There’s an old saying that goes, “Everything in the garden should have been done years ago.”
But gardening is an exercise in hope. There’s always something to look forward to — it can be cleaned up, repaired, altered in some way to make it better.
Rather like life or really any creative endeavour, a garden is never finished and a true gardener is never satisfied. There’s always something you can do to improve it.
February — the snow swirls past the window as the mailman leaves something in your mailbox. It’s one of those fancy gardening catalogues, addressed to your neighbour. You promise yourself you’ll give it to her when next you see her, but just for fun, you have a quick look through the pages.
For years, you’ve admired her garden from afar, but for the first time, you wonder if, just maybe, you could have a lovely garden too, and you dream about what you might do with your own yard.
A garden begins as a blank canvas for the imagination. When you start out, you haven’t the first clue what you want to grow nor how to grow it, and you don’t have the faintest idea what are the requirements of the living beings for whom you’ll find yourself responsible.
How much water do they need? Do you have to feed them? What do you feed them? What skills do you have to learn in order to keep your plants happy? How can you help them to grow bigger, stronger, produce more flowers and fruits?
But now you’re serious about gardening, so you go out and find books on the subject, you Google “How to grow begonias,” and you ask all those friends whose gardens you gazed upon with envy. Finally, when you’ve acquired the merest smattering of knowledge, most of it wrong or out of context, you gird your loins and begin.
As with any project, you’ll start with the basics. Your garden could consist of a single clay pot, or it could be the complete overhaul of a massive acreage, but the questions are the same, simply a matter of scale.
A pot is easy. Buy some good potting soil and stick in some seeds. Water, stand back and hope. A garden, though, is just a wee bit more complex.
First, you need to landscape the space, building paths and features to make sure the traffic flow is easy and natural. Perhaps you’ll want a pond or other water feature, or the odd sculpture as focal points. You’ll need to dig flowerbeds and mix in manure and leaf mould so the plants have something to feed on. A water source, lighting — should you have fencing, underground sprinklers? And tools! A shovel at the very least. Fertilizer! You start a list which daily, grows like all the weeds you’ll vanquish with ruthless efficiency.
Then, you must decide which plants you want and where they should go. Once again, pots are easy. You can move them if they need sunlight or shade. Beds take a bit more thought. You can’t put shade plants in blistering hot sunlight. They’ll die and no-one wants to be a plant murderer. Maybe you need to plant trees (here’s where the “everything should have been done years ago” rule kicks in,) so there’s shade for the plants that need it.
Finally, you’ve got the beds done, the paths laid out and your baby trees planted. It’s time to plant your flowers. Or perhaps you want to have a vegetable garden. The questions bubble up again — do you plant seeds or transplant seedlings? Is my soil okay or do I need to give it more tilth and what the hell is tilth, anyway?
Finally, May 24th long weekend comes — the weekend that, in our Canadian climate, dictates it’s safe to plant outside. Frost-free for several months, long enough for most plants to flower and fruit over the summer, and most importantly, the weekend when all the garden centres have acres of beautiful plants to choose from.
Full of false confidence, you arm yourself with half a dozen credit cards and load up the van with the grandkids, the family Labrador and a highly dubious husband or two, and head for the nearest garden emporium.
There, row upon row of brilliant colour greets you. How do you choose? That one is gorgeous — it could be your centrepiece, but its documentation says it needs to be brought inside for the winter. If you don’t have a plan to winter over your stunning tropical choices, it’s best to leave them. But this is your gardening debut, so you decide to chance it, taking the first step towards the poor thing’s murderous end.
You load up your cart with a profusion of colour and scent and make your way to the checkout, chatting with other gardeners about their choices. Someone says they plan to winter their dahlias in their cold room. A cold room? You look at your own gorgeous dahlia and begin to second-guess yourself. Maybe it would be happier with someone else. When you reach the counter, you ask the salesperson, who says that yes, you can plant it in the garden but it won’t survive the winter. Reluctantly, you leave your showstopper on the counter and sadly wave goodbye as you truck the remainder of your purchases out to the car.
The husband and grandkids end up sitting stacked three deep in the front seat. You have far too many plants to fit in the trunk. The backseat and floor have all but disappeared under your treasures. The dog’s on your lap, alternately licking your face and sticking his head out the window, loving this unexpected treat. Slowly, dodging face-licks, you creep homewards, praying you won’t be arrested for dangerous driving.
Home again, the family magically disappears into the woodwork, leaving you to haul everything back to the yard, where you place the plant containers where you thought they should go. You give them all a nice drink with your new hose, wondering if perhaps it all looks a bit thin. Maybe you should pick up a few more specimens.
You return for another carload. Now it’s time to plant.
After two weeks of backbreaking effort you finally have everything settled in. By the time you’ve finished, half of them have wilted, and you’re exhausted. Should have stuck with the single clay pot. But now the hard work's done and you can sit back to enjoy the show.
A sudden cold snap kills off all your tender seedlings. You go back to the garden centre for more. By this time you’re on a first-name basis with all the salespeople and your library of gardening books needs another bookcase.
In mid-June, many of your flowers are beginning to set fat buds of brilliant promise, and by July, the garden is a blaze of colour. You think, oh yes, it was all worth it, and you wander your paths speaking softly to each of your new babies.
By August, most of them are brittle and desiccated, because you forgot to water.
In September, the garden is beginning to look just a tad neglected and in October, your beloved new trees all drop their leaves, leaving your backyard oasis looking distinctly unkempt. The leaves must be raked up, the mulching done and the garden made ready for winter. An early snowstorm blankets the ground and that’s the final straw. The snow melts but you just can’t face working in the cold.
Defeated, you contact a local landscape manager. For a small fee, they’ll come and trim your shrubs and hedges, feed your soil, rake your leaves and prepare your garden for the winter. You might even hire them to care for the whole thing, all next season. Problem solved.
But now it’s February and your gardening catalogues start arriving in the mail.
“Ooh,” you say. “That dahlia’s gorgeous. I wonder how much trouble it would be to put in a cold room."
Bev Hanna is a published author who teaches the craft and techniques of creative writing online and at the local seniors’ centre, Askennonia. Her emphasis is on memoir writing for seniors, with a focus on the psychology of creatives and the alleviation of procrastination and writer's block. Her website is: ScribblersGuild.com.
