Gardens, another art form

I’ve known Linda (not her real name) for nearly thirty years. In all that time, she’s gained approximately four ounces while I have added another entire person where my waist once was. Nothing on her body sags and her dimples are still cute. She has maybe a half dozen gray hairs that form a chic swoosh at her temple while I am speeding past the “salt and pepper” stage straight into a blue tint job.

Did I mention that Linda is a talented artist with exquisite tastes and an adoring husband only too happy to bankroll her every whim? When I leave her house and come home to mine, I’m not sure whether to reach for a paint roller, a vacuum cleaner or a match. I begin by pushing a chair from one side of the room to another. My husband asks what’s gotten into me today and when will dinner be ready.

I am a college-educated woman. I ran a successful business and helped guide two children to adulthood. My husband of 45 years still loves me and I have the most adorable dog in the world (everybody says so). But there are some triggers – and people - that set off a seismic quake of inadequacy. It’s totally irrational but there it is.

Now that I’m retired, I’ve decided to become a respectable gardener. I buy a lot of books. Recently, I decided to join the National Garden Conservatory as well as my regional Civic Garden Club and tour everybody else’s gardens to (1) steal ideas and (2) steal more ideas. This was a major decision. I knew I was risking another “Linda” situation and my ego simply cannot handle more abuse.

In the past month, I’ve toured fifteen gardens reflecting an astoundingly diverse scope. One was no bigger than a small patio holding about a zillion planted pots while another covered fifty acres. Most were comfortably somewhere in between these extremes spreading over backyards that once sported only mown grass. One or two provided textural carpeting among mature trees, my favorite since that mimics my own growing universe. A few included vegetables among the flowers and shrubs and one was planted with hundreds of blooming tulips that visitors were invited to pick and take home as bouquets. And while I have ideas to steal, here are a few other pointers and impressions from my visits.

First, somebody has really sold the “backyard pond” idea in a big way and the design errors can fill a book. While I’m sure that the sound of trickling water is mesmerizing, rarely does a human construction match the real deal and certainly not in a bathtub sized pool surrounded by a necklace of matched rocks the size of my head.

Hostas win the prize as the hardest working plant oxen among gardeners everywhere regardless of growing conditions.

As a group, gardeners are the most generous souls alive. They will share every secret they’ve spent years cultivating and condensing - everything from plant and tool resources to growing information that only they and their grandmother previously knew. And after all the wealth of knowledge is passed along, they bend over with a trowel and dig out a small sample of the plant for you to try at home. I’ve just returned home from a tour of the Hudson Valley gardens with a bagful of geranium roots and a tub of euphorbia. I also learned that the beautiful cordovan colored plant that mysteriously came to my garden is perilla and that it’s edible. I have enough to feed citizens of a small country.

I’ve yet to meet a gardener who has a finished garden. The eighty-something year old man now confined to a wheelchair that we spent time with at his sprawling estate on Saturday was explaining his next major planting project. His helper was at his side but there was no question about who was the brain behind this nature extravaganza.

I’m home again and you know what? My garden looks pretty good!

I’m calling Linda to come on over for tea.