Garden Dreams

October 5, 2021 — Pat Bertram

The tenant in the house next door told me that when he looks back on this time in his life, he will always remember me with a shovel. That’s a fair assessment. When I look back on this time, I’ll also remember me with a shovel. I must have dug a ton or two of dirt, removing weeds and grass from what I hope will one day be a mini wildflower meadow.

You’d think after all those weeks and all that effort, I’d be glad to hang up my shovel (literally, hang it up — my long-handled tools are hung on a rack on the wall of my garage), but apparently not.

I got a notice that one of the bulb collections I ordered will be here in a couple of weeks. The place where I want to put them was once part of a graveled driveway. I figured it would take me a while to dig through all that gravel to get deep enough for tulips and daffodils, so I decided to get a head start on the project. It did take a while, but now I’m ready for those bulbs whenever they get here.

Still not completely fed up with shoveling, I’ve spent the last couple of days digging up more weeds. Although this property isn’t particularly wide, it’s long, and hasn’t been taken care of, so there are a lot of weeds to dig up. I cheated in the spring and early summer and simply mowed them down, so I made use of this gorgeous weather to dig up the roots of some of those weeds. Luckily, a lot of the worst areas for weeds are now covered by weed barrier fabric and rock, though I’m not sure how long that will last. Although the fabric was the strongest available, grass is poking through the fabric. Come to think of it, it’s called a weed barrier, not a grass barrier, so I can’t blame false advertising for the holes in the fabric.

I’m planning on taking the day off from shoveling tomorrow, but since I have nothing else planned to take the place of the “fun,” I wouldn’t be surprised to find myself outside with a shovel again.

I’ve managed to keep enough plants alive to give me hope that one day all this work will be worth it, though it’s worth it anyway — it gets me outside, gives me something to do, and fills my head with garden dreams.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

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Gifts, Gains, and Geographical Art

October 2, 2021 — Pat Bertram

I had a gift waiting for me by the door when I got up this morning. Well, two gifts, actually. It had rained during the night, and it was still a bit drizzly, which was nice. I’d planned to wet down the garden area I’d just finished digging up and leveling to make sure the soil didn’t get blown away in the strong winds that are common in this area. The rain not only brought a touch of coolness, but did my watering for me.

The other gift was an actual thing — a putter to be exact, gifted from the man who did most of the rock work around here. With all the moving around of hoses and all the work that’s being done on this place, the ornamental rock gets dislodged, and I’m always having to side kick rocks back into place, but I end up kicking the red crushed rock, too. And besides, my knees don’t like moving sideways like that. So I thought a putter would be perfect.

And it is perfect. I spent an enjoyable few minutes this morning using the golf club to putt the rocks back into place.

As if I haven’t been doing enough digging the past few weeks, this morning I spent a while preparing an area to plant hollyhock seeds. Though the rain was quite extensive, that particular area of the yard was dry and rock hard. Because of that anomaly, I don’t suppose it will surprise anyone to hear that the hollyhock “forest” will be smaller than I originally intended.

After that, I moved to my “island” garden, pulled some dead flowers and dug up some weeds. Now that was easy! The dirt had been worked a year ago rather than decades like the rest of the yard, and because of the rain, it was like digging in pudding (if that pudding was heavy and overcooked).

Considering that I also did chores around the house, ran errands, and checked up on my absent friend’s house, I’ve had a rather gainful day. Oddly, the only thing I didn’t do was the one thing I’d planned to do — work on the character list (motivations and movements) for the murder at the museum event. I’m not going to plan on working on the character list tomorrow — that way I might actually get the job done. Apparently, I don’t like to do things I’m supposed to do, even if the “supposed to” is something I myself planned to do.

But meantime, my “geographical art” project is shaping up, shovelful by shovelful. I’d read that Central Park in New York is considered by some to be geographical art, and that is exactly what I am doing with the gardens and pathways in my yard — creating geographical art. I’ve done art projects before, but never on such a grand scale. I’m looking forward to seeing what the finished art project looks like, but that won’t be for several years yet, so I’m concentrating on coloring my yard however I can.

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times

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Gardening Is the Answer

October 1, 2021 — Pat Bertram

I finished digging the grass out of a soon-to-be wildflower meadow. For a few minutes this morning, I thought I’d get rained out and would have to save the last six-foot square until tomorrow, but the clouds spat a few drops at me, got bored, and moved one.

After I finished digging and shaking the dirt out of the clumps of grass roots, I raked the area flat, which oddly was the hardest part of the whole task. But I got that job done, too.

An experienced gardener left a comment on my blog yesterday that a wildflower field doesn’t have to be tilled, and I wondered if I had done all that work for nothing. And yet, that Bermuda grass is so strong and overpowering, I was afraid my poor wildflower seeds wouldn’t stand a chance if I didn’t do something about the grass. In fact, that grass is so strong it’s starting to go through the weed-barrier fabric on the north side of the garage. Supposedly, the contractor got the strongest fabric available, but as I said, that grass is strong. It looks like they are going to have to add another strip of the fabric, as well as finish putting up the gutters on the garage, but that is not something I can to do, so I won’t worry about it.

I’m glad to know about not having to till the soil for a wildflower meadow, so in some other spots where I want wildflowers, I can just toss the seeds and stamp them into the ground. Well, after I dig up the weeds, that is. And the grass.

A friend sent me a quote: “The answer is gardening. It doesn’t matter what the question is.”

I thought that was lovely. And it does sort of reinforce a surmise I made. A fellow griever once told me about an old woman she knew who had lost everyone she had ever loved and yet was the happiest person the griever knew. We both marveled at the possibility of finding joy despite all the sorrow, but now I know the woman’s secret. The woman was a gardener, so as I surmised, that’s the answer to the conundrum.

I wonder if I will be that person? More likely, unless gardening keeps me mellow and allows me a life of sorts without having to deal with too many irritations, I will become a curmudgeon.

Either way, gardening does seem to be the answer.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

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Three Tons of Rock

September 30, 2021 — Pat Bertram

Yesterday before I went to work, I posted a photo of the edging the workers were putting in place to contain the crushed rock pathway. To my astonishment, by the time I got home, they’d mostly completed the work.

That’s three tons of rock they moved!! Actually, it’s more like six tons because the younger worker shoveled it out of the hauler into a wheelbarrow and dumped it where it was supposed to go. The other worker shoveled it into place and raked it smooth. So each of them handled all three tons. I can’t even imagine being so strong. I’m lucky to be able to move an occasional bucketful of dirt when necessary.

They were disappointed that they weren’t able to complete the job. There is one small area by the back gate still to be filled in, as well as a few more of the edging pieces to be pounded into place, but before they can finish, they need to get more supplies, which is an iffy proposition since the landscaping firm they get it from is only open by appointment in the fall and winter.

Meanwhile, I am enjoying the new look — and feel — of my yard. It’s great to be able to move around without worrying about stumbling in holes or tripping over weeds.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times

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Working on My Yard

September 29, 2021 — Pat Bertram

I had a lovely surprise today. It’s not just me who is working on my yard, but a couple of men were sent by my contractor to work on the paths in the back yard.

The metal strips in the photo define one edge of the path, and they surround the area I’ve been digging up for my mini wildflower meadow. As you can see, I still have a lot of digging to go, but with the area defined as it now is, it seems doable.

I’m always amazed by how even a little progress can be so attractive. Although the metal edging is about the pathways and the rock, the dirt area turns out to be special in its own right, with those lovely curving lines. I can imagine how beautiful it will be when the wildflowers bloom, though there is no guarantee that they will. I’m still such a neophyte, that many plants don’t make it. But I’ll keep working on it. If the seeds I plant this fall don’t sprout, I plant more in the spring.

From the photo, it seems to be a sun-dappled area, shaded by a neighbor’s tree, but in the summer, when the sun is high, it’s sunny enough for most flowers, with a bit of shade in the hottest part of the afternoon to keep the poor things from desiccating.

My gardens and the yard — my micro estate — are still mostly a fantasy created out of gardening dreams, but if I keep learning, keep trying, keep doing, eventually, I will end up with a beautiful place.

Oddly, I never intended any of this. I just wanted some sort of ground cover I could throw out there that would take care of itself and look pretty. It was the contractor who thought the paths would help make the place safe for me since he knew I wanted to elder-proof my yard, and I went along with it because it sounded like a good idea. It never occurred to me that the finished product (in the areas where there is a finished product) would be so charming.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

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I Dig Digging

September 20, 2021 — Pat Bertram

Lots more digging today! I did my morning stint after I came home from the mechanic’s shop without any work being done on my car. (The shop was closed, so I hope he’s not having another setback.)

I can’t do much digging at a time, only a strip of one or two feet by eight feet because the soil is compacted clay held together by the dense roots of Bermuda grass. To be honest, I don’t care how little I do. I’m just delighted to be able to do any physical work at my age. Apparently, I am considered elderly, which isn’t as bad as being called an old woman. I mean I am one, but still, it’s demoralizing to be defined in such a way. In my world, I’ve never been this age before, so it’s new to me. In fact, this is the youngest I will ever be, and besides, I still have the whole rest of my life ahead of me. Does that sound old-womanish? No, I didn’t think so.

But I digress.

After I did my morning dig, I relaxed a bit, so when the mail came with a package of plants that needed to be put to bed, I was raring to go. Luckily, it’s a lovely day with a cool breeze, so it didn’t matter that I was out working just after noon. (Last week, the afternoons were hot enough to give me heatstroke if I did anything outside.)

The plants are magnus echinacea. I ordered one plant a year ago, and it seems to be doing well, so I thought I’d try a few more. They are in their new home now. Since they don’t like to be transplanted, I hope they like where I put them.

One other gardening project I did today was start a notebook at the suggestion of one of my gardening readers. I got an empty binder, which I will fill with the planting guides that come with my purchases, descriptions of the plants, location in my yard, and whatever else I need to keep track of. The yard is a good size, but it’s not so big that I couldn’t keep track of all my plantings, but there is that elderly thing, so who knows when the memory will go. Having a ready guide to my various gardens should make up for any forgetfulness.

I’m glad I didn’t get a house with a yard that was already landscaped. I think it would have been too much for me to keep up at the beginning — it was complicated enough getting to know the care and feeding of a house without dealing with someone else’s idea of what a yard should be. This way, I get to figure it out as I go along. And if I eventually decide it’s too much and let it go, well, it will only be myself I’m letting down and not some master gardener.

Tomorrow will be another cool day before we hit the nineties again, so more digging is in my forecast.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times

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Planting Hope

September 17, 2021 — Pat Bertram

Today is the first really cool day we’ve had for months, cool enough to make me realize that fall really is coming. When the outside temperature is in the nineties (Fahrenheit), it’s hard to believe that summer is coming to an end, so it seems rather silly to be preparing the ground for fall planting. We’ll be getting back into the nineties, at least for a few days now and again, but I am beginning to feel a bit of urgency.

The season really is changing. And if fall is coming (five more days!), that means winter is only three months away.

It will be strange, after all this time of working outside, to have a hiatus in the winter, but it will be good to give my poor old knees a rest. I’m just hoping they will hold up for all the planting I’m going to be doing this fall — a few magnus echinacea (a purplish pink coneflower), a bunch of lily trees (despite the name, they are not trees, just very tall lilies), a couple of hundred tulip bulbs, and a pound of wildflowers. I also need to transplant the New England asters because the clump is getting rather dense.

If I can’t get the wildflower area completely dug up and the old Bermuda grass roots removed, I’ll just hoe what’s left and hope for the best, but there’s no way to cut corners on the rest of the planting.

So much work! In the long run, I hope it will be worth it — I would certainly enjoy a beautiful yard. Mostly, though, it’s the doing, not necessarily the done, that intrigues me. And the not giving up.

Previously, whenever I started a garden of some sort and the plants didn’t do well, I shrugged it off as my not having a green thumb. (Which I don’t have, but I’m hoping that experience and research and luck will offset my lack of native ability.)

The last time I planted anything, the failure truly wasn’t my fault. The grasshoppers were voracious that year and they ate everything down to the ground — including a six-foot tree. Because of that, I now panic whenever I see one of those hideous brown hoppers, but so far, they are keeping their destruction to a minimum. If they get too bad, I might borrow the neighbor’s chickens and let them feast, though some of the hoppers seem almost as big as those chickens, so I’m not sure he’d want to take the risk.

Looking at what I’ve written today, I can see that I’ve used a whole lot of words to say what I came here to say: that the cooler temperature is a harbinger of the fall that will show up next week.

I’m not really sad to see gardening season end, nor am I glad. It’s all part of the cycle of life. And after the fall preparation and the winter hiatus, spring will come and all the hope I’ve been planting might come to fruition.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

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To Buy or Not to Buy

September 9, 2021 — Pat Bertram

The last two times Arbor Day Foundation sent me a gift to thank me for my donation (though really, it’s not so much as a donation as payment for the gift), the plants and bulbs were worthless. The plants were too tiny to plant, though in retrospect, I should have put them in a pot and babied them, but considering that I didn’t remember ordering them and didn’t even know what they were, it didn’t really matter what I did with them. The bulbs I got at the beginning of summer were a disappointment. Only one gladiolus bloomed, and I’m afraid if I dig up the bulbs like they suggest and replant them next year, the same thing will happen, so I’m going to cover them with some sort of mulch and leave them where they are. Maybe with an earlier start, they’d be okay.

Normally I’m not disappointed in the failure of Arbor Day Foundation “gifts” because I know how seldom they thrive, at least with me as their caretaker, but I was disappointed in the bulbs because the bulb collection they sent last year did well.

Because of the disappointment, I’d decided to toss away any further solicitations unread, but today, as I started to shred the card with my name on it, I noticed the most beautiful blooms. These are yellow, light orange, and apricot, and last year’s collection (the one that did well), was pink and purple.

I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t tear up the card, I mean. I know even if the bulbs bloom, they will never look like the photo, but even if one of the bulbs comes up, it will be a delight. So I’ve added this card to the stack of planting items to order this weekend when I have time to concentrate.

In my defense, I received a flower catalog yesterday, and though the gardens portrayed made me envious, I set aside the catalog and didn’t order from it, so perhaps my will power was all used up, and that’s why this gorgeous sunset-colored collection of bulbs got to me.

And the plants I’m not buying? Well, there is still plenty of time for me to change my mind, and if I remain steadfast and don’t change my mind, there’s always next year. So, it seems, when it comes to plants, bulbs, and seeds, my quandary is not “to buy or not to buy,” but “to buy now or to buy later.”

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

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A Focus for My Life

September 8, 2021 — Pat Bertram

As I was wandering around my property, planning my next step in turning the yard into a micro park, my focus shifted, as it sometimes does, and suddenly it all seemed so foolish. I could only think, “Why am I doing this?”

I had no answer for my question because at that moment, it truly did seem silly to be doing all this planning and working, spending money on plants and seeds, and setting myself up for a huge summer water bill as well as months of work each year to keep up with the maintenance once the project is completed.

My focus eventually shifted away from the silliness of it all, though a bit of that feeling lingers. In a way, it really is silly, and yet, why not? It’s no sillier than the rest of my life. I write books that few people read. I read books that do nothing more than keep my mind occupied while time passes. I prepare meals that go in one end and come out the other. (And nothing, really, is sillier than that!)

If I had anything more profound to do than to turn my yard into a place of beauty (or rather, to try to do so since the results are, to a great extent, out of my control) I would probably be doing that instead. And yet, gardening — just the act of gardening itself — might be as profound as anything else. I’d say it was joining in the act of creation, but so much of gardening is as much destruction as it is about creation. For example, weeds are natural, a part of creation, but we gardeners take it upon ourselves to choose which plants live and which die. And all the rock I have around my house to protect the foundation came from the destruction of a mountain.

Perhaps with gardening and landscaping, I am just revving my internal engine, creating work for myself to no great end, but I don’t suppose it matters. It gets me outside, for one thing. Gives me a focus, for another.

It is good to have a focus, and even if that focus slips once in a while to reveal the foolishness of that focus, it’s still good. At least — in my case — it keeps my mind off the very real inanity of daily living. I mean, truly, what’s it all about? Going to bed. Dreaming. Getting up. Working and working out. Sweating. I could go on, but there’s no need to. You know what I’m talking about — all those dreary rites of maintenance that only serve to keep the body functional.

So see? It’s a good thing I have my various yard projects to focus on! I just need to occasionally remind myself of that.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

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Plots and Plots

September 6, 2021 — Pat Bertram

I’m reading a book with four subplots — or rather four co-plots since none of the plotlines seem to have more importance than any other. That’s not a problem. I can keep four different plots in my head. The problem is that all four subplots are exactly the same, only with different names, though too many of the names are similar, making it even harder to distinguish the various plots. Each subplot has a bad-guy group and a good-guy group chasing each other with frequent pauses for a fight. The good guys want something the bad guys don’t want them to have — some sort of knowledge about a plague originating in ancient Egypt. At least, that’s what I think they want. Just as I sort of figure out what one group is actually after, the author switches to a different group. I have a hunch he thinks this keeps up the suspense, but all it does is put me to sleep.

Generally, when I get a book that bores the heck out of me, I skip to the end to find out what happened, and then forget it. With this book, I’m afraid that if I skipped to the end, I won’t know what happened. There’s also the possibility that if I don’t skip to the end and continue to plod through four plotlines that echo each other, I still won’t know what happened.

Is it any wonder I am weeding instead of reading?

Today I dug up more weeds, way more than I planned to. The ground had just enough dampness left from the last rain to be crumbly, so it was much easier to dig into than when the ground was sodden (and incredibly easier than when it was dry), so I continued working until that plot of ground was finished.

Hey! Plots and plots! Although I didn’t plan to wrap this blog around the theme of plots — story plots and garden plots — it tickles me that it happened.

I hope I finish the book soon so I can find something fun to read to allow me to sit still long enough to rest up from my outside labors. I did set aside the multiple-plot book for a while and read a single-plot book; unfortunately, that one was just as boring.

Even if the next book doesn’t keep my interest, it won’t matter. We’re returning to 100-degree temperatures (or close enough) for a while, and even a boring book won’t send me outside when it’s that hot.

Besides, I really do need to rest up. Starting next week, the plants and bulbs I ordered will be arriving, and I’ll have to be doing a lot more digging. I’m hoping digging to put plants in the soil will be easier than digging to pull things out, but I have a hunch digging is digging, whether it’s digging into the plot of a boring book or digging into a plot of weed-infested land.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

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