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Friday, March 23, 2018

The Established Garden

Celebrate with me! Or don't, but at least humor me. This marks the first year in Fencebroke's history in which I have not spent the better part of the Fall, Winter, or Spring cutting and digging new planting beds. Woo! WoooooThat's right, no more inching along with a half-moon edger drawing invisible shapes in the lawn; no more sod removal; no more attacking the underside of turf chunks with my hori-hori knife in an effort to salvage priceless native topsoil; no more little piles of once-buried beer bottles, car parts, and children's toys that were to be the previous owners' contribution to our priceless native topsoil; no more bulging mounds of removed sod popping up like monstrous mole hills around the yard—correction, no more additional bulging mounds of sod—I will do something with the existing mounds, mark my words; and, most importantly, no more hours burned away on any of the above when I'd much rather be doing ... almost anything else. Woo.

This year, at long last, the beds are dug, mulch has been laid, and the garden is, dare I say, established. Which should in no way be confused with finished, or even coherent, but somewhere along the way I found enough spare minutes and plants to at least lay claim to the newly cut beds by burying things in them along the way. Unfortunately, as new leaves and flowers begin to emerge this Spring in surprising places and unexpected colors, I must admit to a rather startling amnesia regarding what exactly I planted and why exactly I did so. Here's an example:



There. What is that? Kinda pretty I guess, but how big will it get? Will it bloom? When? If so, what color? Is it edible? Poisonous? Psychedelic? Noxious? Obnoxious? I have no idea. And there are dozens of similar examples around the garden. Each doubtless planted in one of many sleep-deprived fugues to which I have succumbed in the four-odd years of the garden's and, not coincidentally, my children's, existence. Did I keep the plant tags? Of course I did. They're in ziploc bags in the shed somewhere, just like my kids' birth certificates. Can I find, much less figure out which goes to which? No I cannot. I mean, with the plants. I have a decent hunch with the kids.

So far, I'm not inclined to remove anything until I see what it does. I can be patient. I will go through the seasons experiencing my own garden with all the joy and surprise of a public garden I've never seen before ... which is pretty much all of them. Yeah, I don't get out much. But I promise, just as soon as this green clump does something more interesting or identifiable, I'll let you all know. I'm sure the suspense is killing you.


1 comment:

  1. Ha!! Well, at MY age.....I like to be somewhat smug about the fact that MANY experiences I have had in the past are enjoyed with childlike delight anew......due to the fact that I have somehow LOST the original impressions entirely!! (Enjoyed, that is, until one of my kids or grands reminds me that we have actually SHARED those experiences together before...:/)

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