Garden

June 2, 2010

15 Comments

Save Me

Nina Simone belts, “Save me, somebody save me” through my headphones and even though I know she is singing about a love gone wrong, not gardening, for just a moment I think she is singing about me. This could be my current theme song.

You see, I might be drowning. In plants. And gardening. And plants that must be planted. And gardens that must be gardened. And a spring that is more like a dry, hot summer, and tomatoes that are making fruit faster than I can get them in the ground.

In a word, this gardening season is manic. SOS.

I’m not sleeping well these days and I seem to be grinding my teeth at night. And yet I am enjoying myself. The ship feels like it is sinking but I am going down smiling. I don’t really want to be saved, although some time off from work, life, cooking, cleaning, and basic daily hygiene would provide the extra time I require to really get caught up.

The other day a friend emailed about all of the plants she just acquired, lamenting where she was gonna put them all. I nodded in agreement but didn’t return her email. Who has time for email when there are trays of seedlings waiting in cue that need to get in the soil?

I’ve come to the conclusion that we gardeners (some of us anyways) enjoy the chaos, just a little bit. We love the frenzied, manic pace of the spring planting. We love that it gives us something to bitch about. “The chaos“, we moan, “I shall never be freed from this chaos!” And we aren’t, until the winter when the gardens are finally put to bed (or as good as) and we find ourselves twiddling our thumbs and lamenting the boredom and suffering of the off season. “It’s too cold,” we cry, “When will this persecution end?”

Yet somehow, all of this begins with a desire to create a calm, tranquil green space — a mania that leads to a serenity of sorts. Not that I ever stop and sit still in my garden spaces long enough to reach that kind of inner calm. There is always something to do; I enjoy the doing. Like photography, gardening is meditation in motion for me. And it achieves what sitting still meditation, tai chi (which actually made me very angry), and yoga have never been able to achieve.

There is a logic in here that I can’t quite get to. Perhaps it will come to me later today while I’m potting up the tray of new herbs I brought home yesterday or planting the bean seeds that are over-soaking as I write this. Do not forget the beans!

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p.s. The photo (above) is of a bunch of pots I have sitting in the partial shade side of my roof garden. That space against the wall is reserved for plants that can’t stand the punishing heat of full sun portions of the roof, or that are being hardened off. I’ve posted a larger photo with notes over here.

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May 27, 2010

10 Comments

Grow a Mixed Strawberry and Herb Container

When I was in the West Indies, I was surprised to see how much people coveted strawberries. While I was salivating over golden apple and fresh bananas, West Indians were paying through the nose for a basket of pathetic, well-traveled berry-like objects. I don’t think strawberries grow very well in extreme tropical heat. That didn’t stop one gardener I visited in Dominica from trying. As my own strawberries begin to set fruit and ripen I wonder if her little plant has made it and if she was able to savor a few homegrown berries this year.

Here in Toronto, it’s not too late to start strawberries. My first article of the season for the Globe & Mail explains how, but did not include this photo of a mixed planting I put together using an old honey tin I bought at a yard sale. If you are going to use something like this, don’t forget to add drainage holes. I made several in the bottom using a large nail I keep on hand for this purpose. Everything in this pot is edible, including the flowers.

One Each of: An unknown hybrid strawberry (the berries are ripening now!), ‘Golden’ sage (it is not hardy here and does not grow very big), ‘Gem Apricot Antique’ viola (may soon have to be replace for something more heat tolerant as the summer kicks in, or you can just pull it out when it kicks it and let the strawberry and sage spread.)

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May 24, 2010

86 Comments

Stealing Plants? You Suck.

I took advantage of the overcast conditions on Saturday afternoon to plant out some perennials into the street garden. And since I just used the words street garden (along with the above photo) you can probably predict where this is going.

The next morning I went outside, looked over at the garden, and found a large gaping hole where a large, beautiful (so, so beautiful), and terribly prickly sea holly (Eryngium) ‘Big Blue’ had been planted the day before. I hope whomever stole it poked their eye out on the way home. No, I don’t mean to wish anything that terrible on them. Yes I do. No, but… Yes, but… No, but…

Ironically enough, I bought that plant (it cost $15 on sale) BECAUSE it is such a hardy, prickly bad ass mother of a plant. Surely no one would attempt to damage it in the way they have so many other plants in the garden. Little did I imagine that someone would just take the entire thing outright. And when I bought it, I also announced that this was the last plant I was going to buy for that garden. “Never again!”, I proclaimed. Freebies only from here on out.

Soon after I vented my frustration about the theft on Twitter, responses started to pour in from gardeners who have also had plants stolen from their gardens. Some have lost several plants to theft. This bewilders me. What gardener would steal an entire plant from another gardener to replant in their own? Aren’t we better than that? I’ve dealt with a lot of bull in the approximately ten years I’ve been growing that garden, but it never occurred to me that the damage could (or would) come from a fellow gardener. Surely someone who has put labor, time, effort, money, and emotional attachment into growing their own little patch of land understands what a blow that would be to another gardener.

I have long said that in the act of gardening in such a public space, I have learned more about human psychology than I have about growing plants. I have experienced care, helpfulness, interest, connection, and generosity from my community through the garden. But I have also experienced the negative impact of how messed up, selfish, aggressive, destructive, and narcissistic some people can be. When my garden has come under attack, I have learned a thing or two about myself — what pushes my buttons and what I can withstand. And I suppose I am still learning this last lesson as I keep announcing I am done and will never garden there again only to go back in and try again. And again. And again. Resiliency, stupidity, an intense need to garden, or all of the above? Whatever it is I am done complaining.

Yesterday, after we found the gaping hole, Davin went home and made a sign for me. Bless him. It’s a nice sign that says what I wanted to say but couldn’t. If I had tried to make a sign at that time it would have come out as a string of expletives. Since so many of you have responded with your own stories of garden treachery and the need to place a sign, I thought I would make it available here as a printable download. It won’t last forever, but should last long enough to get the message out.

Please feel free to vent about a recent theft from your garden below.

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April 14, 2010

23 Comments

Keeping Track of Plantings

This is one of those ideas I wish I’d thought of but didn’t. Who can remember all of the different plants and varieties one is growing at any one time? Especially when the plants are all so similar like those in this sempervivum trough.

My ÃƒÂ¼ber gardening pal Barry is behind this very smart method of keeping track of plant varieties that can work for pots or whole gardens. The other day I asked about a plant in one of his pots but he could not remember the name. He disappeared inside for a second and returned with a binder full of plastic-covered photos, each one marked with the names of plants and varieties, just like this one. Okay, possibly a bit tidier than my slapdash version, but you get the idea.

I have since adopted it for my own mixed plantings rather than burying the tags next to the plants as I often have in the past. It’s a smart and fairly simple way to keep track of plants and avoid ugly white tags that only mar your efforts to make a beautiful planting.

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April 12, 2010

26 Comments

Planting a Sempervivum Trough

Sempervivums or Hens and Chicks as they are commonly called, are an incredibly hardy, and drought tolerant succulent that can take a fair amount of abuse, yet when I was starting out on my roof, they were the last plant I wanted to grow. I’d come to associate them with the few that had been slapped into the tiny front garden of my childhood home. And while I had fond memories of playing with my dolls on the pretend Martian landscape they created, my overall impression as an adult was that they lacked a certain luster.

I don’t recall how it happened, perhaps nostalgia won out, but I eventually came around to growing a few. That summer they bloomed, creating exotic, alien-like flower stalks. I was hooked and decided I would never be without them again.

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