January 2007
If winter is slumber and spring is birth, and summer is life, then autumn rounds out to be reflection. It's a time of year when the leaves are down and the harvest is in and the perennials are gone. Mother Earth just closed up the drapes on another year and it's time to reflect on what's come before.
A garden raised from seed is a garden raised in the heart, the gardener growing along with the garden.
Writing and gardening, these two ways of rendering the world in rows, have a great deal in common.
In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.
Watering, though apparently easy, is difficult to do properly. Ensuring the roots are neither drying nor drowning is an underappreciated art.
For the uninitiated, the reality of what it takes to create and maintain a great-looking garden appears to be an endless string of tiresome tasks and dirty jobs. But true gardeners know that the real fun of gardening in in the process--the planning, the planting, the nurturing, and the learning.
He who leaves no stone unturned will have a sore back.
Men with trucks do not see new plantings when reversing or unloading, so trees must wait [to be planted] until all hard landscaping is done.
Watering, though apparently easy, is difficult to do properly. Ensuring the roots are neither drying nor drowning is an underappreciated art.
The two most mysterious aspects of clematis are, How is the word pronounced? and, What is its plural form? Once these questions are answered, growing the plants is plain sailing.
Speaking of extreme environments, garden-making in Greenland is said by gardeners there to require tamaviaartumik, Greenlandic for passion, ambition, and commitment.
Marcescence is the retention of dead plant organs that normally are shed. It is most obvious in deciduous trees that retain leaves through the winter. Several trees normally have marcescent leaves such as oak (Quercus), beech (Fagus) and hornbeam (Carpinus).
Gardening at first felt like a natural pleasure, and then it became a necessary one.
