79 bar steady 29.84 2mph E dew-point 57 Summer, sunny and warm
Waxing Gibbous Thunder Moon
The garden. When I refer to the garden in these posts, it is a term of compression. It would be more accurate to refer to the landscaping, the woods, the perennial gardens in back and those in front and, finally, the vegetable garden in raised beds. I give a lot of thought and care each year to the plants in all of these places.
While I try to do things in an aesthetically pleasing manner, my various efforts never achieve the shine of the gardens in the newspapers. I’m not a perfectionist, so the weeds here and there, the plants that have overgrown their neighbors do not bother me. There is time to get to them and I if I don’t get it this year, then next year.
I do care, a lot, about the health of the individual plants. In my gardening world a diseased or dwindling plant gets a lot more concern than the niceties of the border. As a result, our garden tends toward the lush, the verdant, but not always the well-conceived, artful display of blooming varieties carefully placed for height, leaf texture and color. I’m impressed with folks who can achieve that and on some days I wish I were one of them. But I’m not.
Gardens and landscapes and woods work on many different levels. In my case the chance to think about the plants, to place them and nourish them, to reconfigure the whole when shade has outstripped light or the soil needs amendment satisfies me.
When Kate’s 60th birthday was on the horizon and she warmed to the idea of a purple garden, I had a great time assembling various purple flowering plants, amending the soil in each one of our beds and replanting everything, established plants and the new ones. It tickles me now that the purple garden is in its fourth year and that it comes into its own in August, the month of her birthday.
Not sure what I’m trying to say here. I’ve just been outside pruning, spreading some mulch on areas I missed the last time around and I feel a little sheepish about the unplanned, somewhat haphazard look of things. On the other hand, by my own standards, the garden looks fine. One of those endless loop deals where the stuff you do is fine with you as long as you don’t compare it to anybody else’s. Yes, I know. Comparing is foolish and mentally harmful. Yet it creeps in from time to time anyhow.