| September 29
Take the Long View
I have rarely been so disheartened. The loss of Justice Ginsberg, followed by the absolute contempt for process, integrity, balance of power, and the electorate demonstrated by the Republican Senate, has sickened me. Sara says I must take the long view. So when it took Kevin close to an hour to remove an overgrown shrub that should have come out in five minutes, we decided to take Sara’s advice, name the shrub “right wing power grab,” and believe that eventually we can dig it out.
Being out in the garden is for me, of course, the best restorative for my loss of heart. It grounds me in realities bigger than those of humans and restores my sense of joy and hope and balance. Luckily it is September and I am always madly in love with my September garden. In an ordinary year, early September is a perfect time for Sara and me to take a trip to Cape Cod. The crowds are gone but the water is warm and the shops still open. I go, joyfully, as long as we are back home by the second week of the month. Because, just like Lancelot who admits there is no season when he can imagine leaving Guinevere, I don’t want to leave my garden in September any more than I do in May or June or July or even August.
This September, however, has proved more challenging than usual for the fall garden lover. We are dry, dry, dry. I am out early every morning filling up watering cans for the trees and shrubs and hosing the gardens down. I teach a class on “Putting the Garden to Bed: A Fall Adventure.” I tell my participants that, unlike children, plants want to go to bed wet. If that is going to happen this year, it looks like I will have to provide the liquid. Still much of what comprises my September high remains.
Like Monet, I am obsessed with light. My September garden meets and satisfies my obsession. September light is tender. The sun’s lower angle softens all its light touches, bathing the garden in a golden haze, even at midday. The harsh middays of July and August promise a long evening light; the tenderness of September light reconciles me to the shortening days.
Like Matisse, I am mad for color, craving it more and more as the days get shorter and the dark times longer, needing to stuff myself with red and yellow and blue and orange so that I can survive the brown of winter. The September garden satisfies my passion for color. From my chair on the deck, I can see the Crayola-yellow plumes of the Amsonia hubrechtii, backed by the pink Joe-pye, backed in turn by the delicate mauve feathers of the Panicum ‘Northwind,’ partnered by the bruised purple of the dwarf ninebark. Mixed in everywhere are the still-blooming white Phlox ‘David’ and the pink Phlox ‘Robert Poore’ and the aptly named ‘Blue Paradise’ Phlox, survivors of the big brown chewers who for some reason lost interest in eating them in August. They took the long view and are making up for lost time with an explosion of color.
I don’t need chrysanthemums, a plant I have trouble keeping alive or getting to return and have finally given up on even though I love them, when I have the Anemone ‘Robustissima,’ the tall, fall-blooming hybrid that is indeed most robust. It covers itself with cup-shaped pale pink flowers dusted by dark rose shadings and is finished with a ring of yellow stamens. Or when I have the Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ which starts off a rosy pink, deepens to salmon, then to rust, and finally turns a rich brown in an evolution that takes place over many weeks, providing me with another gift of the long view. Or when I have the six foot tall white Joe Pye-weed as well as the lower pinkish purple cultivar (what is it about fall and pinkish purple?). Or when I have the golden sprays of volunteer goldenrods or the shockingly true blue of the low-growing Plumbago for fall color and interest.
I can live without the brash exuberance of the sugar maple I lost a few years ago to girdling roots because I have my Stewartia tree and my Fothergilla and Abelia shrubs to treat me to a riot of orange, red, and yellow fall foliage. The Virginia sweetspire, so magnificent in the late spring with its masses of tiny white, gloriously fragrant flowers that rise and then droop like a fine horse’s tail, turn varying shades of red, orange and gold as well and last and last and last. The Spiraeas create a yellow mist that feels like light trapped inside a leaf. And the Viburnum plicatum ‘Summer Snowflake’ defies the typical understanding of summer and keeps pushing out delicate white flowers until late October.
Most gardeners covet Azaleas for their spring blooms. I covet them for their fall reds, the color of my favorite Pinot. They entice me to end my day with a glass of wine on the patio where I can equally enjoy the just-turning leaves of the Bergenia. Who knew a plant called “pig squeak” could be so beautiful as it turns its fall leaves a lipstick red? (Yes, I did once wear lipstick and it was just this color of bright bright red.) This striking red will persist throughout the winter, will be there in the spring, a bit worse for the wear, ready to give way to new growth.
I adore the blackberry lily, also called the leopard lily because of the delicious spotting on its deep orange blooms. I have planted several of these lilies in my largest perennial garden. This year I left the spent flower stalks up after they finished blooming because I fell in love with their pear-shaped seed pods. It had never occurred to me to ask why this plant was named the ‘blackberry” lily. Helping Kevin last Friday to remove the shrub that had gotten too big for this garden but refused to let go, I noticed that the seed pods of the lily had split open and inside each pod were seed clusters that looked just like blackberries. Kevin suggested that taking the long view was perhaps the best approach after all.
Out in the garden a week or so ago, working in a bed infested by thistles, I felt something prick my finger. Of course, I thought “thistle,” so I drew my finger back. The prick continued, so I drew my finger back even farther. Prick turned into pincers and I began to get a bit panicked, thinking “snake.” I jerked my finger out of the thistle patch, only to discover that I was being grabbed by the pincers of a praying mantis, probably in its last stages of life
I was inexplicably moved by this experience. No doubt the mantis mistakenly took my finger for some kind of prey, but I felt it was clinging to me in order to cling to life. I gently detached it –it had not hurt me in the least–and watched for a few minutes as it moved ever so slowly away from me. For days afterward, I could feel the grasp of that insect on my finger, clinging to me, clinging to life. I’ve taken it for a message: Take the long view. Hold on.
http://www.perennialwisdom.net |