This started out as a gardening blog many years ago, back when Apple had a platform for creating blogs. It was super simple and I loved it, but eventually they stopped supporting it altogether so I had to find another way to continue my blog, so I got a WordPress account and after much trial and error, managed to relaunch my blog. For quite a few years it remained primarily a gardening blog, but as time went on, my interest in gardening wained and I turned to other topics. Now, I enjoy letting my taste and imagination roam free and writing about all kinds of things.
However, I still have a garden, and I still am, nominally at least, a gardener. This year was possibly my laziest gardening year ever, coinciding with my retirement, oddly enough. You’d think that with all the extra time I’d be puttering in my garden all day long, but no. I always put in quite a few hours in the spring, of course, my favourite time to be in the garden. The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra-la! I can’t get enough of them. Once July hits, though, and the hot days follow one another in an endless row, I find myself making any excuse to avoid gardening. I do have other interests, so it’s not all that hard. My summer “gardening” practice consists of mowing the lawn when it gets messy-looking, maybe getting out the weed-whacker, pulling some weeds in a haphazard fashion, deadheading- because I find I can’t help myself once I’m wandering in the garden-and generally enjoying the flowers, the bees, and the shade. Once that’s done I head back in to knit.
However, to give myself a certain amount of credit, I can look back with pride and wonder that when we bought this house the backyard was a blank slate. There was grass, a lilac tree, a chestnut tree, some raspberries, some peonies and that’s about it. It was a typical yard with all the grass in the middle and the plants (such as they were) at the back. Through the years I gradually got rid of most of the grass, creating a flower bed here, a path there, another bed in the middle where there was more sun, planted a cedar hedge (with lots of help from Dave) and a Japanese willow (a gift from a colleague) and absolutely transformed the garden. I must have had a before picture but it’s lost now, so I can’t prove all this, but I swear it’s true! So, I give myself a pat on the back for creating a garden that now almost looks after itself. It’s full of perennials that come back every year, some of whom have a tendency to encroach on their neighbours, but with a bit of effort I can keep them in check. Of course, there’s a lot more I could do, but the inspiration isn’t there anymore; I guess I’ve lost my gardening mojo. It’s the seasons that keep nudging me to act. Now it’s fall, and even the laziest gardener knows they can’t just ignore the garden until winter hits, it’s the second busiest time of year.
So, I found myself in the garden today (after much mental cajoling) mowing the lawn, weed-whacking, emptying the annual pots (it’s threatening to frost tonight), bringing in plants I want to over-winter inside, and planting tulip bulbs. As I cleaned up the edges of the beds and deadheaded the perennials (people say the birds eat the seed pods, but I’ve yet to see them do it) I came across a mum I had completely forgotten I’d planted. I guess I pushed it into the ground last fall just before frost because I didn’t want it to go to waste. It’s a bright yellow chrysanthemum and it gave me a jolt of pleasure to see it in all its glory where I didn’t expect it. It’s squished in between the perennial geraniums and the oregano (both very pushy customers) but it’s gamely holding its own. The foliage of the mums is not very spectacular and since I’m such a sporadic gardener, I hadn’t noticed it until it started to bloom. I love that kind of garden surprise. That’s why I plant tulips in the fall. I mostly forget which ones and where I planted them, so it’s always a thrill to see them come up, if the squirrels don’t get them all.
I still have a few hours of gardening to do this fall, cutting down the hostas and the peonies for instance, turning off the water, putting things away etc, etc, but soon the garden will be under a thick layer of snow for another winter and I can stop feeling guilty about all the neglect. Maybe next year I’ll get my mojo back, you never know. Thank you, past Vivian, for doing all that hard work!
Thanks for dropping by and reading my post! If you haven’t already, consider subscribing so you’ll always know when a new one drops.
I love to hear from you!