IT’S NOT ENGLAND – IT’S COLORADO.

I love the lushness of England.  Beautiful, tall willow tress lining the river Avon in Stratford.  Neatly trimmed hedges in Warwick Castle’s Peacock Gardens.  The cluttered, messy Victorian look of English gardens in full bloom.

Summer 1999

I've lost count the number of times I've been to England.  It's my second home.  But I do remember one trip above all others, and that is when my husband had his heart attack.  We had just come from France on the Chunnel train.  Mike’s lucky to be alive – he received incredible care from all of the medical staff at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.  For two weeks we depended on the kindness of our British hosts while Mike recovered.  During this time, I stayed in a bed and breakfast, which was much more affordable than a hotel.  And oh my goodness, did my landlady, Nora, have the most beautiful English garden.  In the mornings before I headed out on my one mile walk to the hospital, Nora would pull me into her garden.  

“Isn’t she spectacular?” Nora would ask me. 

She, being the single rose opening up to early morning sunlight.  Nora was nearly blind, but she would put her face up to that rose and gaze in wonder at its beauty, as though looking through a magnifying glass.  She didn't just smell the rose.  She stared into its very soul.

“She’s stunning,” I would reply. 

And for a brief period of time each morning, all my worries stopped. I didn’t fret about Mike’s heart, or his recovery, or the expenses, or my job, which was demanding my return to America.  Instead, I would sit in the garden with Nora, having a cup of tea, commenting on the wonder of nature’s blooms.  Grateful for the brief respite.

I wish for Nora’s English garden.  But I live in Colorado.

The stone wall is now complete.  We are in the process of finishing the upper garden, which once housed my hopes for hydrangeas, lupines, and English lavender.  Replaced now with indigenous bushes, supposedly protected from draught and flash floods.  These are hardy, pioneer plants.  We’ll see . . .

The rock comes next, to keep the critters who love to dig from accomplishing their single-minded task.  As for gardening, I'm not giving up.  I’ll move to containers – hoping to grow peas, green beans, tomatoes, peppers, and a variety of flowers in clay pots.  But I already miss my beautiful white hydrangeas.  It’s painful to say goodbye.

Rebuilding

The garden wall is broken.  Weeds grow between crevices, an indication of poor construction from the beginning.  And then there are the rabbits and ground squirrels who tunnel, digging beneath strawberry plants, lavender, and yarrows.  Colorado plants may be hardy, but even they can’t tolerate these tunnels.  Lest I forget, there is also the damage from the flood of 2015.  The one that ruined our basement.  And my garden.

I come from pioneer stock.   Great-Great Grandma migrated from Wales in a covered wagon, traveling to Colorado when she was only three months old.  Life took from her three beloved adult children, whom she was required to bury.  Yet she somehow found the strength to plant her “tomorrow's” with a sense of hope.  I adored Mabel.  And I think she adored me.  Mabel taught me to love English tea, served with a splash of milk in real china cups.  She taught me to crochet.  And she was my first Master Gardener (my Dad was my second).   I remember Mabel’s green house – the smell of peat and dirt.  The smell of fertilizer and cow shit.  The smell of life. 

Great-Grandma didn’t let the Colorado wind, the critters, the dryness, the droughts, the floods stop her.  She grieved and mourned, but she continued to plant new life each season.  In her garden, and in her family.  She saw all of us.  Her children.  Her grandchildren.  Her great-grandchildren.  We were all part of the garden she cultivated.

Sometimes, it benefits us to sit in silence, to observe our surroundings, to take stock of the plants that remain in our life, and to appreciate those plants that were destined to go.  To reconstruct.  And when required, to harden.  Add pebbles and rocks so the critters can’t tunnel through. 

Here’s to the 2016 Garden Caretaker Blog.  And to rebuilding the garden wall.

BEING ZEN IN A COLORADO GARDEN - AN OXYMORON?

I’m re-reading The Zen of Gardening in the High and Arid West, by David Wann, a book I traditionally revisit this time of year.  I suppose in re-reading this book each February, a part of me expects I’ll wise up and throw in the rake, so to speak.  Really, gardening in Colorado -- are you nuts? I ask myself at the beginning of every snow-encrusted spring.  Another year of frustration with drought, arid soil, wind, and hail storms.  Honestly, I don't know why I bother – I should just head to Whole Foods and buy organic produce.  It would be sooooo much cheaper (and that is saying a lot!).

I’m my father’s daughter and I can’t help myself.  This past weekend, Dad and I visited the gardening center and he directed – really, he mandated -- which seeds I should buy, along with the type of peat pots and plastic containers to hold the peat pots.

“Ann, you don’t need to buy those expensive seed trays.  You can just buy these cheap plastic trays to hold your peat pots.”

“Dad, the ones I want are not that expensive.  I like them better and they’re only $1.99 a tray.”

“THESE plastic trays,” he said, as he vigorously waved several of them high in the air while seated in his electric scooter, “are only $1.39 and you can reuse them next year.  You’re wasting your money.  You don’t need those fancy two dollar trays.”

Said with sternness.  Said with resolve and determination.  Like an old man wanting to be seen and heard again.

Of course, I didn’t need any of these trays.  I can grow seeds in sawed off milk cartons for crying out loud.  But I knew what it was I wanted.  I’ve been gardening for many years now and while I'm by no means a master gardener, I don’t consider myself a novice.   Sigh.  Dad is 87 years old, there’s little over which he has control anymore, and he hasn’t been able to plant seeds or mulch the soil for quite some time.  The past several years, he’s lived vicariously through my garden.  Because Dad was my original teacher, I decided to grant him agency in directing me.  It was a small sacrifice on my part and one that made him happy.

I put down the $1.99 trays, took from him the $1.39 trays that he still held high above his head, and placed them in the cart. 

“Let’s go check out now, Dad,” I said.

He nodded his head in approval.  I’m still her Zen garden master.

My father is, after all, a product of the depression.  Sixty-cent difference per seed tray is significant in his mind.  Maybe he has a point.  A tray is just a tray.

Part of becoming a Zen master in the garden is to understand one’s own desires and motivations in cultivating the earth -- and then to accept in the end, nature will have her way.  Gardening really is a reflection of life.  I walk the garden beds during the spring months with dirty fingernails and no matter how much I scrape, there remains a light gray, half moon ridge of soil deep under my nail beds, reminding me there's a cycle and rhythm to this place we call our temporary earthly home.  In another month, my 5’4” frame will be slamming a metal hoe into the hard, unforgiving Colorado ground, all in an effort to till in rich brown, stinky manure -- the shit of life that in the end, stimulates growth.  And when the first hailstorm hits, as it surely will, I'll stare through my back windows, stomach sinking as I witness tomato plants I nurtured from infancy get shredded, a reminder that life is fragile.   But it is worth the hard work, worry and disappointment Colorado gardens require, because there is also the bounty.  I'm happier witnessing the tender neck of a newborn seedling poking through the earth than I am in watching a good movie.  

And so, it's time to start the tomato seeds.  For the next three months, I’m turning my expensive, Ethan Allen dining room table (truly, the only decent furniture I own) into a seed lot. 

Who else would subject her fine wood to peat pots, soil, water and fertilizer but a committed gardener?  Every year during the first week in March my husband cringes.  Mike stares in disbelief while witnessing me scoop dirt into pots that line our fine dining room table, knowing it is only the beginning of the season and there is so much more to come.  The first year we lived together he took action, working around me as he quickly placed plastic drapery under the seed trays on the table.  He hopes year after year that he won’t have to remind me to do the same to protect the fine wood he cherishes.  I’m glad I have him.  He keeps me from destroying all of our good stuff.

In late March and early April, it will be time.  Time to get out doors and add bone meal and horse manure to the garden beds.  Time to sow the peas and beans outside as well. Time to trim the bushes and hedges.  Time to plant more indoor seeds into those little peat pots sitting in plastic bins selected by Dad, lining the Ethan Allen table protected by Mike.  Spring is on its way, even if Colorado stubbornly refuses to acknowledge this time of year. 

So off I go this weekend, planting not just tomato seeds, but also faith, hope, and love for the new season -- the ultimate state of being Zen.  These three things, whether in the garden or not.

TIP TOE THROUGH THE TULIPS

It’s autumn – my FAVORITE (and I mean FAVORITE) time of year.  Yes, I like autumn more than even summer when my garden is in full bloom.  Walking through Monument Valley Park or Garden of the Gods while crunching orange, red and yellow leaves beneath my boots, with just a pinch of coolness in the air – sipping hot cinnamon spice tea while eating a slice of homemade pumpkin bread (did this just last night!) – enjoying a fire in the fireplace in the evening – lighting candles again because the days are getting shorter and you can actually enjoy the warm flickering flames – and watching my garden prepare for a long winter’s sleep.  Oh.  And tulip bulb planting - yes, tulip bulb planting!

Well, it’s been a bit of a challenge to get the bulbs in this year but I was finally able to do so this past weekend.  I also planted a few bulbs at Genny’s house, with the help of my little gardening buddy, Hannah.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE that Hannah likes to garden and am hoping this is not just a phase she is going through.  In fact, I am looking forward to years of gardening with this precious granddaughter of mine.

When gardening with Hannah, I try to incorporate lessons, like reading the instructions before placing the bulb in the ground.

I ordered these bulbs from an Old World Gardening house and had a few delivered to my other gardening buddy, my niece Christie.  These are heirloom bulbs, most of which are progenies of the late 1800 and early 1900 Victorian Gardens, although some bulbs harken back to the 16^th Century.   I ordered one rare bulb (and I mean just one because it was kind of expensive) that is a 1780 progeny.  It is a Dutch Bizarre from the Hortus Bulborum, and if it comes to life next spring, it will have a swirl of dark chocolate brown petals.  In Colorado, I always use the word “if” with tulips because a spring blizzard can take out everything.   I also planted Black Parrot, Irene Copeland, and Florentine (dates to 1597) bulbs. 

Along with the tulips I planted hyacinth, narcissus, daffodil, and peony.  Just in time before the snow is predicted to hit on Weds.

And with the snow, there goes autumn in Colorado.  The trees will be stripped of their leaves and left bare.  Fall is such a short, brief, beautiful season here.  Ahhh . . . but I like winter, too, because along comes Thanksgiving and Christmas, snow encrusted branches, Jack Frost, homemade potato soup and corn muffins.  There is always something to appreciate in every season, isn’t there?  We grow where we are planted . . . and sometimes, where we are transplanted.