| August 18
The August Garden
In August Sara and I usually go to the Cape for a week, at least. Then there is the long weekend spent in Cooperstown at Glimmerglass opera, a glut of four in just three days. Sometimes we take another long weekend to visit friends who live elsewhere. Typically, August is a month when it is possible to leave the garden without worry or regret. Indeed, gardening friends and I have often agreed that August is a time when we should leave the garden because nothing is happening and nothing needs to be done.
This August I am, perforce, at home and in my August garden and I have made some discoveries. Even if there comes a day when we can travel again, I may not want to leave the garden in August because a lot is happening but nothing needs to be done.
My August garden proves to be full of life. The hummingbirds are going mad for the last bits of delphinium blossoms. Their economy amazes me for surely they use up more fuel than their snack provides simply getting it. There are butterflies everywhere and the chipmunks scurry across the deck driving the cat to impotent fury. And then there are the flowers.
Since late July I have had a feast of constant color from the yellow Rudbeckia nitida, the red Hibiscus, and the purple and white Echinacea and Joe-Pye-weed. None of these blooms show any sign of quitting. I have, of course, always known that the flowers of August had staying power, that plants that bloom in late summer last longer than the irises or peonies or poppies of spring. This summer I have been able to appreciate what this means. In light of their longevity I am renaming all my spring bloomers “ephemerals.”
August is the perfect month to assess what needs to be done next spring. Nothing is quite so satisfying as going out in the early morning, pad and pencil in hand, and jotting down ideas for the improvement of the gardens, to be done some other time. It is easy to see where another wee Azalea should be planted and which Hostas need dividing, to identify the Potentilla that should be removed so that the Serbian spruce can spread out properly, to acknowledge that planting Miscanthus in the middle of the main perennial bed was a mistake and to make a note to replace it with more Baptisia. Does the Joe-Pye-weed need to go too? Perhaps. But not now.
Indeed, nothing needs to be done now. In April we must wake the garden up, in May and June we must transplant and plant, divide and move. In July we must weed, weed, weed, and in September and October we must begin to take the garden down. In August we don’t have to do anything. It is too early to transplant, and too late to shop for new plants to fill old holes, especially this year. There are no plants left in the nurseries. Since May beginning gardeners have gobbled them up at a ferocious rate. Like all of us more seasoned gardeners when we started out, they want one of everything. None of the local nurseries are having sales this year; they don’t need to.
I weed in a desultory fashion, knowing that the life of these plants is soon to end and so it doesn’t much matter if I get them or not. Besides, there aren’t that many that can find a spot in the lushness of the August garden.It’s a choice, not a chore.
The front lawn needs re-seeding, but that is a mid-September project. For now, I will just compost the bare spots. I could deadhead the Echinacea but why bother. Besides I love the look of the deadheads tumbling in and among the still-blooming heads. The goldfinches love the dead blooms too. They land on them, looking for seed, and bounce around, flinging a bit of their yellow into the purple and white mix. I can see that the Phlox planted around the Harry Lauder ‘Walking Stick’ needs to be divided but that is a job for next spring. In the white garden, I see that there is some pink Phlox in the midst of my mass of David, a changeling that will have to go, just not now.
The August garden presents no pressure. I can work if I want to, but I can also just sit down and rest. I once heard a story about a woman, kept prisoner for years by her political opponents but finally rescued. Her companions in the resistance movement expected that she would immediately begin to seek office again. But, when asked about her plans, she said that God wanted her to rest. I think my August garden wants me to rest.
There is a lounge chair on the deck and a rocking chair on the patio. The deck has an awning and the patio has a shade tree. Or, now that I have removed a nearby wasps’ nest, I can sit on the bench I placed under the yellowwood tree this spring. I had not planned to remove the nest, thinking I could wait until winter. I don’t like killing any creature and besides the nest was beautiful. I thought we could co-habit. But when Ben came to trim the hemlocks and heard about the wasps, he advised me to act quickly, even offered to remove the nest for me. He identified the wasps as aggressive and capable of establishing a huge colony. And so, very early one morning, I donned my wasp-killing outfit, grabbed the spray can, and foamed them down. Sara, waking up and looking out, was sure we had an intruder.
If I sit on the bench under the yellowwood tree, I can see my butterfly bush. It actually attracts butterflies and, watching them swarm, I can see that there are butterflies in the world other than monarchs. Still the monarchs come as well, swooping and swirling and sucking, taking off and coming back, over and over, day after day, bulking up for the flight to Mexico, taking a bit of my garden with them. It’s a gift to watch something else at work.
Note: thanks to all of you who have written to tell me that you too weed your lawn. It has inspired me to keep on with my own weeding. Kevin and I have weeded the front lawn and I am working on the side lawn too. I’ll get to the back eventually, just not now. Today I need to rest. |