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.