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Digging This Summer

August 27, 2023 — Pat Bertram

The slang term “to dig” means to understand, approve of, or enjoy something, with the connotation that one is really into whatever it is that one is digging.

The title of this piece might make it seem as if I am really into this summer, really enjoying it, but that perception is far from the truth. Although for the most part, this summer has been cooler than the past few summers by about five degrees or so, it is still horrendously hot, with high temperatures hovering around 99 degrees. Despite that, it’s been harder keeping things alive this year — the sunlight seems even more piercing than normal, searing skin and grass and plants and anything else it happens to fall upon, even some normally sun-loving weeds.

The scourge of insects has been as bad as the heat. First there was the miller moth invasion, where hundreds of moths descended on my yard and made their way into house. Luckily, most of those inside moths were imprisoned in the basement, but a few still made their way into my living space. The weirdest moth incursion was into the screen on my microwave. How it got inside there, I don’t know, but it sure spooked me when I realized that’s what had darkened the viewing screen.

Next came clouds of mosquitoes. Despite mosquito repellent clothes and mosquito repellent spray for my skin, I managed to get several bites every day. I was so not digging that!

And then the grasshopper horde showed up, eating things that I planted specifically because these predators have left them alone in the past, like lilacs and zinnias. That’s not so bad because the lilacs will survive and the zinnias are annuals and so would be gone anyway, but those voracious eaters pretty much ate my greengage plum trees. There is still a bit of the skeletons left, so perhaps the trees will come back next year, but I am not counting on it, especially since there are still weeks of summer left for those critters to continue munching.

We also had three devastating hailstorms. Luckily, they didn’t do any damage to the house or garage, but parts of my garden were decimated.

The most disheartening aspect of this summer has been the death of my expensively sodded lawn. They put in a grass that is geared for both sun and shade, and since most of my yard gets absolutely no shade and around fifteen hours of direct sun — searing sun — every day in the summer, the grass didn’t stand a chance. Even worse, the devil grass took over, destroying any possibility for simply overseeding the lawn.

So, no, I did not slangily dig this summer, but I did literally dig this summer, spending two or three hours every morning for the past couple of months digging up the dead grass and the live devil grass.

As hard as it is to do the work, it keeps me focused on what I can do rather than focused on things I can do nothing about. Because of that, until this past week, I wasn’t even that upset about the guys that sold me the wrong grass, but suddenly, the job overwhelmed me, and I was a bit peeved at the whole thing. I think if I believed the extreme heat tolerant grass seed I got would work out okay, it might not have bothered me, but I am to the point I’m not sure that anything I am doing is making a difference. Or that it’s worth it.

Still, I have to do something. I do like the look of the bare ground (and the gardening dream it brings of what could be), but unfortunately, I can’t leave the ground as is. Grasshoppers love bare ground to lay their nests, and next year their population would be incredibly dense if I don’t disturb the ground and plant something. Besides, weeds and the devil grass would take over, and I have no intention of ever doing this sort of digging again. Frankly, I’m astounded I could do it at all. Three years ago, my knees were so bad I could barely walk, and this year so far I’ve dug up about 1,000 square feet of weeds and grass. Makes me sore just thinking about it.

This isn’t the end, of course. After the digging comes the raking and then comes the seeding. And after all that comes daily (or even twice daily) watering until the grass comes up. (Despite my discouraging words a couple of paragraphs ago, I have to believe the grass will sprout and grow.) And then, whatever happens, happens.

Luckily, in just about four weeks, autumn will be here and put an end to this summer, whether I dig it or not.

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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.

Posted in gardening, life. Tags: digging up dead grass, end of summer, hailstorms, heat tolerant grass, hordes of grasshoppers, miller moth invasion, putting in new lawn. 6 Comments »

The Joy — and Heartbreak — of Gardening

April 17, 2023 — Pat Bertram

My yard is greening up nicely. The grass you see in the forefront of the photo is the grass I planted last fall after digging up the Bermuda grass that had taken over the area. The new grass survived the winter nicely. I was going to wait to see how the grass does in the unrelenting sun of summer before I planted more seeds, but I decided to go ahead and do some of the work now. The blue seed is where the old grass didn’t come back after dying off last summer. A lot of the lighter green is a larkspur invasion that took over where the grass along the path died. The larkspur will run its course in the next couple of months, so I’ll be able to plant more grass next fall.

I fretted about the lawn, not sure what to do about the grass that died, but since I often find myself standing at the back window looking out at the shimmering emerald of the lawn in front of the bench and feeling calm settle over me, I decided it was worth keeping up with the lawn as a mental health aid, if nothing else. At the worst, I’ll have to replant some of it every year for a while as well as digging up the invading Bermuda grass, but you never know — this seed might be as heat tolerant as it claims to be. Still, the sun in this corner of Colorado can be fierce, made even more searing by low humidity and high winds, so I won’t blame the grass if it has a hard time establishing itself along the path where it gets no shade. Oddly, even the plants that supposedly need to be grown in full sun do better around here with a bit of shade, perhaps because the shade keeps the moisture in the soil a bit longer.

Because of the volatile weather pattern this spring — temperatures ranging from the twenties to the nineties with almost daily high winds — most of my tulips are stunted. The exception is this small patch that is in the shade most of the time.

I am hoping that if I water the remaining tulips copiously on the very hot days they will still bloom, but I have no idea what will happen. It could be too late in the season for them to recover.

Gardening in this corner of Colorado is certainly a challenge, but I am learning, paying attention to what grows best and where, what need extra care, and what plants that don’t seem to want to thrive no matter what I do. Luckily, plenty of plants seem to like it here, which makes the whole project a joy. Heartbreaking at times, of course, but overall, a joy.

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