A Walker in the Suburbs

Years ago, there was an iris and day lily farm a few miles from here. Gardeners would flock to the farm this time of year to enjoy the blossoms and perhaps buy a few bulbs, which would be delivered weeks later in a brown paper bag. 

Margaret Thomas was the gardener. She was a relic of the old days, of small farms and neighborliness. She lived in a green house with a picturesque shed out back, half falling down. Artists would set up their easels in her garden and paint the iris with the ruined shed in the background. 

Our Siberian iris come from Margaret, and though they share the garden with their showier cousins, they are the ones that catch my eye every spring, their delicate beauty I seek when winter’s done. 

As for Margaret’s garden, it’s now a subdivision: Iris Hills. 

It’s the golden season for weeding, a precious period before the arrival of stilt grass and the more noxious undergrowth, when I can (and do) plop myself down and gently remove the crabgrass, wild strawberries and dandelions from the periwinkle and forget-me-nots.   

Weeding at close range can be a meditative occupation. It feels less like banishing what I don’t want and more like welcoming what I do. It is garden shaping rather than green demolition. And it’s a chance to be part of the landscape, one with the clematis and creeping jenny and bleeding heart.

Before long the tenacious troublemakers will move in, the invasive grasses that seem bent on making the world their own and require a full-scale assault to stop them. But until they do, just call me the weed whisperer.

As the great trees have fallen, the yard has grown brighter, able to support sun-loving plants.  Shade still rules the back of the lot, but it’s a more open place than it was ten years ago. 

Zinnias are old-fashioned flowers that like the sun.  They, like the recently transplanted knock-out rose, are the silver lining in the oaks’ demise. You can sow zinnia seeds directly in the soil when the ground is ready in spring. Which means I ventured out over the weekend, when the garden was moist and tangled in weeds, to start what I hope is a small crop of zinnias. 

Planting, like painting, is mostly about preparation. In this case, the preparation was weeding: ripping wild strawberry and mint from the flower bed; pulling the weed du jour, a tall, gangly stem topped with a baby’s breath-like white flower; and digging up wild onions and dandelions.  

Once I’d made room, I shook the seeds — the chaff, really, because that’s all it seemed — into my palm. How insignificant, barely more than pocket lint or specks of dirt with dust attached. But I spread them evenly and covered them with a light blanket of top soil. 

Surely planting seeds is the ultimate act of faith. If these wee, floaty things produce flowers I will be the most surprised one of all.

(Photo: Wikipedia)

Every year in early spring I try to organize the two climbing rose bushes that clamber over the pergola on the deck. So yesterday, I ventured forth with clippers and gardening gloves and a ladder to snip off the deadwood and re-attach boughs with twisty green gardening wire.  

A new task this year was freeing the detritus that collects under the tangle of limbs. This meant holding up the thorny wood with one hand while sweeping the gunk out with another, all while balanced on a ladder.

By the time I was done, I had leaf bits in my hair, black smudges on my face and pricked fingers and thumbs (the gardening gloves can only do so much). I was, in short, a mess. But the rose … it was looking pretty good. Maybe it’s just where I am now, but I consider this an excellent trade. 

(The rose at the beginning of its blooming period last year.)