A recent post, available here, was devoted to the joys and comforts of housekeeping. A followup is in order, this time on the subject of gardening, a dialect of housekeeping that dwells in its own separate bailiwick.
A disclaimer: I’m a neophyte gardener, having taken up the pursuit only upon buying my home out here in Far Outerburbia in the San Francisco Bay Delta region where there’s room to have lawns and gardens. Upon taking possession of my house I also took possession of an assortment of trees, shrubs, and plants. Some, such as the magisterial Arizona ash tree in the front yard, were thriving. Others, such as a spindly and prickly hawthorne bush by the back yard gate, were scrawny and unappealing. It wasn’t quite a blank canvas, but it was miles from being the verdant sanctuary I envisioned. I would need time and practice. Five years later that refuge exists, still very much a work in progress, but a worthy and inspiring space.
More often than not the plants themselves were my best teachers. That is especially true of the roses, of which there were about an even dozen in three locations throughout the backyard: five by the side fence, two along the deck railing, and the remainder lined up along the back of the house. None were in all that great of condition but at the time I didn’t know that. I just knew that I had mature roses and that I was very happy about that. I read up a bit and learned about deadheading, i.e., trimming off the spent blossoms so the plant won’t expend needless energy on making seeds. I was ever-so cautious at first: cutting the plant seemed invasive, wrong somehow. I flashed on images of Morticia Addams cutting off blossoms, leaving bare sticks. But I knew it had to be done, so I did it.
I also figured that the previous owners may not have fertilized the roses, and I knew for sure that plants need those salts and minerals and such. So I got rose fertilizer and applied it, and within a few weeks I began seeing a response. Aha, I thought: it’s called “rose food” for a reason. Those poor babies were hungry.
In the late fall I began to notice black spots on the rose leaves. That can’t be right, I thought, especially given the way those black-spot leaves soon yellowed and dropped off. Me being me, I looked it up and quickly discovered that black spot fungus is a serious affliction. I researched remedies. I learned that you must snip off the afflicted leaves once they’ve got the black spot fungus, but the best cure is prevention: make sure they don’t get it in the first place. Check and double-check; by my second season I had banished it from the garden via application of Bayer 3-in-1, a miraculous concoction that not only demolishes black spot fungus, white powder mildew, rose leaf rust, and a host of other afflictions, but that also slaughters mites, aphids, and a veritable army of other pests. Oh, it’s not organic gardening. But it works, dammit.
Another thing to learn was about garden locations and climate. My home town Brentwood is blessed with abundant sunshine and big beautiful blue skies. The summertime heat can be blistering. I discovered that you cannot under any circumstances leave a pot of impatiens out in the summer sun. It’s like putting them in the microwave. I researched and found out about sun and shade and everything in between. Aha, I thought: I began putting impatiens under the shade trees in the back yard, where they flourished.
A now-departed gardenia taught me more about soil chemistry than I ever really wanted to learn. Gardenias demand acidic soil, and that gardenia’s big planter with a neutral 7.0 pH balance of good ol’ Miracle Grow just wasn’t going to cut it. So I added aluminum sulfate and chelated iron, which helped, but things really were never right. Quite the diva, that gardenia. Eventually I did away with it, but not after gratefully acknowledging the lessons it had imparted on the subject of pH balance. As a result, the camellia on my front porch—another plant that prefers more acidic soil—flourishes magnificently. (It’s also more pragmatic than hysterical, which helps.)
We practice, we learn, and as we grow our garden flourishes right along with us. I’m a lot better with roses and temperature and sunlight and soil pH now, and I’m way better about preventative spraying and feeding and insect management and weeding and pruning and all of that. I’ve become partial to books on gardening with their cheerful tips and insider tricks. I’ve realized that I totally dig roses while I’m kinda ‘meh’ on celosia. That dahlias are lovable, carnations are loyal, and that New Guinea impatiens and sunpatiens are not only gorgeous but aren’t quite so picky about being in the shade. That star jasmine is a marvelous thing to have climbing all over one’s back fence, and that cape honeysuckles can grow to almost unmanageable size but are otherwise invincible.
Almost nothing in this world pleases me more than to put on my straw gardening hat, collect my bucket and tools, and putter around in the back yard garden, pulling little weedy sprouts (mostly from the sentinel ficus trees) and seeing to each plant in turn. Trimming and tucking, futzing and putzing, savoring the bursts of color that pop throughout the dappled sunlight. It’s centering and calming and appealing. To watch my rose bushes thrive—Bubba the grandiflora with his enormous blooms, Leonard the bliss rose with his white-pink short-lived blooms and intoxicating scent, Bombazilla the volcanically productive peace rose with her retinue of trailing courtiers along the fence, miniatures Goldie and Finnegan on the deck, newbies Cynthia (climber) and Queenie (Queen of Elegance floribunda)—engenders a kind of paternal pride as they push out fat new leaves and unfold fragrant blooms.
Plants have a lot to teach us. Consider the unassuming little bougainvillea that I bought from a local big-box store’s garden center. It was all of two feet high with only two skinny viney-branches extending upwards. Like so many plants in those stores, it had been tortured into producing a bounty of bright magenta bracts and tiny white flowers, far more than would be normal for that tender young age. Having rescued it from garden-store hell, I gifted it with a fine big pot, trellis within handy reach, along the side fence. During the first summer it tiptoed along, oh-so tentative, then over the winter went into full proper hibernation, just barren tan-colored vines with hypodermic-sharp thorns. But then came the spring: new leaves emerged from the hypnosis within, and that little bougainvillea woke up a new plant, reinvigorated and recovered from its ordeal in captivity. It has been growing like the near-weed it is, throwing out new vines, bracts, and flowers with joyous abandon. It has a good ways to go before it becomes the eye-popping wall of color that is its destiny, but we’re well on the way. A little time, a little patience, a roomy pot with good soil, light, and regular watering: it’s a happy organism now, just as home in its pot-with-lattice along the fence as I am here in the house.
Bougie the Bougainvillea says: Renewal is just as inherent to the life cycle as is impermanence and decay; the seasons spin along, and barrenness gives way to bounty.
Bougie the Bougainvillea: still young, but happy and thriving