central-NY
But here experience speaks: never be too far away from man or machine until the sweep of the last [Bobcat] blade, for those who have watched these men at work will know about the amazing interpretations of a plan that can occur.
It is one of the peculiarities of garden-making, the greatest of all the arts, that there are no "great" gardens made by welfare recipients …
I had to remember that I was only the referee, the human being who weeded and pinched back and watched everything grow. If I was patient and paid close attention, perennials would let me know where they wanted to be.
I'm always pleased when the garden is neat and tidy. That's when it looks like a garden. Nature is plants and the complicated ecosystems that support them. But even the most natural of gardens is an unnatural arrangement of plants. We stamp our will upon the landscape, even those of us who prefer to work with nature. And often, like this weekend, nature stamps back. Maybe it's that dramatic tension between artfulness and chaos that keeps us coming back to the garden. Or maybe it's just the flowers and blue skies and finding two little snakes under a rock.
You always carry the memory of your garden in your heart. No matter where on earth you are . . . some mysterious tie will always bind you to your very own patch of soil.
If tending a garden has meant coming under the yoke of the seasons, my capitulation is complete; it is a willed captivity, however, perhaps like any other kind of passion.
Watering, though apparently easy, is difficult to do properly. Ensuring the roots are neither drying nor drowning is an underappreciated art.
Every spring offers another chance to undo the damage done by winter and finally get the garden right.
I could not do without a Syringa [mockorange], for the sake of Cowper's Line.
It will never rain roses. When we want to have more roses, we must plant more.
And though one has begun to search for signs of spring almost since January, and to receive them, like postcards sent on a long voyage to home, it is with the greening of the grass that spring has, finally, certainly arrived.
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.
Snowdrops provide the intermezzo between winter and spring.
