| October 27
“the least lonely of the arts”
This past Thursday, we took down the Master Gardener demonstration gardens at the Cornell Cooperative Extension in Voorheesville, NY. I was late getting there, I had to take Sara to a doctor’s appointment.
Arriving at 10 a.m, I rejoiced at the sight of butts in the air and a wagon already filled to the brim with take-down. “We made it,” I breathed to myself. “We kept these gardens alive and functioning even in this terrible time. And we did it together.” I wanted to shout, “You people are amazing,” but I didn’t want to interrupt the scene.
It has indeed been an art in itself to keep these gardens functioning this spring, summer and fall, and those of us able to be out there last Thursday admitted this to each other with a kind of shock. In ordinary years we usually have some 25 gardeners working together on a Thursday morning from mid-April to mid-October, developing and maintaining our 19 gardens.
This year we had plans for a series of classes in our gardens, for several open houses featuring different gardens and different seasons, and for a project that would link visitors to our gardens to other gardens in the Capital District. It all came to a crashing halt in mid-March.
At first, we were not allowed to go to the gardens. By late May we could go, but only two at a time, and only on two days. Finally, that number was increased to ten, but still we had to separate ourselves, some coming on Mondays and some coming on Thursdays. Some of our crew have felt uncomfortable coming at all and some have chafed at the required protocols: masks and social distancing.
This season, a smaller group and forced to be more solitary, we have tossed around the question of whether gardening really is more social than solitary, whether Joe Eck is right when he claims, in Elements of Garden Design, that “gardening is surely the least lonely of the arts.”
All of us spend time alone in our own gardens and find it deeply satisfying. We observe that in an ordinary season some of those caring for a particular garden come out to CCE only when no one else is there. We acknowledge that on occasion we can get upset if someone messes with “our” garden. But we always come back to the fact that what we love most is working together. That is why we show up Thursday mornings when others are there and not Friday afternoons.
When we work together, we talk, and the talk is often about gardens.
“What have you found to be the three best plants for dry shade”
“Are you having trouble with that new viburnum you planted? Try giving it a bit of compost tea. It really helps to get plants established.”
“Did you know there is a dwarf variety of golden rod called ‘Golden Fleece.’ I love it. It adds just the right touch of wildness to my autumn garden. I’ll give you some next year if you are interested.”
“Have you ever tried growing antique roses? Do they really have fragrance to die for? Are they worth the trouble?”
Gardens are social spaces. Even this year, Ben has stopped by to check on the cankers attacking the Heptacodium and to talk about the situation of the blue spruces; Peter has helped me figure out why the grass in a certain section of the front lawn is coming up by the roots; Justin has rebuilt and stained the vegetable garden fence; Mary has offered to help me weed; and Sarah has told me she has a grass to share.
.
Most years I have visitors and classes in my garden, and often projects that involve others. This year I only have memories, but even they feel social. I cut down the pink iris, and remember how I came home one September day last year to find iris bulbs on my doorstep with a note that read, “Last spring when you visited you mentioned wanting these if I had some extra. Here they are. Love, Karen.” I remembered the iris, but I had forgotten my spring visit and its frenzy of desire. Karen’s remembering, and her gift, touched me deeply.
I take down the peonies and remember how Arlen gave me a piece of the peony that had been in the garden of her former mother-in-law. She wanted to make sure it kept on growing somewhere. I look at my very large crab apple tree and remember how Nancy and I brought it, a mere sapling, to Columbine Drive, and planted it in the middle of what was then my “nursery,” the place where I put cuttings and extras and ‘just had to have’s.’ Needless to say, the “nursery” is long gone but the crab apple tree just gets more beautiful.
And then there was Brenda. I have been known to say that my four favorite words in the English language are “head gardener and staff.” Of course, I lack both the financial resources and the gardening status required to support a head gardener, much less a staff. But Brenda came close to being my head gardener. A horticulturalist as well as a hands-on worker, her knowledge of and love for plants was extensive. For ten years she helped me with my business and my own demonstration gardens.
We worked and we talked. We shared information – what do you find really thrives in dry shade? We shared ideas for design — how do you think a dwarf lilac would look here? We shared tips on tools and techniques – get Felco #2 pruners, they are the best. Brenda would point out the branching pattern on the Hinooki cypress and I would show her the color pattern on a daylily bloom. Sometimes we worked side by side, but often we were in different parts of the garden doing different things. It didn’t matter. We were comfortable and easy together, like a team of horses who have learned to adjust to each other’s pace and who help each other carry the load.
Brenda had to move on and for awhile I worked alone. Bu then, one Sunday morning, a few years ago, Kevin walked through the door of my Quaker Meeting. Tall, lanky, and relatively young, Kevin was swarmed by all of us wanting to connect. When he learned that I tended the gardens in front of the Meeting House, he shared that he worked as a gardener in New York City. He was looking for work locally, however, and I was more than game to hire him.
This year, almost every Friday since the middle of March, Kevin and I have worked together in the gardens at Columbine Drive. We keep our distance but we still talk as we work –about what needs to be done, about what should be added and what subtracted, about what should be moved where. We talk about what is going on in our personal lives – writing and internships, roofers and renting, dogs and cats. And, of course, we talk about our Quaker faith and practice, and about what we used to call at the Quaker college I attended “The Bigger Other.” But mostly we talking about plants, mixing observations about them with a sense of wonder at their magnificence.
Our companionship through this difficult time has been a joy, as has the limited contact I have had with my Master Gardener colleagues and all the help I have received this season from others. As the darkness sets in, I will look out the window, frequently, and draw strength from the memories embedded in the shrubs and trees and remaining perennials.
http://www.perennialwisdom.net |