Everyday Happenings

HELLLOOOO, From The Other Side

atlanta georgia skyline

I’m not ready to write this post, but I must start somewhere. It is part explanation, part apology, part a ploy for commiseration. This is not a farewell post. No, I just signed up for two more expensive years of hosting. Yes, that was a bit of a grouse, but when I tell you about my year to date, maybe you will give me a bit of leeway on my tone of complaint.

I knew the day was coming when I would have to seriously scale back my gardening, but I thought it would gradually creep up on me. This year, however, pain took over my body in such a way that for the first time since I started my own gardens, I could not do any of my seasonal tasks. That’s right: no digging or hoeing, or seeding, or even visiting a plant store. For those who love gardening, you know the torture of not being up to getting your hands into the soil…

Atlanta has lots of woods and is sometimes called a city in a forest.

Refusing To Give In

As soon as I could, however, I did make an effort to buy plants for the big containers and managed to get those done around Mother’s Day. But then the pain kicked back in and I haven’t had much opportunity to enjoy them. Then to add insult, I came down with a long bout of a truly terrible cold which resulted in coughing until my sides were sore. Listen, I hear violins playing! But I’m telling you it has been sad, especially when you see the state of the garden.

However, in the interest of schadenfreude, this has been a truly terrible season for working in the clay soils of Central Ohio. We’ve become the rain forest of the Midwest around here. I gauge how much rain we have by the flooding near the creeks and the ponding across the road. There has been long term sogginess, so that many farmers never got their crops in. So, even if my body hadn’t rebelled and required recovery, I still could not have had the garden that January dreams envision.

Cavalry Arrived, But Too Little Too Late

I garnered enough pity from my kids to get a little help. I know it seemed like gargantuan tasks to them, but in comparison to what needed to get done, it looks very unkempt around here. On their behalf, they worked hard on a very hot day, and they have jobs, classes, and tests.

It has become a wake up call for me, and I realize that my husband and I must downsize in reality, and not just talk about it. So on the bright side of this year, I have decided to move. Once over the initial mental and emotional goodbyes, I am ready to start a new adventure. We are looking for our new home, in a new state! Hint: I am studying up on plants that grow well in Georgia.

Evergreen in Atlanta, observing gardens and landscapes around town.

Eventually, I gave into the fact that I can’t cultivate outside, and used my energies and “good days” to slowly try to declutter the inside of the house for the move. This was greatly helped by one of my driven daughters. And so, another silver lining of being laid low by an aging body: the comfort of finding those around you are supportive and caring.

Future Hopes

I believe I can still garden somewhat if I lighten to overall load. So a house which doesn’t require so much upkeep and has a one floor plan has me hoping to have the joy of gardening remain in my life. This makes it easier to close the chapter of living in a rural community: watching wide horizons of sunsets, seeing the approach of storms from many miles away, and the quiet of the country.

I can’t say for sure what the timetable on this looks like, but the excitement of a life lived closer to my grandchildren fills me with anticipation.

Summed Up

I traveled during the spring to look at houses, and will likely resume in a couple months. Although attempts were made at blogging, it was difficult to be enthusiastic about writing when grappling with pain and facing so much change. As an introvert, I go within to process decisions and “saying goodbye to an era” in leaving a garden I’ve loved.

But now I feel ready to write about the weather here, the beauty of nature, the joys of the plants, and maybe reminisce a bit. I am renewing my interest in garden planning, too. After all, I will have a yard to care for, just not acres of it.

But I Digress

Then there is the highlight of my past couple months- the birds! I had a little family of house wrens that nested in a window. A family of barn swallows were raised and lived until recently in the rafter above my door by the porch. They got a little messy, but I took care of that by laying cardboard down and changing it so often ( like in a bird cage). So cute to see four little baby beaks peak out of the nest! They are all fledged now.

Pictures? Yes, about that. I tried taking picture of those darling little house wrens, but ended upsetting the family so much they all disappeared within a day. They were ready to fledge and I guess I accelerated their schedule. The parents really scolded me, and I felt badly, but they felt unsafe. I see that they moved onto the other side of the house, but unsure of where their nest is located.

Addendum

After spending more than a month in Atlanta trying to find a house, still have not been successful. Not for want of trying. I did find a house I thought would be ideal, but my husband did not agree on the price. There is some sticker shock for him when it comes to the housing here plus his list of desires. I will continue to search remotely, from Ohio.

And So

This has been a bit of explaining, a bit of complaining, some hopeful peering into the future, and something of a re-introduction. The rich experience of learning about plants and building my gardens over the years remains with me, even if the actual landscape loses trace of my efforts. Remnant of my work here will be for the future like the evidence I would find of my old dog. He used to love to abscond with stuffed toys and socks. I would be digging in my garden and a sign of his work would be unearthed, and I would remember him as I pulled the half-rotten sock from the soil. Nature reclaims, we can only record.

If you think that thought is maudlin, wait until I begin writing about the trees and plants I’ve lost over the years. But first, maybe I should regale you with tales of decluttering?

Big Things I’m Doing Differently in 2018

Remember “The Beverly Hillbillies”? How about “The Brady Bunch”, or “Green Acres”, for that matter?

They are all TV shows that started out with a theme song that told their stories. For me, it could have been

“There once was a woman who homeschooled, With her ten kids, she moved out to the country and found she needed to keep her sanity.

She wanted something creative. Something that could be constantly interrupted, something at home, something that was cheap, but that inspired her and gave her some peace and quiet”

God knows, she needed that peace and quiet.

So all my efforts at many self-expressing endeavors boiled down to and centered around ~ta-da~ GARDENING. Then as a by product, blogging superseded even that obsession. I wrote and website-d about GARDENING.

But life changes, and I grew old. My kids have grown and many have moved to other parts of the country. It was inevitable that my garden life would change.

And, (understatement here) the internet changes. Goals for the blogging and websites changed, coalesced, and are undergoing rebirth.

Now What, I Have Been Asking

It started with a little break last year.

Which then morphed into a full blown hiatus. I know I haven’t posted here, or written many new gardening articles on Ilona’s Garden website, and I am not sorry – it was needed.

A similar thing has happened with my gardening.

Big Change #1

Refining and focusing. I’ve always been all over the place, but that inconsistency -while interesting- has not been sustainable. In my gardening, that means I have cut out what I can no longer sustain, and around here the garden is mostly undergoing pruning and cutting. I’m still debating how much of a garden I can reliably maintain.

True confession: While I loved seed starting, I just can’t do it with my present realities. I know how, but it’s not happening again this year.

When I don’t do something in real life it is hard to write about it. I must have more trust in the value of past experience. I’m not sure what that will look like for this blog.

Driving the changes behind the work of either blogging or gardening has been physical wear and tear. In the garden, it might be obvious, but blogging? Considering how much time is spent creating the writing/graphics/ and sites… it involved lots of sitting on my a__. ahem, backside. Plus skipping sleep, for years. That is unhealthy.

Maybe you ran across the info that sedentary lifestyle is as bad as smoking for your health? Yes, I’m testimony to that. That has to change.

Big Change #2

cornfields — I now love the flat plain that holds a wide horizon in view. It used to seem boring, but it opens your mind. The world is a big place.

Widening horizons. Work on the computer and gardening arose from that need to stay at home. I was tethered to my house. That is different now- yes I actually go on annual vacations now. I travel to visit my kids. I am away from home!

Great for me and my family. Not so good for my garden.

I’m even considering tearing up my flagstone walk. I’ll give it this year to get it under control. Representative of the fact that our gardens must change.

stone walkway — The flagstone walk in its better days…

Either I must hire help or simplify the garden. Wear and tear is no longer acceptable. My new view is that gardening should be pleasurable, and when it becomes burdensome it must change in its purpose.

Now I am “creating spaces”, rather than gardens. I’ve lost so many plants that required care or coddling, as well as those which are now crowded out. But this place has matured and invites more birds, so flowers are less of a feature and trees, bushes, seating and birdbaths are more.

The rhythms of my garden year have changed.

Big Change #3

junk — Decluttering started a couple years ago- it is the big focus of my life right now. Getting rid of the dust and detritus.

I’m going to do more of what I like. When you are 65 years old it is high time to stop putting off the things that make life satisfying. I will still pay attention to obligations… maybe more quickly to get them out of the way; but I will not be such a stern taskmaster with myself.

If you read my blogposts, it is because you like me. If I write the posts, it is because I love something or just enjoy the act of writing. I’m a granny now, and my expertise is a result of the life I lived, not some grand maven influencer.

I have a lot of interest in history, family stories, experiencing nature. I’ll start there, and knowing me, who knows where we will end up?

In Sum

It is hard to let go of things. I love flowers so much, and want to grow so many, but they need my time and attention. I realize that as I go on in life it is a process of letting go. As a conservator at heart, it means I sense loss each time. The reality is that such change is opening doorways.

I must always garden in some way, but how that manifests will not be the model of the past.

I love my blogs… they are my creations, but they must change. I might move the “how-to” types of post to my website, and this will be my personal story place. Still gardening, but with a different outlook. It is in flux and evolving now.

Is your gardening changing? What part does the landscape around your home play for you? Do you blog about gardening? How has your vision for it evolved? I’d love to know, friends.

Observations on an Ohio Spring

We haven’t entered springtime officially, but tell the weather that! This has been a most mild winter, and Ohio experienced all time high temperature records for the month of February in 2017. It accelerated a climate phenomenon which, as a gardener, I look for each year.

Viburnum 'Dawn' blooming — Viburnum ‘Dawn’ blooming

Most everyone know of the “Indian Summer” and “January Thaw” that is experienced – those period of unexpected warmth coming in autumn time and the month of January, respectively. The Indian Summer is that bit of reprieve from the onset of freezing temperatures, ideal for a procrastinating gardener to hurriedly put the last of the bulbs into the ground. The January thaws are those sloppy times of year when winter snow (should we be so lucky to have snow cover) becomes slush. I haven’t found it to be a boon to the gardening chores, it is mostly a teaser to better days ahead.

There is another climate pattern that arrives pre-spring, usually in March, but this year quite early, so I found myself gardening in early to mid-February. There is no name for it that I know of, but this warm, dry period has become important in my gardening year.

MUD TIME

You see, in this area it preceded what can be called “mud time”. The ground thaws in earnest, and the spring rains begin to fall, which makes spring ground inadvisable to work. In precisely that sequence.

Despite the eagerness to get soils ready for planting, clay ground just cannot be worked during mud time.

That is why I look for this late winter window, a period when the ground has thawed enough to work, the weather is pleasant enough to spend outdoors, and the rains have not yet arrived. It is a wonderful time to ready the gardens with weeding and even shallow tilling.

Good for weeding because the soils are loose and the roots are easy to pull.

What Shall I Call It?

“The Gardeners Window”? Or maybe “Indian Spring”? It is a time that allows for the same short enjoyment of ideal conditions that the Indian Summer spate of the last hurrah of golden days gives us.

It is a window, not a door, and even as I write this Gardener’s Window has shut, for now. Rains have soaked the ground, and temperatures will grow colder. I already regret not moving some of the earth I had planned to, but grateful for a front yard spot that is nearly ready for early spring planting.

It also allowed for clearing some of the old vegetable garden in readiness for transplanting wayward strawberry plants before the spring tilling.

The older I grow the more grateful I am that weather conditions allow me my slow pace in the round of chores. Such work is more of a pleasure than a burden.

Sign of Spring is Crocus

The warmth causes the crocus to bloom very early.

Out here in the boondocks of long horizons and farmers fields, the signs of season’s change are always a bit delayed compared with most of Central Ohio. Even the extremely early warmth, while coaxing may spring bulbs to greater foliage heights, did not culminate in bloom… except for the enthusiastic crocus.

I favor Snow Crocus corms, and they pop up and bloom quite early- I had a whole stand of them which have naturalized underneath a Sweet Cherry tree a-buzzing with bees last week.

For this, the feeding of foraging bees, it is reason enough to plant as many crocus as one can afford in both budget and labor.

Naturalizing Crocus

white crocus — White Snow Crocus photo Ilona Erwin

This is a challenge. The bulbs are favorite snacks of a number of critters. Most of my plantings see decrease, not increase. In fact, that area of spreading C.Tommasinianus did not struggle against the challenges to which others had succumbed. Yes, I’m talking about “The Mowers” who are not me.

It underlines Nature’s fiat on the necessity of bulb foliage growing until fully withered. The crocus in this space also has little competition from grass, since I neglectfully allowed weeds to grow there instead. Not that I advise this particular practice! But I do see that grass can be a merciless competitor.

Along Come the Snowdrops

The Galanthus nivalis, Snowdrops had bloomed at the same time as the early crocus this year. I had intended to divide and move some of them, now I will wait until they are finished blooming, but before they cease active growth.

I read an interesting tidbit about this plant that could explain why they are so slow to spread on their own in my garden. In their own native lands, the bees pollinate, but it is foraging ants (which are attracted to the elaiosomes on their seeds containing fats and proteins) who help plant and spread Snowdrops.

In my garden I must manually ensure the groups of G. nivalis. They have been very slow to grow into nicely blooming clumps.

The Trees and Bushes

As usual for my yard, the Viburnum ‘Dawn’ showed some pink blooms in its clusters- not full blown, but just a hint. The silver maples dropped their red flowers to litter the walkways, deck, and driveway. It is hard to say whether the return of freezing temperatures will be taken in stride or not… it all depends on how cold for how long, and how far the plants have progressed in their growth.

Whatever the longer term effects, it is so pleasant to be outside comfortably in the months that can be chilling and harsh in most years. After all, the Native Americans called this month’s moon the “Hunger” or “Snow” moon.

Moon Month Names

The Usual Chores

Usually, late winter is a good time to prune many of your woody plants. As the month turns to March, the time has arrived to begin your indoor seed starting. Gardening will begin in earnest at the end of this month. Tools sharpened and ready?

Spring cometh.