Summer Garden Gives Me a Break

It’s not often that I get really personal on this blog. I usually deal with issues of the head or the heart. Lord knows we have had enough head stuff lately: Washington...Caylee Anthony, etc...Wondering if our economy is going to completely tank...and then there’s Michelle and Sarah and all those other wannabees. Maybe it is time to take a brief vacation from all the out there—and just think about the heart for a change. What brings me great pleasure? I’ve been working on my flower garden now for over ten years. When I moved here there was nothing in my back yard but weeds. So slowly, with the ideas from a friend I began to dig and plant and try. It was hard work. Most of the soil was pure clay and rocks. So I had to amend the soil. I never rotor tilled it like I should have. But I just dig holes, used pretty good soil and planted my plants.

Every year I cannot wait for spring-summer to come. Every spring morning I would wander out into my back yard and look for the tiny shoots that brought the promise of flowers. And to these I had added ferns and hostas and some ground covers. For a while I was fighting a losing battle with the deer. There were some days when I saw at least five in my yard. Deer love certain hostas—not all usually the variegated. They also love roses, phlox and pansies and even monkey grass. I have lost a great many hostas through the years thanks to the deer population of my county. Last year, besides the deer, something decided to uproot all my new plantings—especially hostas and some flowers, Stargazer lilies and hydrangeas. Following the advice of those that were supposed to know I tried everything to keep the deer away. 1) Fluorescent orange strips, which were supposed to be hung everywhere and scare the deer off. It did not work. But it did look like Halloween in my back yard. My wife kept worrying about the neighbors. 2) I next tried human hair. I heard this would drive them off. So I asked the Beauty Shop to save hair for me. Yuk. Well, I distributed it in great profusion—and guess what, it didn’t work. 3) Someone else said that urine would do the trick. Well, I want go into details about this effort except to say the gallon milk containers sure did come in handy. Nope—it did not work. 4) Someone else told me that Irish Spring soap would drive them away. Well I took string, bought a whole bunch of bars of soap and dangled them from the string on trees. My wife kept muttering again about the neighbors. After about two weeks of soap everywhere—I got rid of the soap. 5) My son sent me some stuff that you could mix up and spray the flowers and bushes. It worked, sorta. The stuff was so thick it kept getting my sprayer clogged up. It smelled awful—my wife kept wondering what the neighbors would think of the stench. Well it worked sorta. The deer disappeared for a season...but I finally gave up on this treatment. Just too much work for too little results.

Besides the deer there has been a veritable zoo in my yard. Rabbits, chipmunks. A fox came buzzing by one evening. Another evening I saw an old armadillo waddling by. About four times a year Mr. Turtle shows up but doesn’t stay very long. One of these creatures liked to dig holes in my grass and dig up my new plantings of flowers and hostas. The culprits were looking for grub worms, I was told. I was also told by some folk at the garden shop that there was little I could do about this.

Well, after about eleven years of trying something paid off. Perhaps my prayers, perhaps not. But this season my garden has been spectacular. Every morning, like the Lord God did in Eden, I walk around and just look and wonder and enjoy.

It’s worth the effort and the work. I never have learned what to do about the critters that come breezing through. But for some strange reason they, and the Japanese beetles have given me a break this year. Come fall I will be a little depressed as the flowers fade. But I’ll probably be at the Garden shop looking at the daffodils, the seeds that need to be planted early and thinking about next year.

I don’t know what this piece has to do with anything except everybody ought to have something that brings you joy and wonder and make you feel, even in retirement you have done something special. As for my wife she seems to be fairly pleased—the Homeowners Association has not written us up or hounded us out of the neighborhood.