My garden forgives me
/I had the best intentions to finish my column for this year with a feature on a special garden.
I even drove out to visit it, but amidst our glass of wine and fast chatter, we lost the light. It was a garden that deserved to be captured in the soft dusk glow, so I’ve made peace that I’ll be revisiting in, hopefully, a sunnier January.
That ‘light’ has now been lost for over a week and is truly buried under the romantic, ankle-deep lake that was formerly my lawn following heavy rain in Canterbury. Romantic was the only word I could come up with as I waded around lifting yet-to-be planted pottles of seedlings off the ground as they threatened to float away in my bow wave.
My thoughts were far from romantic however, as I sighed deeply in guilt that these plants weren’t yet in the ground. They were meant to be in weeks, if not months, ago.
As were the strangled ‘Limelight’ hydrangeas that I bought in the autumn, forlornly looking back at me, still waiting for me to pull out the mountains of Bear Britches that stood between them and the garden.
Still. Not. Done.
‘Lake Linwood’
With house sitters arriving on Wednesday, my guilt has led to fear. Fear that they read this column, or follow me on social media and are about to have their summery visions of a happy, healthy garden not met.
To be fair, good fifty per cent of the garden will satisfy them, with my vege-garden-turned-perennial-palace really coming into its own and the tall tops of my Thalictrum delavayi ‘Hewitt’s Double’ budding into magnificence down the back.
I even feel a little jealous that they will get to see my first echinacea open into bloom.
My vege garden is currently more a perennial palace!
It’s the other half that is grim – unfortunately this is the area viewed out of the living room window. It has been left to do anything it wants, behind the arching lines of bricks which indicate where some larger beds will eventually be formed.
The hiccup was waiting for trees to be removed, and this happened last week. I’m excited to see the light rush into the space, ready to be cultivated and plants to go in. But alas, this won’t be happening until January or even in the cooler autumn now. Currently, it could kind of be viewed as a lush, self-seeded, weed heaven.
Even the deadheading of the Iceberg roses, now a waterlogged mess at the front of the house, has been left too late for my visitors to enjoy some bright new growth.
The tiny strip of planting along the driveway fence has some underfed sweet peas trying do their thing, along with falling down scabiosa and two self-seeded hollyhocks. I’m furious I didn’t top it up with fresh soil and re-plant with finesse as I’d imagined I would last autumn. It appears now as a ‘half garden’, with sporadic planting intermingled by an infestation of fennel seedlings.
Sweet peas
I truly, deeply love my garden and everything it offers me. Even the guilt, in a way, when I simply cannot keep up with the constant trudge forward of the seasons.
Because I know that, despite my delays in doing its work, my garden will forgive me.
It forgave me when I didn’t plant my spring bulbs until July. It forgave me when I hurriedly and roughly dug up huge clumps of dahlias, moving them without dividing into soggy, cold soil in August.
Everything still flowered and survived.
It forgives me when I forget to water the pots, sending wilty warning shots just in time for me to revive them, or when I procrastinate on feeding the eternally fruiting, potted limequat which waves its yellowing leaves in protest.
The Christmas lilly crop did really well this year!
My garden offers me the opportunity to care from something living outside of myself, my husband and my cat. Unlike the mammals that would decline rapidly if I chose to turn my back on them and their survival needs, the garden always seems to say: “Don’t worry, it’s never too late for me”.
I really do marvel at the fact, that with some concentrated time and effort, I can rescue all the areas and specimens that have been neglected. That the vision I have for my special little haven can still be achieved, despite my wobbly efforts and juggling of time.
On advice from a book I read, I have made a habit of wandering out and lying spread-eagled on the lawn just before bedtime. Digging my fingertips into the ground and feeling the weight of my body on the earth. I listen to the rustle of leaves set against distant police sirens and just relax in intense gratitude that I have this place of refuge amid the chaos. How incredibly lucky I am.
I wish you all a wonderful summer period where I hope you too you can do some lawn lying in your own patch, no matter the state of it.
This is an expanded version of the article featured in my Stuff ‘Homed’ gardening column for beginners , The Press, Dominion Post and other regional papers on December 23rd 2021
All words and images are my own, taken in my home and garden in Christchurch, New Zealand unless otherwise captioned.
