I've just made a stooped over bee-line for the aspirin and heating pad. Maybe the gardening magazines portray the naturalizing of daffodils at the wood's edge as bucolic, beautiful........and easy. But today's endeavor was far from a "Fine Gardening" moment as I set out to plant my 50 bulbs at that fictional bucolic edge. Ten holes measuring 10"x 10"x 6", five bulbs to a hole, that was my plan. I hadn't counted on each little hole consuming 25 minutes of my precious, dwindling, October daylight. While I would like to write that I was setting bulbs in rich, loose loam along a rambling old stone wall, that was not the case. Where the lawn meets the woods has been the pit of hell-fire I've chosen to ignore for three years. Today I ripped out numerous young saplings, yards of grapevine and briars, severed countless mazes of inch-thick roots below the ground with my pruners. I've removed shale, rocks, dense clumps of long grass and scraps of builder's landscaping plastic. My labor had a sweet spot, though, when my eye caught a vine of bittersweet deep in the woods. It was one of those illuminating moments. Intellectually, I know I am not supposed to delight in this discovery because bittersweet is an invasive menace. But I love when the orange berries swell and split their cream colored cloaks, adding jewelry to the bland brown wardrobe of the November woods. Where it is, it will cause a problem to no-one. The aspirin is taking hold now and in retrospect I can stand by one of my gardening principles. As long as you love what you're doing, it's never work. Hopefully, each time I round the last bend homeward next April the daffodils will smile at me from the woods. And if my intent is realized, I will believe that God put them there, not I!
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
"Naturalizing" Bulbs
I've just made a stooped over bee-line for the aspirin and heating pad. Maybe the gardening magazines portray the naturalizing of daffodils at the wood's edge as bucolic, beautiful........and easy. But today's endeavor was far from a "Fine Gardening" moment as I set out to plant my 50 bulbs at that fictional bucolic edge. Ten holes measuring 10"x 10"x 6", five bulbs to a hole, that was my plan. I hadn't counted on each little hole consuming 25 minutes of my precious, dwindling, October daylight. While I would like to write that I was setting bulbs in rich, loose loam along a rambling old stone wall, that was not the case. Where the lawn meets the woods has been the pit of hell-fire I've chosen to ignore for three years. Today I ripped out numerous young saplings, yards of grapevine and briars, severed countless mazes of inch-thick roots below the ground with my pruners. I've removed shale, rocks, dense clumps of long grass and scraps of builder's landscaping plastic. My labor had a sweet spot, though, when my eye caught a vine of bittersweet deep in the woods. It was one of those illuminating moments. Intellectually, I know I am not supposed to delight in this discovery because bittersweet is an invasive menace. But I love when the orange berries swell and split their cream colored cloaks, adding jewelry to the bland brown wardrobe of the November woods. Where it is, it will cause a problem to no-one. The aspirin is taking hold now and in retrospect I can stand by one of my gardening principles. As long as you love what you're doing, it's never work. Hopefully, each time I round the last bend homeward next April the daffodils will smile at me from the woods. And if my intent is realized, I will believe that God put them there, not I!
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Lauri-ann, it will be worth every ache and pain when those beautiful flowers bloom next April. Wish I had known you were ripping our sapings and other assorted unneeded growth . . . I would have loved to help you. Maybe next year.
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Trust me, I was not doing this when you were a wee one.
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