Fall | Dirt Simple

Say Good Bye

Don’t you despise it-saying goodby?

Finishing a good book is a mixed blessing. As much as the resolution of the story is eagerly anticipated, the closure is tinged with regret. That experience has regretfully come to an end. How many times did you read all of the Wizard of Oz books, hoping for yet another sequel? Frank Baum reluctantly wrote several sequels to his first book of Oz-children everywhere did not want the story to end. At one point, he wrote that Oz had lost touch with the world-there could be no more books. The hue and cry was such that he wrote a new Oz book every year until his death in 1916, making 13 sequels to the original Wizard of Oz in all. After his death, his publisher engaged the writer Ruth Plumly Thompkins to write another 21 Oz books. There was a new book released every year at Christmas from 1913 until 1942-imagine. 35 books were written in all, as no child who read them ever wanted to say goodby.

I am sure you know where this is leading. Though I have had gardened through 36 seasons, I still hate to say goodbye. There are plenty of signs that make point to the end. In a good year, the woody plants slow down gradually, so the state of being awake, and the state of being asleep is about the duration of a heartbeat. The annual flowers fade. The leaves turn color and finally drop. The shortening of the day length is so gradual that the first day it is dark at 5pm is shocking to the bone.

But for a few cold days, we have had a long and mild fall. Until just a few days ago, a neighbor had thick gorgeous hedges of mixed dwarf marigolds blooming. My Japanese anemones went on and on. However, the last sequel to this season is just about to come to a close. A shockingly low 23 degrees yesterday made for an abrupt end to that long slide towards the end.

It was 33 degrees all day today. My insulated fall jacket fell far short of keeping me warm. Outside without gloves on, it felt like hands were about to fall off. The perennial garden has been cut back to the ground. The leaves from all of the trees have been collected, and added to a giant pile at the landscape yard. Even the parrotias are shedding their leaves.

On the deck this morning, an ever so thin dusting of snow. The sky was an unvarying shade of light lead all day. The wind was biting. All of the tulips are in the ground-where it is warmer than the air temperature. They are rooting-not growing. The trees are dark and skeletal.

It is not my idea to leave any gardener with an image of dark and skeletal. The spirit of the garden can go on. What goes on outside can come inside. The memory of the garden can powerfully inform and lighten the burden of the winter season. More on this to follow.

Digg Digg

Posted on: November 15, 2012 8 Comments

Filed Under: container planting, Fall Tagged With: fall cleanup, late fall, the dormant garden

Gray Day

The fire that was our fall has burnt itself out, but for a few embers here and there. Those embers are largely the heat that is generated by passionate gardeners. The plans to plant bulbs. How to store the cannas. What they feel they must try-next season. A new house requiring some semblance of a landscape before the snow flies. But the fact remains that the leaves from our shop wall of boston ivy fell in unison overnight, making a crispy heap all along the base of the wall. The skies have been rainy and gray all day-the wind brisk and cold. The color in the garden this late-muted, and dry.

My small rose garden is but a shadow of its summer self. The last few flowers on the Sally Holmes roses are droopy, the petals punctuated by rose pink markings from the cold rain. The asparagus, weighted down by the cold rain, is grudgingly turning yellow. Along with my Parrotias, it is the last plant in garden to succumb to the fall, and turn color. Once the asparagus turns, I know the gray days are soon to come.

Buck shut the fountain down a week ago. Dry maple leaves floated on the still surface. Many more maple leaves have sunk to the bottom, turning the water brown. The decomposing leaves stain the stone. He drained the pool yesterday. I am in no hurry to go see it-empty. Closing the fountain is every bit as emotional day as that day when we open it in the spring. The opening and closing-part and parcel of gardening in a zone that has four seasons.

What plant could possibly be more dramatic about about the close of the gardening season than the hostas? Once the cold infiltrates their stems and leaves, they collapse in a mushy heap on the ground. Flattened-that is exactly how the late fall makes me feel. It’s too late to garden, beyond the planting of the fall bulbs. It’s too early for winter. It’s too early for a down coat, but its too late for a sweater. It is way too early to wring my hands, and wish the season had been better. It is too late to plant a few more anemones.

We did redo a landscape on a small property last week; this renovation included a sizeable perennial garden. If I plant perennials this late in the fall, I am sure to tromp down the rootballs firmly. No rooting will take place now, and the frost coming out of the ground in the spring will want to heave those rootballs out of the ground. We stamp every plant down firmly. At the end of winter, when the frost starts coming out of the ground, we will check to be sure no plants have heaved up.

Though we are still actively involved in the installation of landscapes, several of which are for newly constructed homes, the close of the gardening season is tough to take. Amazingly, we have not had a hard frost yet. Down the street from me, a marigold border is flat out gorgeous. Maybe it’s just my gray-colored glasses, but most of the landscape looks like it is grieving.

Astonishing how the leaves of the Boston ivy fall all at once, leaving their stalwart pink stems still attached. These rosy stems defying gravity made me smile- in spite of that cloud of gloom following me around.

The coming of the dark-I do not welcome it. But there will be moments, experiences to come that I will enjoy. The winter season in Michigan-who knows what nature has in store for this year. Putting the shovel and the pruners away means there will be time for the holidays, the winter containers, the books – and the planning for the new season to come. This was a very hard season-I am not so sorry to see it gone. The April frosts that killed every flower on my magnolias, and the extreme heat and drought that challenged all of my summer gardening efforts-I am relieved to see that come to a close. In spite of this griping about my summer season, I am sorry to see it gone.

Posted on: November 2, 2012 2 Comments

Filed Under: Fall, Garden Stories, Upon Reflection Tagged With: four seasons

Halloween Light

The new landscape lighting got done just in the nick of time-for Halloween. What a difference it made! Little kids in costumes with skirts ands pants that were extravagantly long could negotiate my steps with ease. Those with big wigs, masks, elaborate costumes, and knit caps to ward off the cold, had some light to help them get to the door.

The lights positioned outside the front door made it easy for me to see every costume, and every face. Though one places a premium on scary at Halloween, a well lighted walk and destination makes for an experience of the landscape that is more fun for everyone. The puzzled looks you see here-my French friend Matthias asking each trick or treater “who are you??”. Each reaction was immediate, and unfiltered by a dark meeting place.

Though many of my pictures are blurred, they tell a story. This is my once a year contact with the kids who live in my neighborhood. This is their once a year interaction with me. The new landscape lighting helped all of us to see each other better.

My arms are still aching from carving 6 giant pumpkins. I will never again be fooled by the label-”carving pumpkins”. I somehow thought these carving pumpkins would be thin walled-easy for a florist’s knife to handle. This pumpkin had walls every bit of 2 inches thick. Hours it took to carve them. I did put 7 votive candles in each of my pumpkins-Buck thought I was nuts. But I am used to the light from the pumpkins supplying all of my Halloween light. Last year, the nest of gourds that I usually set my pumpkins on would not have been visible. This year, the light from the eaves makes them part of the show. The work was worth it-it showed.

The porch was a well lit place. This was a good thing, considering that it was cold, and spitting rain. It interests me that landscape lighting can provide so much atmosphere for an event-or a garden. Last week, the lighting was friendly-all about illumination. Halloween night it was all about a little drama. The shadows cast by the lights-just as scary as the holiday.

Though the work of the carving was a lot, my pumpkin pots were looking good. Lots of fire on the inside. Enough light outside to reveal their shapes and stems.

The look of this pumpkin without light from above would have told but half the story. More kids asked about my pumpkins this Halloween than ever before. Many kids asked me if they were real. The lighting made all the difference to the presentation. This exterior lighting is making the many dark months ahead seem less dreary. Even intriguing. Some thoughtful landscape lighting-I recommend it.

Posted on: November 2, 2012 6 Comments

Filed Under: Fall, Lighting Tagged With: landscape lighting