Open Garden Season

This time of year in addition to a full calendar of nursery jaunts, plant sales, public garden tours, lectures and personal gardening, we calculate in some time for open garden touring.  One of the attractions of the plant society I am part of is the more than 100 gardens that register for the book that comes in the mail around the first of April.  Then comes the joyful scramble to figure out how many gardens I can see that I've heard about, or I've seen before and want to see again, or is in the neighborhood, or maybe near a favorite nursery stop...

The gardens that are entered in the book are quite a varied offering, from simple but delightful urban gardens, nurtured with great care, to cottage gardens and contemporary designer landscapes, edible gardens chock full of veggies and maybe some chickens, to sprawling woodland gardens or acreage in the country with long vistas to the mountains. Some visitors come to gawk and admire, others to get new ideas for their own spaces, and yet others to find new friends with the same passions. What all have in common is the desire to share the pleasure of their labors.

Three years after a broken wrist and a long recovery, I decided I was ready to open my garden again. The motivating factor was that I realized, along with several other indications, that although my wrist had healed well, my ability to manage my half-acre garden, complete some long pending projects and possibly taking on a few more, was rapidly waning as my aches and pains associated with aging were rapidly increasing. Its now or never. 

This year is turning out quite differently than any of us may have imagined. Yikes... a new plague is upon us and my open garden plans, along with everyone else's, are on hold indefinitely while the entire world tries to figure out how to survive!
Piling in the car with a few buddies to drive out to the country nurseries, or planning a trip with a few friends to nurseries and gardens up or down the coast is wishful thinking while we are under shelter-in-place orders.  Browsing a favorite garden center for hours or even strolling through a public garden is at the moment off limits. Those that are open, want you to shop with a list, conduct your business quickly or pick up at the curb. Now I ask you, what kind of way is that to nursery shop? The message, however, has been racing through the internet, "gardening is not cancelled!" So we navigate the obstacles, and find our joy and passion anyway.

I count my blessings every time I glance out of my windows, or pull on my garden boots and gloves. No, gardening is not cancelled.  We don't need a flat of new plants or a nifty new tool to have a full satisfying experience just breathing in and out, firmly standing in the soil, physically and emotionally. The heart and soul of the practice of gardening is being outside, gauging the temperature, the light, the birdsong, the pollinators busily flitting about, and focusing on the living moment we are in.

So maybe there will be an open day in my garden this year, maybe not.  But this year I will relish the profound experience of digging, tilling, raking, planting, dividing, transplanting, pruning, harvesting and just sitting on a bench, or a rock or a log or my little weeding stool like no other.

A New Leaf

Its a few days after Easter Sunday. It's also holy days for many other cultures other than Christian.  Not being a scholar of any (raised Catholic, but in practice, a Gardener), my thoughts range towards the general idea of rebirth and renewal, applicable to all.  Without data to support my theory, I think all of our efforts and historical experiences are centered on the idea that it happens when the earth is reawakening from her winter slumber.  Now I realize that in the southern hemisphere, the seasons are reversed, and I cannot speak to how that disables my idea, but I forge on...

I fortify myself with birdsong, emerging seedlings, unfurling fronds, delicately unfolding blossoms and the graceful gestures of the Japanese maple fans, like so many elegant dancers on a stage. I do my best to send this awesome energy to the world that needs it.

Spring Cleaning

Now that many of us have been "sheltering-in-place" for perhaps for several weeks now, we have gone through various stages of societal withdrawal.  The introverts have gotten over the euphoria of not having to deal with anyone else, the extroverts have had a tantrum or two for being restricted, and the rest have put in their queque every disaster movie ever made about pandemics, viruses and aliens, or taken to watching animal antics. Pass the popcorn please. Now what? We are still confined "for our own safety and the safety of our loved ones" to the landscape of our homes.

We are beginning to reckon with our mortality in a very real way.  Perhaps you found out someone you know is sick, or quarantined, or dead.  I knew that no amount of intellectual preparation for death in my world would protect me from the inevitable.  Last week, I heard the parent or aunt of a second hand acquaintance was hospitalized.  I sympathized, and moved on.  I heard about a famous celebrity who succumbed.  I shook my head and move on. Then I heard someone I knew, ever so long ago has died.  I remember the beautiful circumstances of that relationship, and the people involved, and I feel this more personally.  The looming presence of death too near. Death is on the doorstep.

How do we cope in this relentless onslaught of frightening news? Find a quiet room in ourselves to regain composure?  Perhaps first of all,  clean up the room.  I choose to spring clean the garden.

My spring gardening has taken on epic proportions this year.  Going out there is always cathartic for me, even if it is just a ramble through the woodland to see what delightful ephemeral has emerged overnight.  This year, I am fanatically purposeful to look in every nook and cranny, for treasure, for things that need purpose, for what may be inhibiting the success of something else.  Very little is actually going to the yard waste bin.  Today's rot and decay is tomorrow's compost. Fallen branches fortify the dead hedge. Sodden leaves enrich the veg beds. The willow bench too weak to support a person, now elegantly sits in the Long Bed flanked by camassia and skirted by hardy geranium.

I will probably have the best garden this year than I have ever had before (like many of us!) because I am laser focused on making do with what I have. Unrestrained spring consumption is not possible.

Nature has already shown us that she is resilient when we stop our relentless onslaught on her gifts.  The rivers and streams are clearer, the air is cleaner, the animals are emerging from hiding.  I aim to enjoy this natural bounty more wisely.