My garden is my opus, my ongoing creation, and the balm of my soul.
The previous owner of our house did not like plants, and she ripped out the extensive long-established perennial garden that surrounded the house; rhododendrons, azaleas, lavender, hostas, astilbe, rare woody peonies, regular peonies, ferns, columbine, etc etc etc. When we first moved in and initially met each of our neighbours over the first few weeks, each of them recounted the trauma that incident caused the entire neighbourhood. Apparently our house used to have the nicest garden on the block.
When we moved in, there were large formal-garden-bed-shaped areas that were nothing but weeds. Big beefy, mean looking weeds that looked like they had been growing there unchecked for several years. The former owner liked the weeds better than the perennials I guess, because she didn't bother ripping those out. In one of the garden beds they had replaced the perennials by at least a ton of white quartz gravel (literally, it was around a ton). It had gone all green and dirty and looked hideous, and each of our neighbours also recounted the trauma of the day when the white gravel was put in.
The first year we were in the house, I discovered the remains of old free-standing rock walls that had been built around the gardens many years before...the rocks had sunk into the earth and had become nearly all buried, except for the odd rock showing some of itself above the surface. I laboriously dug up two tons of these rocks, and ordered three tons more of matching rock from a local company. Then I recreated the free-standing rock walls around the garden beds. But first, to lay a proper foundation for the walls, I dug a trench and filled it with compacted gravel...that hideous white gravel that we had to remove piece-by-fucking-piece from the old garden bed. I am good at making rock walls. I enjoy the process of working out how to lay the rocks just so, patiently finding the perfect place for each rock. The neighbours stopped by, and rejoiced in the removal of the white gravel, and in the recreation of the rock walls that had been there before even most of them had moved to the neighbourhood (most of our neighbours have lived here for 20 to 30 years).
Then began the process of making a garden within those rock-walled beds. I had to bust sod last year, because the weeds had been growing for so long it truly had turned into sod. I composted all the sod in a huge pile that I turned each month last year, and now has made beautiful compost I am using this year.
While busting the sod, I found each shovel full of dirt contained around a dozen fat white grubs. I don't like using too many chemicals on my lawn and garden, but last year I used so many bags of GrubEx that I lost count. This year I have found a total of two white grubs on our property, but lots of earthworms (which makes me happy....I was worried all the GrubEx would kill off the earthworms).
All of the garden beds were extremely root bound, and some were infested with poison ivy. I broke a supposedly unbreakable pickaxe trying to remove all the interwoven roots. The poison ivy was stubborn, but I was more stubborn...it is finally all gone.
Last year I planted a few plants...hostas, ferns, and astilbe in the area formerly covered by the white rocks. I also planted three raspberry bushes, a blueberry plant, and rhubarb. I want my daughters to have the experience of going out on a hot summer's day and stuffing themselves with the delicious bounty of a garden. I planted a couple of perennials like a buddelia bush, some baby rhododenrons and azaleas, coreopsis and rudbeckia and cinnamon pinks (which always remind me of my grandmother's garden), but not much more, because the season was getting late. I fertilized all the evergreens, which were looking yellow and sick and neglected. I drastically pruned back and shaped the 12' tall "shrubs" that were on the property. We removed three big dead trees and planted a weeping cherry to replace one of them. I also planted a perennial herb garden.
And now we come to this year....this year I removed two of the ugliest most mis-shapen shrubs and planted fragrant viburnum and mock orange in their place. I planted peonies, a blackberry bush, pyrhus, echinacia, daisies, flowering almond, lilies, ornamental flowering grasses, sweet william, more rhubarb, dhalias, lavender, sea thrift, and a lilac bush (to mention but a few). I put wire cages around some of the plants, which I made myself, to protect them from the appetites of the rabbits. The evergreens this year look healthy and vibrant, and the drastically pruned shrubs (which are now 6' tall instead of 12' tall) also look great, with a dense covering of leaves, and crowns with beautifully rounded habits.
I bought 4 cubic yards of mulch and have mulched all the beds. They look fantastic. The neighbours stop by to admire the new gardens. I don't know if they resemble the old ones, but in some ways I don't care. This is my garden.
Last year I fanicfully painted a few ornate birdhouses and attached them to the trees for decoration in the garden. Much to my surprise, the birds used them. This year I will paint a few more. Also, this spring my daughter found a big bumblebee inside our house during a spring freeze. We kept Flippy the Bee in jar while we waited for the weather to warm up and fed her honey, water, and bee pollen. We read voraciously on the subject of bumblebees and discovered that she was almost certainly a queen (we read that pretty much all big fat bumblebees you find in early spring are queens). We found the plans for a bumblebee nesting box on the internet, and made one, which is now also fancifully painted and adorning our garden. We plan to make another one.
The former gardener for the house from 30 years back (who had planted the rare woody peonies that apparently the then-owner had imported from Japan) stopped by one day and told me he was so happy to see someone trying to recreate the gardens that were lost.
From my bed in the morning I can look out the window onto the main garden and rest my eyes upon it, and the huge gnarled magnolia that presides over part of it. I can watch the birds bathe in the stone birdbath that I found half buried last year in mud at the back of our property, and watch the cardinals mating in the tree outside the window, starting the process of creating new baby cardinals to bless my garden in the years to come.
The only thing my garden needs now is sunshine, water, and many happy years to grow. And maybe a Buddha and a bench. I have been studying Buddhism for a few years now, and would like a Buddha in my garden. At what point do you become a Buddhist if you study the philosophy and try to live by it faithfully (with the notable exception of the GrubEx incidents)...I wonder. Am I a Buddhist? I want to achieve that goal, but I don't know when the journey towards becoming a Buddhist ends (or indeed if it ever does, even for people who claim to be Buddhists).
My garden is my opus, my ongoing creation, and the balm of my soul.
