endless_summer

I cannot live without a rose, especially a climbing or rambling rose, for just one truss tumbling in the right spot can be like that last long feather on a hat, a nonchalant sweep that lifts a perfectly acceptable design to another level, a throwaway gesture that means nothing and everything.

There may be a fine line between improving garden flowers and making them ugly.

The secret of success in tidying up the garden is, simply, not to start new projects.

I am aware that I have a genetic tendency towards a garden of nothing but Zinnias -- a combination of frugality, laziness, and weakness in the face of all that flash. . . . Knowing what can happen, I restrained myself around the zinnias and didn't pick a single coneflower head.

This is the essence of gardening. Looking forward, planning ahead, feeling as if you are wresting the garden from the grasp of its fatigue. It seems trite to mention it, but fall bed work bestows an enormous amount of pride and sense of accomplishment. It lifts the blues of a brutal year and fills a long winter with the joys of a new spring.

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.