flower field and keep it going over the years is its own reward. From now until mid August, I'll be thinking every single day about flowers. And that's such a good thing!
with love...
