The Garden

The day's tagline would have to be "aim high, take chances." By definition a chance means that sometimes you succeed, sometimes you fall short. Ed would say that I do not challenge myself in places where I can easily succeed: hiking great distances, backpacking, promoting my work, traveling without reservations -- these are where he sees me exercise caution. Unnecessarily. 

But give me an exciting gardening idea, or a trip that has a blissful moment in a beautiful space, or a writing project that I care about, and I am all in. And I take chances, again and again.

I hired Beth from Bevalli Gardens (her baby) to do work in the (soon to be) gardens of Steffi's House on a whim and a lark. No one would hand over the job of creating flower fields on the basis of two phone calls: one to a landscaper who didn't have time for it this month, and the other to Beth, who came recommended by the guy about whom I knew nothing, except for that he didn't have time for my project.

Price seemed in the range. And she had a half day, today, to put her team to work.

 

I was so psyched for this that I couldn't sleep. Of course. I am very short on seep this week. 

It's a lovely morning and Millie and I have a fine few minutes on the porch...

And then I drive to Julie's house way on the other side of town. Beloved Julie whom Millie sees daily at doggie daycare agreed to watch her today. Lucky Millie!

I had preloaded all my plants yesterday, which was good, because I could then go straight from Julie's to Steffi's House, to meet the digging team promptly at 9.

(let's get to work!)

 

 

The next 8 hours are just crazy for me. I have no other word for it. 

The Bevalli team is large. Local kids, repeat employees, they follow her directions energetically and very very quickly. 

It takes them just two hours to dig up the sod in the entire front of the house,  to pull out the shrubs that I swear are planted in all developments, before all houses, to transplant the crab and the juniper, to spread some dirt and chips, and finally to plant whatever Beth gives them to plant in the one small corner of the emerging flower bed. 

And then they pack up and leave. 

 

 

And I am left with my 70+ plants to put in.

In garden work, the hardest is getting the bed ready. The funnest part for me has always been the planting. I thought I struck gold by hiring someone to dig up the place. That proved to be anything but true today.

Beth's team did remove the sod. And they did dump a scant amount of planting soil and of course the chip. 

However.

The planting soil was nowhere more than an inch high. Beneath that? Hell.

Yes, it's been dry, but that does not excuse the stuff they call garden space in these developments. Solid hard clay interspersed with rocks. I thrust the shovel into it and make no progress. It's like hitting a pavement. And of course, nothing will grow in that. I have to remove buckets of the stuff, incrementally, (and dump it to lot next door) and replace it with farmette composted dirt. (Ed brings over filled pails of it.)

It is such slow going! And it is exhausting! Hitting a hard surface again and again and taking out so little. This is not fun, It's miserable work.

I take two breaks: one to go to the farmhouse to get more sunscreen and a mug of coffee that I call lunch, and the second -- to go to the farmette for more soil.

 

So where do things stand now? By 5 p.m., I have to stop and drive over to get Millie. I managed to put in barely a third of what I wanted to put in. 

 

 

But will it look good eventually?

Maybe. And it's a big maybe. I used several plant suppliers and at least one of them is not a place I will ever buy from again (small plants, poor root structure). Beth's plantings are okay, but they are rather  conventional, both in species and color. In fact, the orange oriental lily was so garish that when they left, I moved it to a less prominent location. I may move some others next spring!

So, it's a work in progress, all of it. And this was to be just the beginning, I have the back garden waiting for me... next week, two days before my trip.

Yes, I took a chance. Aimed high. Worked hard. We will see what will come of it!

But guess who did have a great day? Millie!

Julie said she was perfect, had no accidents, and was sweet as can be. This was such good news, especially since Millie will be staying with Julie when I go away in June. Happy happy pup!

In the evening I crawl from one task to the next. I have zero energy left. Tomorrow? Oh, I'll go back to it, spend three hours and put in probably two more plants. 

with so much love...