Midsummer a perfect time to take a break

Posted 8/9/15

I don’t think my garden has ever made me happier than it does this very minute. After eight years of adding, transplanting, editing, and endless tweaking, its ensembles of plants and ornaments are finally beginning to show each other off without …

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Midsummer a perfect time to take a break

Posted

I don’t think my garden has ever made me happier than it does this very minute. After eight years of adding, transplanting, editing, and endless tweaking, its ensembles of plants and ornaments are finally beginning to show each other off without any one hogging the spotlight. There’s serendipity happening here and there, such as how a potted magenta-purple agastatche on my deck echoes the multicolored pink stars of Nicotiana ‘Cranberry Isles’ and the flowering raspberry (Rubus odoratus) in my back border, almost as if I planned it. And by some miracle (over planting) my front border is so full and lush the weeds don’t stand a chance. Or maybe they’re in there and I just can’t spot them. Either way, I win.

I’ve had swallowtail butterflies and their caterpillars on my fennel for weeks now. Honeybee populations must be in pretty good shape if the activity I’m seeing on anise hyssop, milkweed, and the clover in my lawn is any indication. A pair of youthful hummingbirds have been bickering over patches of nicotiana, and what seems to be a lone catbird and all of the grackles in the neighborhood have been feasting on my alternate-leaf dogwood’s berries. I even saw a monarch butterfly float through the other day, which is a major cause for celebration. (Unfortunately, their numbers are still down.) All I want to do is sit out there and watch the rest of summer unfold. But I’m also ready for a break.

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. That would be one reason to go on vacation if I wasn’t already head over heels. Goodness knows I’ve needed to leave my garden for that reason in years past and can report the adage held true. It’s easy to love a garden that doesn’t succumb to weeds and wilt but instead continues to grow and bloom on its own. That is, as long as some kind friend and/or relative is willing to come over and water the containers every day or two.

Midsummer’s heat and humidity provide extra incentive for getting away. When the mercury rises above 80, the sun shines, and I’ve sweat the day away in another garden, I can only tolerate being out in mine under evening’s shadows. As gorgeous as dusk is, I know I’m missing most of the activity (all but hummingbirds—so fun! And the mosquitoes—not fun), and figure I might as well go to the beach, paddle down a river, swim in a lake. All of the above. Which is exactly what I’m going to do.

The best part about going away is coming home and seeing all of the changes I’ve become blind to on my evening rounds. I’ll only be gone for a week but in that time I expect my bumblebee magnet Lespedeza thunbergii ‘Gibraltar’ will have burst into a full purple blaze, justifying the real estate it developed without permission back when I thought I bought the dwarf form. I hope that my plant waterer remembers to eat all of the blackberries set to ripen over the fence that week. (They’re delicious drowned in crème anglaise.) And the Profusion Double Salmon (orange) zinnia seedlings I popped out of packs last week should start fulfilling their destiny to complement the blue browallia, and clash brightly with all of the pinks in the backyard. Between them and the dahlias that are about to bloom, it might look like a whole new garden.

I would promise to share its revelations but I’ll be taking a slightly longer break from my desk. Switching gears once in a while is the best way to reinvigorate any creative process, not just gardening. I might stand at my easel. Or I might go back to the beach with a book. Or maybe I’ll just take a few weeks to clean out the cobwebs. I hope you’ll save me a seat, and garden on.

Kristin Green is the interpretive horticulturist at Blithewold Mansion, Gardens & Arboretum and author of "Plantiful: Start Small, Grow Big with 150 Plants that Spread, Self-Sow, and Overwinter" (Timber Press). Follow Blithewold’s garden blog at blog.blithewold.org.

Kristin Green

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