A Tourist’s Eye View, Summertime
Several years ago, one of my neighbors commented that ours was a “garden under stress.” No argument here. Nyel and I had already begun to talk about what we were going to do when taking care of this yard got beyond us. I took those neighborly remarks as a wake-up call –an alarm going off! The time had come.
Even so, it took us a while to decide how to proceed. Finally, we hired a crew to saw and cut, clip and chop those shrubs and trees into submission. We are about two-thirds done with that first stage now and things are looking much better. Probably not up to the neighborhood standard, but at least it’s beginning to look like someone cares!
“Before”
“Intentional” is the watch word of the Head Gardener. Rather than start over with some of the out-of-control plants, his suggestion is to trim them in a way that makes the end result look like that was our intention in the first place. Works for us!
Stage Two will be to consider that old Gazebo and our need for a woodshed of some sort. That may be a more difficult issue — time-wise, money-wise, and agreement-wise between us parties of the first part. It’s the gazebo we don’t see eye-to-eye on. Maybe not the woodshed either.
“After”
We have agreed, though, in the interest of our pocketbooks, to leave the flower beds for us to do. When I sit in my rocking chair and think about how I hope it will look in summer, I’m sure I can manage. But… when I look outside at the reality of it all, I despair… And I haven’t talked to Nyel yet about the vegetable garden. Will we or won’t we try again this year?
I console myself with the thought that it’s better to have a garden partly under stress than in the throes of a full-blown nervous breakdown. And that goes for Mary, Mary as well. No wonder she was quite contrary! I know the feeling…
Our garden lady is manic depressive. Seriously, she is, but I love her and so we struggle along looking anywhere from glorious when she’s having a manic year, to looking pathetic when things aren’t going so well. I could look around and hire someone else and have on occasion, but she created our garden and to me it will always be hers. In Ilwaco the standards aren’t all that. The fact that the lawn gets mowed puts us up over many yards. Last year she whipped us into shape. The arrival of Spring will also herald that arrival of what sort of year it will be for her. I wish I still had knees.