Summer Garden Update

The garden was beautiful this spring, bursting with flowers.  But did I take pictures? No.  Did I write? No.  I was still too busy beating myself up over all the things I had not yet done, and was not doing, to truly celebrate the beauty of all I have accomplished.  

 That is not really the best place to be, berating oneself for perceived failures.  Sometimes my inner voice, that persistent echo of years of early training in the school of “not good enough”, gets the better of me.  I know this voice is a false idol, something that attempts to lure me away from what is truly important in life.  But sometimes I succumb. 

As an antidote of sorts, I am posting pictures of the late June Garden. The June garden lacks the riot of color seen in early spring, and it is more overgrown with weeds, but at least those weeds are green.  I am learning to accept that my dreams are far bigger than my energy levels, and, thankfully, Mother Nature will happily fill the gap.  Better weeds than dead lifeless soil.  What is a weed anyway but an arbitrary designation, a plant that is growing where a human does not want it?  Although I have to work to pull them out, those weeds help the soil, help build an ecosystem and haven for smaller creatures, and will eventually become compost.

Two summers ago, the bed to the south and east of the hydrangeas above (two above photos) were empty, mostly home to grassy weeds.   There are still some creeping grassy weeds in there, but it is not nearly as big a problem, and more importantly the perennials, which I felt I spent much of last summer just keeping alive, are thriving now.  There are even some echinacea, even though rabbits consistently ate them to the ground before they ever grew tall last summer. Apparently a few of them survived long enough to nourish roots.  This too gives me hope.

That bed has evolved, some plants I planted there have not thrived and have already been moved, others did better than expected and have led me to rethink the ways I will be expanding and finishing out the beds around the upper circle.  That is one of the good  things about gardening, as frustrating as it is. Gardens are centering, calming, and also humbling. I am constantly reminded that control itself, as much as I yearn for it, is a myth, a false construct.  My garden will show me the way, slow as I might be to absorb its lessons.

This is one of the first beds I planted in the garden after moving back into the house and it remains one of my favorites.   There are two narrow beds like this, flanking steps up to the circle lawn.  I had envisioned matching beds, but that hasn’t worked quite according to my plan. The beds are similar, balanced, but not symmetrical or mirror-images. The light at the far east end of the two beds is far different from the light on the western end.  I have to think about these beds more as a continuum or scale rather than as separate symmetrical static objects.

Progress is also being made on the shady side of the garden, but that tends to be more spotty.  Some areas have thrived, others are more hit and miss; once again, a constant learning experience.  

The chaste tree (with the purple blossoms) struggled the first 5 years of its life.  Planted in 2018, it was battered, tipped over, and twisted by winds in storms.  I wondered if it would survive, and then last summer it finally got its bearings and started to thrive, filling out like crazy just as I was giving up hope. The wattle fence around the small front yard, which was, for me, a defining feature, has fallen down.  Knoxville has gotten even rainier than when I moved here, and although I’ve been in contact with the man who made it, getting it repaired or replaced has proven problematic.  I am pondering alternatives, or if I even need a fence.  That is something that is not going to be resolved this year, and inaction itself may prove to be the solution.    It seems nothing is ever finished.  No, that statement is both correct and incorrect.  The goals are always moving, and very often the initially perceived finish line is but a bend in the road, leading us on to new ideas, new realities, new growth.

Much of the back is still wild and wooly, with more weed than garden, although I have made progress there as well.  My vegetable garden is inactive this season.  Last year I lost it to the bunnies, deer, heat, and inattention as I tried to make progress up front. I’m still thinking about long term plans, and focusing on what I can accomplish more immediately instead.  Isn’t this always the way?  At some point I felt as if I had hit a wall, and then suddenly one small change and whole new vistas and ideas open up.  I am hopeful again, although I am still looking at the garden as part of a 10-year plan.  Well, it is always a 10-year plan, even though I started it 5 years ago; why don’t admit it is part of my life plan.  As long as I am here, my life and the space I occupy in that life is a work in progress.

 

There are always more things that I dream of doing than I can do.  In fact I it seems I can accomplish merely a fraction of what I plan.  That has been the curse of this garden in some ways.  I took on a grand plan, and life threw in too many hiccups.  My body rebelled.  I hoped to do more this past spring, but,  this past spring  the act of simply standing up straight and moving proved to be bigger challenge.  I was, in fact struggling far more than I was willing to admit, and chaos was piling up around me.  I’m still working on that, but I’m making progress.  I am gaining strength and mobility, which gives me hope and fuels my dreams further. I’m still far too pig-headed to admit defeat.  Dreams are good.  Plans are good.  Hope is even better.  The same for accepting limitations. It is not so much what you do, what your are given, or even what happens, either good or bad, that is important in life, but what you make of the life you live.  The important thing is who you are, not what you do, although one may well inform the other.

 

Sometimes the best thing to do is to sit in the garden with a cup of tea or a glass of wine, admiring the garden, admiring the frolicking of birds, squirrels, and even rabbits. When I sit I realize how my failure to keep up to my own plan has created this haven.  I glance benignly at the weeds, thinking:  “Perhaps I’ll pull you another day”.