"The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color."
―Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting
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Not sure who said that "August is the Sunday of the Summer " but it defines perfectly how I feel about the ticking clock of a month that tumbles us into the real world of fall. Amidst the downward hurtle of the summer roller coaster I feel like there is so much to do! Totally counter-intuitive to what summer is supposed to be about but I am chasing in circles to catch up, to find time, to have some summer! Oh and then there are the weeds! Everywhere! In my gardens, along the walkways and yes...in my life. I am working to find a good balance with these weeds. Yanking can be satisfying but not when you come back out a half hour later to see "they're baaaackk!"
The Gardens at Camp MP and I are not seeing eye to eye this summer. It seems as if no amount of time, sweat, energy, scratches, bug bites, thorns ,money or mulch will make my gardens grow without intrusion.
Now, I don't believe in garden perfection--sort of unnatural I think to have every petal smile and every plant and shrub stand tall and upright--would be nice however. But I would like to see hundreds of hours of care and attention show a little--OK a lot!
After a rainy but hopeful spring where everything popped up magnificently, my hopes for a summer in bloom has been thwarted. The peonies were MIA this year but the roses came in gloriously and then left as quickly as they could. Lavender is rather sad along the walkways and bed upon bed in the gardens at Camp MP have grown in leggy and floppy and there is an insidious vine that wants to strangle the joy out each and every resident, and like a bad movie every tug brings it back stronger.
Every gardener knows there will be weeds, and crazy vines, and bugs that chomp... and sadly there will be plants whose time in the garden is done...
...but our payoff for all the work and disappointment is always a garden in bloom!
"Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower."
-Hans Christian Anderson
For the gardens at Camp MP so far this season,however, those blooms have yet to make their presence known. My work-worn, not so well manicured, beds have no presence, no grace, no color and hold for this gardener nothing but frustration. I want a summer's beauty.
I pour over images of gracious gardens and fuss and fret.
The hydrangeas are trying so hard for me -perhaps I am a spoiled hydrangea hostess, but I have grown not only accustomed, but also expectant that summer and hydrangeas would go hand in hand--like flip flops by the back door and the top down on the convertible.
Oh and then there are these kids...my lawn and containers have become the Whole Foods of the neighborhood. I love having them greet me as I pull into the drive each night and it is nice that they have selected my gardens to make their home...but-they don't listen!!! and their behavior this year is not playing by the rules of the house. Every inch of lawn is chomped on and every flower has been beheaded. Come on kids learn some garden etiquette!
As always my gardens teach me something, but only if I stop fussing long enough to listen to them. In the garden, as in my life, sometimes hard work is just hard work. We have come to demand a gift, a result, a reward for our work...sometimes life and the garden say-not this round. A garden is a process, a never ending chore that calls to me each day. I can clip, and dig, and yank, and tug, and prune, and water, and care with all my heart, but nature will decide how many hydrangeas will bloom, how many weeds and vines will push their greedy way through, and how many days of rain and sun are in the forecast. Deal with it! and find the joy in that one lone hydrangea head that appears beneath the leaves-treasure it and don't be a greedy gardener for as Pooh said...
As always my gardens teach me something, but only if I stop fussing long enough to listen to them. In the garden, as in my life, sometimes hard work is just hard work. We have come to demand a gift, a result, a reward for our work...sometimes life and the garden say-not this round. A garden is a process, a never ending chore that calls to me each day. I can clip, and dig, and yank, and tug, and prune, and water, and care with all my heart, but nature will decide how many hydrangeas will bloom, how many weeds and vines will push their greedy way through, and how many days of rain and sun are in the forecast. Deal with it! and find the joy in that one lone hydrangea head that appears beneath the leaves-treasure it and don't be a greedy gardener for as Pooh said...
"Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them"
-Winnie-the Pooh
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