Are you feeling impetuous about your garden projects? I have a plan to help us get organized

April 23, 2011

Snow boots and parka stashed in the darkest corner of the hall closet. Winter gloves, hat and scarves lying dormant in the drawer. Red tulips blooming in the front garden. Winter is over, isn’t it? Isn’t it? Why do I hear snickering?

If I have learned anything in this long purgatory of April,it’s this: When the sun is visible and the temperature is above 45 degrees, it’s time to pull on my oldest jeans and grey fleece Seattle Mariners shirt, and race outside to dig up more weeds. No stalling with a second cup of tea. No wimping out until the sun actually feels warm on my face. Just grab the weed bucket and get out there.

By buying this house and its overgrown gardens, Lee and I have made sure that my worst nightmare will never come true: What if I finally make The Perfect Garden and then there’s no more work to do? In our yard here in Moscow, Idaho, there will always be work to do. The ground still seems too wet for planting, so the work is weeding – and it feels as if I will never get it done by summer. (People have been warning me that a Moscow summer – the hot, tomato-growing season – lasts about two months, so I don’t want to miss a minute of it.)

As I walk around our big yard and pause at each wild garden bed, it’s easy for an impetuous gardener to feel overwhelmed. I’ll prune the lilacs on the east side. No – the lilacs on the west side need weeding and transplanting. And, oh, those poor roses! They’re suffocating among all the dead branches. But I have to go buy steer manure for the sweet peas. Wait – first I have to dig the long trench to plant the sweet peas. Quite soon my head is ready to spiral right off my neck and float away into Cloud-Cuckoo-Land.

To preserve whatever mental competence remains – and to get some actual work done in the garden, I have developed a plan that works well for me. It might be helpful for other impetuous gardeners, too. The first two steps of the plan are simple. Step Three is the big challenge for some of us:

• Step One: Decide which unfinished garden project bothers you most.
• Step Two: Start working on that project. Right now.
• Step Three: Do not go wandering off “just for a minute” to weed that little flower bed over there. Stay where you are and keep working until your project is done. Then you can go weed that little flower bed.

Last weekend, I knew I needed to start on a “This Is Bothering Me Most” weeding project, mostly because I felt so guilty for all the hard work my husband Lee was doing. We were talking one evening and I mentioned that I felt a great need for apple trees. The next day, Lee brought home four trees: two Gravensteins (my favorites) and two excellent pollinator trees: HoneyCrisp and Cortland apples. My only contribution to the hard-labor planting of those trees was to offer encouragement, sincere and lavish thanks, and unhelpful questions, such as, “So, how soon do you think we’ll have apples?” “Do you think I’ll be able to make pies this fall?” “Oh, no -- what if the crows steal our apples?”

So I chose my project: weed, prune and de-grass a large bed of vintage lilacs, wild roses, irises and violets that has been an eyesore to our neighbors since before we moved in. Neither Lee nor I can see this mess from inside our home, but I’d been thinking a lot about how lucky we are to live in a neighborhood filled with friendly people. And some of these people had to look at the matted grass, dead twigs and thriving weeds every time they drove past our corner, or parked in their driveway, or walked their dogs on our street.

For the rest of the weekend and into the week, I worked on sorting out that garden: Freeing the roses to find the sun, cutting out dead stalks of soon-to-flower bushes, digging out stubborn grass roots, and untangling delicate violets from the weeds that were trying to choke them. As I worked, I talked to the rose bushes, reassuring them that now they’d be able to breathe again, and soon they can show off their new blooms to everybody who passes by. (I realize that admitting in print to chatting with the roses probably isn’t the best way to inspire trust in your readers. But there it is.)

My This-Bothers-Me-Most project isn’t quite finished yet. But the next time the sun comes out and it’s not snowing, I’ll be out there with my weeding bucket until that lilac and rose garden is beautiful. And then I’m going to go weed that little flower bed over there. Just for a minute.