Remember that first week back to school when the teacher asked the class to write about what we did on our summer vacation? Did we learn anything new? Anything interesting? Were we able to use anything we learned last semester? Did we even remember anything from last semester? Anything? Hello? Is anyone in there?
It’s tough to get through to minds that were still on hold from the two-month school moratorium. So the response to this request was usually met with that deer-in-the-headlights stare from most kids, while others just nervously fidgeted in newly assigned seats. All, however, grumbled that summer vacation was just that: Vacation. There were no instructions from teachers last spring that we had to continue learning once we closed our books and left the building. Golly, that would have been bad enough, but now they expected us to have (heaven forbid) actually used something we learned last term? Summer was a vegging out time when kids shifted learning gears into neutral and coasted till Labor Day. It was a time to chill out. Kick back. Goof off and enjoy.
That, however, was long before gardening became such an intrinsic part of my life. Before I realized that learning of any kind never stop and for a gardener it’s a foregone, natural conclusion to each season. With oceans of information to absorb, and circumstances constantly changing which warrant new answers and new tactics, there exists not one gardener who ends a season having not acquired at least one new-found hint, trick, tip, anecdote or lesson. Newly acquired knowledge is even more memorable and celebrated when it emanates from our own ingenuity. The sweetness of those personal victories increases our enthusiastic eagerness to pass them on to anyone who asks. And sometimes, even if they don’t.
Like, for instance, the unsuspecting customer, innocently purchasing a bag of seed starter at the nursery. Never imagining she’d be corralled in the checkout line by the aforementioned enthusiastic gardener, who spied the bag of seed starter in her cart and relentlessly volunteered seed starting temperatures, light requirements, hardening off processes, etc., while the victim…er…. other customer nodded and smiled politely, while her eyes darted desperately for the nearest exit. When the merciful clerk finally rang up her purchase, in her haste as she frantically fled the store, she left her change and receipt on the counter. Not like I’ve ever harassed anyone like that. Not like I was the one who ran into the parking lot to give the change and receipt back to the woman. (Who was by then jogging, quite briskly, to her car.) Gee. I forgot to tell her about using some cornmeal on the surface of the seed mixture if it starts to mold and…. Oh well, for every one I scare away, there’s two or three other total strangers who’ll willingly spend an hour swapping tales and experiences from their gardens.
That exchange of information and support between gardeners is as much a natural cycle as the change of seasons and the aging of compost. I view the entire process as a form of sustainable education: We learn through our own experience. We share that with others. We learn from them, which enables us to continue our own education and gain more experience to share and…so it goes. We are at once fonts of knowledge and at the same time, woefully deprived of answers. We are enigmas wrapped up in cabbage leaves constantly riding that gardener’s learning curve like an endless roller coaster in perpetual loops. Always something new around the next bend. At times we just have to hold onto the wheelbarrow’s handle and ride it out. While another dip demands we raise our hands in the air and scream our excitement. This season was no exception in my on-going education from other gardeners as well as an equal amount of serendipitous discoveries and some minor victories attributed to my own ingenuity. If I do say so myself.
Having waded halfway into a flowerbed on one of the many 90+degree days this summer, I discovered several runaway mandevilla vines loaded with blooms had escaped their support and were invading one of my climbing roses and several cleomes. Straddling two stepping stones as acrobatically as possible, I realized the futility of twisting them up and around the supportive obelisk without some kind of ties or twine. Vines of any kind, as you know, have minds of their own. No matter how you try retraining them, they’ll recoil like rebellious slinkies unless you can properly secure them. The twine, however, lay fifteen feet away on the front porch. My trusty under-gardener husband was nowhere within earshot, and I couldn’t drop them or even lay them down because I’d already bent and uncoiled the vines in opposing directions. Just as creasing a piece of paper and bending it back makes it easier to tear, the vines might snap or at least the plant fibers would be damaged and eventually the stems, most likely, would wither and lose those beautiful hot pink trumpets. I'd impatiently waited over a month for this thing produce even one single blossom, and now there were at least a dozen opened or in bud. What’s more, the hummingbird was as gratified to see these flowers as I because he and Mrs. H. were now making routine stops each morning and late afternoon for a sip. Clutching the vines in my arms, sweat dripping in my eyes, I suddenly felt something brush my leg. Oh, shoot! Not another run in with that baby skunk. (A tale for another day.) Mercifully, it was merely a blade of miscanthus grass. Miscanthus grass? (**Light-bulb moment**) My beautiful, six-foot tall and nearly as wide miscanthus grass. Sure? Why not? It’s long, it’s stringy, it’s a lot stronger than one might think, yet soft enough not to cut the vine and…it blends in. Resting the vines on my shoulder, I squated and yanked out one blade at a time, gently slid each vine off my shoulder and twisting it around the obelisk, secured it with a figure eight knot of grass; its sticky rough surface preventing any slipping. Remember that scene in Rocky after he charged up the steps? His raised-arm victory dance? Pressed for space to perform a proper victory dance, I just shifted my weight from stone to stone, raised my arms and gave that breathy, low scream to simulate a cheering crowd. You’d think I invented the wheel. But, I think most gardeners react similarly when with only their wits to rely upon, they come up with really cool solutions. This was a relatively minor victory, yet I'd use strands of grass for other emergencies later in the month. Big or small – a victory is still a victory.
Along with my great grass discovery (a phrase which held an entirely different meaning about 30 years ago) there’s a few other tips I think bear repeating.
•Pass & Pick - Always pick that weed when you see it. If you tell yourself you’ll pick it later, nine times out of ten, you’ll forget, till the next time you notice it, it’s the size of a small Buick. Pull it immediately, even if you have to temporarily toss it to the ground. Even if you are headed out the door in your white blouse, white slacks, brand new white, open-toed shoes and on your way to visit the relatives and Cousin Marabelle, who will surely notice even the slightest speck of dirt, will also be there. (You know folks like ole Marabelle. The only person who will also point out the duct tape you used on the inside hem of your slacks because you didn’t have time to sew it.)
•Deadhead & Drop. - As you deadhead, toss the spent flower’s seed heads right at the feet of that specific plant. They’ll disappear under the foliage. You were only going to compost them anyway and this way, if you don't have time later, you won't have to fret not gathering and saving the seed. Many hardier plants will weather the frosts and freezes to germinate the following season. In fact, many perennials require that period of stratification or cold storage to do so. Now those “Lady In Red” salvias, “Medallion” Melampodiums, hollyhocks and hyssops will come up in roughly the same spot next year. Give or take the design concepts of the resident rodents.
•Plant-Shopping Strategies - (1)Do not fool yourself into thinking you’ll only be stopping at the nursery for a moment on your way home from the supermarket. Melted Cookie Dough ice cream tends to leave leather seats a tad sticky no matter how much you clean them. Trust me.
(2)If you promised your significant other that “These are the very, very, very last plant purchases, honey! Honest!”, then after removing the next inevitable dozen hauls from the car, plunge the pots and paks immediately amongst established plantings or lump them together with other potted purchases that have already cleared previous inventory checks. This way (nudge, nudge) no one will be the wiser (wink, wink), and you’ll be lauded as a proficient plant genius for successfully propagating so many other plants from the meager few you purchased at the beginning of the season. Remember, plants are at stake here. This is no time for a guilt trip.
In the months to come, after I’ve stored my half-moon edger for the winter, packed away the fish emulsion, washed all my garden gloves and put the garden to bed for the season, I just hope no one pulls a pop quiz at that time and asks for a report on my summer’s activities. I can’t say my dog, Brownie, ate my homework. I have cats now. Besides, by then, I’ll be delighting in the crisp, brilliant autumn, along with corduroy and sweaters, makeup that won’t melt and hair that doesn’t droop the moment I step out the door. By then I’ll be looking forward to a snowy, snuggly winter when I can, literally, chill out, kick back, goof off and enjoy that time of the year. By then this gardener’s brain will be shifting into neutral and coasting. At least till the catalogs start arriving.
LINDA
Copyright©Linda M. Frank 2005 All Rights Reserved