Ribbons

A year ago, during my last week of radiation, Nancy flew to Durham while Charley went out of town on business.  The weather all summer had been hot and dry, with sun beating down from cloudless skies and heat radiating up from pavement. 

The cisterns were new that year and Nancy helped me water the potted hostas and heucheras with rainwater, hosed from the cisterns into liter bottles in a garden cart.  I showed her how to fill the bottles efficiently, but the first time she tried it, she found several improvments in my process.

I thought of her gentle strength this morning as I refilled the bottles Nancy-style with rainwater.  I stood by the garden cart for 20 minutes savoring the memory until I was late for work.

My friend Ellen gave me Hosta 'Guardian Angel' last summer when I was feeling vulnerable and scared.  Guardian Angel had only 4 leaves when she first came to me, and she was tightly potbound, her roots a hard mass.  I put her in a deep container with quality potting soil amended with compost and worm castings.  Guaradian Angel spread her wings and tripled in size. 

I think of Ellen whenever I water my hostas.

Jeanne gave me two elephant ears on my last day in Indy in June.  The tubers were gnarled and the time was late for spring planting, but these wide green leaves became perfect companions to the tiny foliage of the goldenrod. 

As I walk along the path, these giant leaves remind me of how much Jeanne enjoys sharing her garden.

 

When Lisa was at Montessori School, she loved a quick errand to Plants Unlimited. One Saturday, she found a rare curly ivy in a broken 2 inch pot tossed in the corner with the plant discards.  When we took the plant to the cash register, the owner looked confused for a moment, then charged me a quarter.  Over the last 20 years, shiny green curls have slowly covered the shady strip behind the privacy fence.

I thought of my little red-haired girl as I trimmed the ivy off the stone path this weekend.  

One winter day years ago, I invited two coworkers to see my new pawpaw trees.  As I led them to the sapling and pointed out the tree, my coworker remarked, "You mean the pawpaw stick."  The scales fell from my eyes and I saw the tree as it really was, a 6 inch stick in a brown patch of soil.  

The truth is that a gardener tends the soil every day but only sees what the garden may become and only feels what it has been.  A gardener is blind to form and substance, but is tied to her garden with silk ribbons of hope and memory. 

I often read about gardeners who move from one home to another, digging up favorites to transplant or starting fresh with a clean slate. How this is possible, I have no idea.

 

Unwanted

This afternoon I found a baby opossum with a fly upon its nose.

On Saturday, I had found another in the rain garden.   

The prime suspect.

On Friday, a woodcutter met me at the house to inspect a red oak in decline and to give me an estimate for removing it.  He found two baby squirrels on the ground, barely alive, and took them to his girlfriend Jennifer, who will care for them.

The nest had fallen 50 feet and was scattered about the azaleas.  The woodcutter guessed that a hawk had snatched their mother.

I know of no one who would regret the loss of a squirrel or opossum.

On Sunday, a family of deer visited my garden.

They escaped to the neighbor's yard when they saw my camera.

Later in the afternoon, a second herd stopped by to eat the flowers of the liriope and the leaves of the hostas.

The buck stepped smoothly over the tall pots of autumn ferns that I deployed as a deer fence.  He munched on the woodbine, then the family moved on. 

Deer are beautiful and graceful creatures, but they are welcome nowhere in suburbia.

Even in the abundance of summer, life can be hard for unwanted animals in the backyard wildlife habitat.   

Aspidistra attack

Aspidistra or cast iron plant is tough, but no plant can win a relentless attack from voles, or field mice.  Voles tunnel to the crown of the plant and chew the roots and crowns with their sharp little teeth.   I have lost gigantic hostas to voles, but before this week, I did not know about their fondness for Aspidistra.

It took the voles two years to find the Aspidistra as it is behind the Hellebores, which are poisonous to mice.  But one day, I looked out the window and saw the foliage of the Aspidistra on the ground.

 

I got out the shovel and pulled back the oak leaf mulch to expose a network of paths leading to the crowns.  I dug what was left of the Aspidistra and put it in a black bucket.

Not much was left of this once beautiful plant. The largest clump of roots only supported two leaves.

Most of the crowns were hopeless but a few may resprout, given ideal circumstances and some good luck.

I soaked the roots in rainwater in an old wastebasket.

And selected two gray pots with small holes in the bottom, so voles could not tunnel up through the pot. 

I mixed a rich concoction of potting soil, worm castings and compost.

Good luck, little fellas.