Last year, during the first pandemic summer, I swore that This Was The Year we wrestled our garden under control. It has been wildly OUT of control pretty much since we moved in here.
I thought, FINALLY, we have time! We can putter and weed and water and divide and plan! And guess what, it didn’t happen. I realized that if it doesn’t happen during a pandemic when we do little but stay at home, it will never happen.
Gardening has revealed some deep truths about myself. (I have had ample time to think about this.)
I enjoy visiting the garden centre.
I enjoy container gardening, but only if the squirrels aren’t digging them up. I submit to you, Exhibit A, the little bastards:
I enjoy the fruits of my labour, but I don’t particularly enjoy the labour, especially when it requires me to draw upon my limited reserves of patience (which are always dwindling and depends on the day) e.g. weeding between the cracks of a patio.
I thought, after 22 years of living here, that I would slowly become the type of old lady who enjoys the meditative quality of yard work. Friends, that has never happened, nor do I think that it will ever happen.
Hostas are the perfect plant for someone like me. They are low-maintenance, don’t spread out of control, and are gorgeous. You buy a hosta, dig a hole, plunk it in, fill it back, and that’s it. I have a bit of a collection going on. I can’t seem to get enough of them.
I divided one of Mary’s hostas recently and brought it home. It’s my one gardening project this weekend (besides weeding everything in sight. Ugh. I’m tired just thinking about it.). The leaves are gorgeous. It is like a green green sculpture.
I found a place for it in the back yard that had a lot of lungwort, a patch hasn’t been doing well since our big lilac died way back. I was going to dig it up and toss it into the compost bin but I thought better of it and offered it to my local Buy Nothing group on Facebook instead. I gave it away to three people, which I am so happy about.
Everyone was very nice, and the last woman who came to pick it up today was so very grateful. She lives nearby, and is redoing her garden. Our lungwort will be a big part of it, which is kind of cool.
Maybe sharing plants is another thing I like about gardening! Perhaps I should host a hosta swap. Hmm.
