Every spring since I started gardening, I reach the point at least once when I feel so overwhelmed by what has to be done that I seriously think about sitting down for a nice, long boo-hoo.
There just isn’t enough time to clean it all up! I don’t have enough energy for all of this! Everything is asleep and it’s difficult to imagine a garden springing up from the ravages of winter.
Thankfully, Mother Nature usually kicks in about this time and starts presenting small gifts. The hellebores climb out of the rotting leaves and from under the snow with profusions of blooms.
Helleborus x hybridus 'Kingston Cardinal'
The daffodils poke their heads up and begin to bloom.
The tulips aren’t far behind.
Garlic that I planted back in the fall is growing. And it’s safe to put out the lettuce starts.
And it all begins to look hopeful and (Dare I say it?) pretty after all.
Robin
My son, Benjamin, really knows how to get my blood boiling.
The other day we were sitting out on the back deck enjoying the warm sun and fresh air when he turned to me and said, “You know, your garden doesn’t look very good this year. Before there were lots more flowers and vegetables.”
To which I replied…
“What?!?!?! It’s only May! Not even Martha Stewart can make tomatoes produce in May.”
Wisteria blooms over the garden gate. By summer's end, the sweet autumn clematis will have reached up from the other side.
Still, he did have a point. I have been a bit slow to get things rolling here this spring. My attentions have been torn between work, house, cooking, animal husbandry, writing and a great deal of time exercising on the spinning bike, classes and my home yoga practice.
Thankfully, many flowers, herbs and fruits return on their own. I’ve added bedding plants from the nursery. But I still have a stock tank pond and some more vegetables and flowers to attend to.
The herb garden includes flowers--columbine for spring color and celosia once June arrives and to the end of the growing season.
Most of that will have to wait until after the Garden Bloggers Spring Fling that comes up next weekend in Chicago. I will work in new bed digging and some woods clearing between other business trips I have planned this summer.
Jubilee strawberries produce all summer long. A single bed is enough to keep us in strawberry shortcake and to eat for breakfast with Greek yogurt.
I am also making time to just sit still and appreciate what I’ve been given. I hope with all the busy-ness of gardening, you also have a beautiful place to sit and enjoy what you’ve created.
Wisteria also grows along the fence at the back of the garden. If you look closely, you can see a couple of asparagus stalks that have persisted even after tearing out the asparagus bed.
Robin
A couple of years ago I managed to get organized enough to photograph my potager through several months. The changes from month to month documented in the photos were a bit like watching some low-tech, time-lapse photography. I enjoy looking at the changes as long as I try not to think about the fact that I’ve gotten older between each shot.
Here’s another low-tech time lapse. It seems that time is passing even faster than month to month. We’re skipping from season to season now.
This was part of our backyard in May. I know it’s May even without looking at the photo file information because the Lady Banks rose is in full bloom.
This monster rose only blooms in May, when it is covered with tiny yellow roses. The rest of the year it spends plotting world domination. The only reason it hasn’t grown over into your back yard is that I hack at it regularly with great big pruners.
The two trees are Zelkovas, a close relative of the American elm. Zelkovas are fast growers and have proven to be resistant to Dutch elm disease. They were the first things that I planted when we built the house eight years ago.
Although they were as spindly as any newly-planted tree when they first were plunked into the ground, they grew quickly. Now, they provide shade in the heat of the day, so that even in the summer months it is tolerable to sit outside in the Adirondack chairs.
The Zelkovas also provide beautiful color in the fall. They put on quite a brilliant show and are among the last of the trees to lose their leaves.
Oops, there go another few months.
Now here it is winter and this is the backyard in January. It was about four degrees outside the other morning when I went to let the chickens out and snapped this photo.
This weekend I’m huddled inside, looking at seed catalogs and thinking about another year in the garden. I’ll have another year of gardening experience under my belt, more entries into my garden journal and a few good stories to tell from 2008.
I’ll try not to fret about the birthday coming up that ends in the number nine or the fact that my son, Ben, won’t see the end of the summer garden because he’ll be off to college by then.
The passing of time is inevitable. But I will try to remember it can be beautiful and rewarding too.
Robin
