Remember the anticipation of Back to School? New binder, new lunchbox, new shoes, a handful of newly sharpened pencils that smell “smart”… All the good feelings about a new school year came to a screeching halt with the inevitable assignment, “Write about what you did this summer.”
Blank.
What did I do this summer?
My writing coach put the question differently: “What did you learn this summer?” That I can write about. What has this summer taught me?
Madeleine L’Engle offered this advice: It’s useless trying to do two major, creative acts at once. When she was pregnant, she was unable to produce anything publishable in her writing. She was creating a baby; that was enough. While I’m sure she wrote something, she couldn’t focus on anything that could be offered to the public. And she knew producing a baby was very worthy work.
No, I was not pregnant this summer, at least not with a baby. I was pregnant with a garden, and this summer has taught me, above everything else, that I can’t do very many things well, all at the same time. I can’t do them even C-level all at the same time.
Beginning in April or May, (I can’t remember, exactly) we began our Garden Overhaul. We cleaned out beds all the way down to bare dirt. I potted up perennials, warehoused them for later, and when all the cleaning out was done, planted them back in new places. I added in new “neighbors” I had raised from seed or bought from the nursery. After many years of scrimping on the garden budget, I let myself splurge on plants I’d always wanted: coreopsis, verbena, new rosemary and lavender. The verbena has been a happy summer-long success: purple fireworks of tiny blooms that mingle with neighboring foliage in surprising ways.
Borage, that invasive, floppy herb whose blue-star flowers are edible, was about to land in the compost heap, but after a morning spent watching house finches gorge themselves on its seeds, I decided it’s a keeper. Beauty isn’t everything.
I discovered dill and cilantro have lovely, magical flowers that give bouquets a faery quality. They tend to be floppy too, so stakes are required.
My biggest, most expensive lesson was this. I spent $250 on hanging baskets, and in one short month proceeded to almost kill $150-worth of Million Bells, by trying to force them to thrive in partial shade. They need sun; that’s their nature, and my decorative wishes can't change that. Three baskets that came to my shady porch in full glory slowly lost their bloom, and one basket became positively awful to look at. What to do?
When you make a Gardening Mistake (or any other kind of mistake), you can dismiss your fallibility and move on, or receive the lesson of your fallibility and try to Redeem the Mess. Since my baskets were already half dead, I decided to at least attempt rehabilitation, and maybe learn something in the process. Back to the nursery: admit and describe my “sin;” repent of my willfulness; ask what to do to revive my victims; go home and try the remedy.
Root Rot: the result of too much water and not enough sunshine. Surgery: unpot the whole mess, hack off the bottom third of slimy roots, repot in fresh soil. Rehab: place the patient in full sun, fertilize a bit, water reasonably, hope, and pray.
It worked! These resilient little flowers want to live and bloom; all they needed was for me to give them what is essential. To them. Not to my ideas of what they should require. Ouch. He who has ears…
There have been successes this summer, and a gift: Patience. I sowed perennial coreopsis and Shasta daisy seeds, and after what seemed like a very long, green-only June and July, I now have a happy gold and sparkling-white August. Waiting is worth it. These newcomers will be ready to bloom earlier next year, and the next. Scarlet Runner Beans have yielded brilliant blooms and hungry hummingbirds, and provide a dramatic, ten-foot obelisk of exuberant leaves and curious tendrils. Sunflowers speak for themselves; I won’t bother.
Some acquired wisdom: Zucchini should be regarded as lovely, space-filling ornamentals, rather than vegetables; four rows of green beans is three rows too many, unless you enjoy giving away the fruit of your water bill, which I do, so there; tomatoes need LOTS of space, and sun; a plethora of zinnias and cosmos is always a good idea — neighbors and passers-by will gladly accept free bouquets offered at the curb.
What else?
Hose timers are worth the money. Forgetfulness is an expensive part of old age.
Enjoy the process, but also take time to sit and enjoy the product. Morning in the garden, alone, is the time to “see with, not through, the eye,” and to begin to understand what growth is, not just what it does.
Garden chores are best done in morning’s Cool, not in afternoon’s Hot. That said, what used to be morning Writing Time may now be Weeding Time, and that’s okay for now. Take notes to use later. Memory will serve.
Compost, spread over garden beds, really does keep weeds down, especially when aided by Preen. (I’ll let you connect the metaphorical dots and glean the message here.)
Johannes Kepler, the great astronomer, saw his science as “thinking God’’s thoughts after Him.” Gardening, the very first employment of man’s energy, is the work of discovering some of God’s thoughts, and nurturing them to flower or fruit. It is a privilege to be invited into that work, and be formed by that work.
Finally, don’t let the exhaustion of August override the hope of next spring. The decision to Try Again This Year should be made after winter’s rest.
So what did this summer teach me? Instead of beating myself up for inconsistency in writing and posting, I accept this interval as a reservoir-filling season: not unproductive, but an invisible, necessary part of the process.
And that, my friends, is my report on what I did this summer, and the reason there’s been nothing in this space since April.
Stay tuned. Once the garden beds are tucked in, the writing season will resume.
All that garden work is surely a boon to bad bones.
I’m so inspired I think I can cheerfully go out and weed. Thank you. Such beautiful word pictures. And I have had the privilege of basking in this beauty. Pure joy.