Yesterday, I watered my lawn. Perhaps it didn’t need the moisture, but when the temperature gets up to 74 degrees this time of year, it’s better to be sure the grass has the water it needs. I read and blogged about eighteenth century gardens. And I made a few sketchy notes in my new RHS Gardener’s Five-Year Record book, though there’s not a lot to record this time of year. Mostly, I just mentioned the weather and that the larkspur seedlings are making themselves at home.
This seems an odd time of year to be thinking of gardening, and yet for most people this is when the fun is — looking through catalogs and planning what to buy to fill in one’s garden. Not me, though. I usually wait until the local hardware store stocks up on plants and get whatever is available. Or I wait until fall and buy chrysanthemums and whatever else likes to be planted so late in the year.
Still, I have gardens on my mind. In the back of my Gardener’s Record Book, is a section to list any gardens I wish to visit. That’s a section that will remain blank. Any gardens I wanted to see, I already have, as well as a few gardens I’d never heard of until I was actually there.
For example, when I went to stay with a friend during my 2016 Cross-country trip, she took me to see Fort Worth Botanical Gardens. The highlight of that visit was the exotic butterfly garden in their conservatory.
She also took me to see the Chandor Gardens, a series of formal gardens created by Douglas Chandor, a renowned English portrait painter. Living artistry was certainly his calling!
The Calloway Gardens in Georgia was a garden I found on my own. I was lucky to get there just when the Azaleas were in bloom, and oh, my! So lovely.
Calloway Gardens calls the Overlook Azalea Trail the most beautiful place on earth, though that claim is rivaled by the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden in Portland. Another gorgeous place that a friend in Portland took me to.
Though not technically a garden, the Antelope Valley Poppy Preserve in California is up there with the best in beauty.
And though not a garden at all, the Painted Desert in Arizona certainly acts as if it is.
Despite all that loveliness, I have to say that there is nothing like one’s own garden. Even though mine doesn’t have the panoramic beauty of those gardens I visited, mine finds its beauty in the work I’ve done, the thought I’ve put into it, and the fact that it is here and not in some far-flung state.
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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.
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