Is a Garden Ever Really Finished?

Last night after supper, and after the sun ducked low enough so that the pines could provide shade, John and I finished cementing the stones together to complete the paths. The landscape fabric is down. We'll haul pails of pebbles from the pile where the truck dumped them onto the pathways, but the hardest part of creating the garden is complete The hardscapes are in place.  My dream of no longer weeding pathways is complete...or at least weeding them once every few weeks, instead of every weekend!

To celebrate, I found a picture of the original garden, taken April 2008.  I had mapped out the paths that March using rocks.  Do you see the little pink phlox planted on the hillside? That and a handful of daffodils were the only plants in place.  The trellis at the entrance was added that month, too.

Flower garden, April 2008

And now today, three years later -

Flower garden, May 2011...from a slightly different angle, but this is the same slope.

Is a garden ever really finished? Do you ever put down the trowel and say, "Glad that's over, now I can go back to watching reruns of the Andy Griffith Show on TV Land?"

We completed the main pathways this weekend. But we now plan to extend the pathway, clear a bit more into the woods, and I have already mentioned - loudly, repeatedly - that I want a huge statue of the Blessed Mother. I want to build her a grotto, actually, a la Lourdes. In my imagination, I see water splashing through a grotto or a rill.  Maybe if I win the lottery and can afford some workers to dig it for me....!

But in all seriousness, gardens are never finished.  My beautiful garden took three years to coax from the hard clay soil. It was so damaged from years of tobacco growing and pines...so acidic the laboratory who did the soil analysis called me and asked me where the soil came from (I'd taken the sample in Virginia but brought it back to where I was living in New York to have it tested; the poor lab guys wondered where the heck it came from!) It was so devoid of life I couldn't find a single earthworm in the soil for years.

Today I watered the petunias with the garden hose and out hopped toads - several of them - a mad scramble of amphibians dancing under the hose. Mockingbirds, kinglets, goldfinches, hummingbirds and cardinals play among the flowers, landing on the larger bushes and on the trellis. Bees of all types hum among the flowers and butterflies are busy sipping nectar from the butterfly bushes.

I don't have a magic touch and I don't have a magic wand. I don't spend hours out there every day, either.  If I could tell you anything at all about gardening, it is this; nature is forgiving.  Flowers add joy.  Don't hesitate to try something, anything, to get your garden growing!  It is the most worthwhile thing in the whole wide world.

No, gardens are never done as long as there is a gardener who loves the garden.

Burpee's New Year's Resolutions for Gardeners

Are you on the email list for the Burpee garden seed company? I am, and this morning they sent the best email of the year. In it, they listed the gardener's 2010 New Year's Resolutions. It's actually a promotion for a set of garden seeds, called the New Year's Resolution Garden. If you are interested, here is the link (I am not making money off this one, just sharing).

Burpee's New Year's Resolution garden seeds.


I thought the list was so great, I made up my own. Here is the list with my own little spin on it.
The Gardener's 2010 New Year's Resolutions

1. Lose weight - grow lettuce and sprout some seeds
2. Exercise - turn your compost pile and weed the garden!
3. Save money - grow organic tomatoes at home
4. Less stress - grow flowers!
5. Help the environment - grow a butterfly garden
6. Enjoy more family time - grow sunflowers with your children
7. Eat better - just grow vegetables. Any vegetables. Then eat them daily.

My own gardening plans for 2010 involve finishing the flower beds near the front of the house. I found seeds for my yellow primrose, the old-fashioned kind my mom grew next to the garage, and I found dozens of butterfly-attracting perennial seeds to grow for that front of the house garden. Other goals include building more bird houses, especially bluebird houses, adding iris to the flower beds, moving butterfly bushes to the edge of the clearing so they don't overtake my flower garden, and finishing off the garden paths (if I can convince hubby to help.) Oh, and being smarter about my vegetable garden - not growing so many turnips (there are only so many one family can eat), canning beets, growing more things that store well, and enjoying what's fresh in season when it IS in season.

Happy New Year from my garden to yours!

Hot Summer Days

Well it's started...the hot summer days. When the garden here in southern Virginia is bathed in the fierce glare of the sun. The ground bakes so dry that it cracks. It looks like a clay pot left in the sun.

The Japanese beetles are out in full force. They seem to love to munch on flowers. So far they've taken out the flowers on one Sonia rose, my yellow hollyhocks, and some zinnias. We retaliated with traps and Neem spray and seem to be winning this skirmish.

The tomatoes have set fruit and I'm eagerly watching one tomato next to the garden gate. Today it's the size of a ping pong ball but just two days ago it was a tiny little marble. These are the big guys, the ones called "Mortgage Lifter" that the ads promised tomatoes of a pound or more each. We'll see!

The corn has petty purple tassels, the watermelon has completely taken over its bed, and the cantaloupe and strawberries are battling for dominance. They each sent runners out and the curving stalks met in the middle. Now the runners are intertwining and battling for space. They filled in all around the tiny blueberry bushes which love the gentle shade from the big cantaloupe leaves. The strawberries are remarkable. Each day I harvest handfuls. We gorge on fresh berries for breakfast.

The beet harvest is in full force and I dropped off some bags of them with our neighbors the Hertzlers today. I hope they enjoy them. The golden beets are my favorites. I have been eating so many I'm surprised my skin hasn't turned orange! I'm saving the rest of the red beets for my first attempt at canning. Maybe later this week I will get around to it.

The spinach set seed and now the lettuce follows suit. The first batch of basil is drying in an old roasting pan we inherited from John's chef great grandfather. I've got these giant roasters and they're wonderful for drying herbs. The onions are also out to dry today.

John's made me promise that the next batch of herbs will be the home grown catnip. Maybe it will distract Pierre from the baby birds. Yup, that's right...Mama bird on our ceiling fan is now an official Mama Bird! She has two babies. Today they poked their fuzzy little heads over the edge of the nest. They look prehistoric with the gray fuzz sticking up all over and the yellow sharp beaks opening and closing. I can watch them from inside the house.

Hot summer days...I wouldn't trade them for all the world!

Blooming Time

It's been busy here, both in the office and in the garden!  I love working from home, but I do miss the intellectual stimulation of speaking with peers - I've been so blessed in my career to call some of the nation's most brilliant marketers my friends. The internet lets me connect with many, but there's something about those New York City lunch hours that's hard to replace over the internet (especially Indian food from those tiny cafeterias in the garment district...yum!)



So I thought today I would just share photos from the flower garden. Here's what's blooming right now. A feast for the eyes. The honeysuckle along the country lanes is blooming and the perfume hangs heavy in the air. My lavender is just about to bloom too. Between the honeysuckle, the roses and the lavender, if I could bottle the air around here I'd be rich!

The guys have been hard at work in the back of the house this week adding the patio. We are planning a big raised deck. There will be a sidewalk curving around to the garage. A new garden is going in between the sidewalk and the house. We're planning a water feature there but aren't sure yet what we want. John wants a more natural-looking water element, like a small waterfall and a tiny pond. I like that idea but I've always wanted a garden fountain. I think we are leaning more towards a small waterfall with a pond. At least with a pond, I can have a goldfish. Although out here - and with Pierre - I'd better make a screen to fit over the pond, or else I will be feeding all the raccoons!