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This Means War: The Art of Gardening
by Laurie Jacobs THIS MEANS WAR: THE ART OF GARDENING Begin With a Hole You will need a spade. Make sure the blade is sharp. Find a patch of soft earth in the sun. If you haven’t got soft earth, any earth will do. And if you haven’t got any sun, shade will do. And if you haven’t got a spade, fingers will do. Dig your hole. But remember, by digging this hole, you have become an invader, a colonizer, an alien force—be prepared for opposition. Plant and Hope Tuck in your plant, or your seed, or your bulb, or your sapling or shrub. If you believe in the efficacy of prayer, pray. If not, pray anyway. The world is full of things out to destroy what you have planted: insects, viruses, rodents, deer, your puppy, your neighbor’s cat, your neighbor’s toddler, your elderly uncle. Not to mention catastrophes like drought, or flood or late frost. Nature is the enemy of your garden. Weed and Weed Again Weeds are party crashers who will eat up all your snacks and drink all your beer and then strangle all your guests. Remove every shoot, every root, every weed seed but know that when you go to sleep, other weeds will sneak into your garden, weeds like Black Swallow Wort or Japanese Knotweed or Switch Grass—weeds you cannot tug up or dig out because they spread through underground runners. You will frantically search for ways to eliminate them and will discover the only way to do so is to eliminate your garden. Take Up Arms While you are worrying about weeds, insects will descend on your plants. Squash them. Drown them. Hose them off. You may be tempted to add to your arsenal with pesticides, herbicides, fire. You may dream of covering your garden with cement to suffocate the invaders. Remember, you have taken up gardening to create beauty, to enjoy a peaceful, restful pursuit. Steel Yourself For Loss On warm summer days you will find the moist yellow-brown boneless bodies of slugs oozing along the wide leaves of your hostas, blue-green like the sea or the bright sharp green of emeralds, and they will bite and chew and mangle those leaves and you will hate those slugs with all your being because slugs are disgusting, but as disgusting as they are, at least they won’t kill your hostas. One day you will admire the lovely canopy of green leaves on your crab apple trees and the next you will see drilled into those same leaves holes rimmed with spiny projections like monstrous eyelashes. And soon those leaves will curl and yellow and drop to the ground making June look more like October and you will suffer the sickening sensation that you have missed all of summer. But wounded as they are, your crab apples will limp on and so will you. And then your rose bushes, thick with flowers lush and blowsy as young women in low cut blouses, will begin to brown. Within days those flowers will wilt and the rose leaves will be reduced to skeletons as if they have been touched by the Angel of Death whose cold hand you can feel hovering over your own shoulder. The experts will tell you this is the work of sawflies, and your roses may survive and bloom again next summer—but will you? Surrender In autumn, you will abandon your claims and cede your garden back to the weeds and the insects. You will let the snow cover the battlefield and hide the slugs and weeds and crippled roses. You will find all that white restful. Renew the Fight By the end of winter you will ache for green. When the hours of sunlight lengthen and the snow melts and shoots of daffodils sprout from the soil and the fiddleheads of ferns unfurl, the sap will rise in your body and optimism will cloud your reason and you will sharpen your spade, sharpen your claws, take out your weeder, your pruner, your axe, your flame thrower, and get back to work in the garden. If that old rose bush doesn’t bloom, you will get a new one. And dig another hole. LEARNING TO LIVE BY GARDEN TIME When you plant the clematis by the arbor, you will wear sleeveless tank tops and cut-off jeans and a bandana tied around your head and you will be lithe and limber and can bend and stoop for hours. Your puppy will dig up your tulips and try to dig up your maple sapling and your neighbor’s toddler will pluck your Shasta Daisies and leave a trail of crushed petals and your elderly uncle will drive across your lawn and flatten your daylilies. Before you know it, you will be gardening in a long sleeve shirt and a wide brimmed hat and your back will ache after ten minutes of pruning. Your old dog will sleep in the shade of the maple and your neighbor’s kid will ride a tricycle into your astilbes and then skateboard across your peonies and then like your long dead uncle will drive a car across your lawn and flatten your daylilies. And still you will be waiting for that clematis to bloom. |
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