The Beginning of the End of Summer.
Click image above to see entire photo in separate window.
We’re in the middle of a hot, yet not really hot weekend here in the Pacific Northwest. I don’t really consider 90 degree Fahrenheit hot, although had you asked me ten years ago when we lived in a metal-roofed rental home with zero insulation in the walls or ceiling, I would have replied by melting into a pool of sweat at your feet. After nearly 54 years, air conditioning has spoiled me at last.
And with this ‘heat’ comes the first signs of the end of summer.
Does that statement make you catch your breath, perhaps elicit a cry of, “No, not yet?” Or are you one of those, slowing cooking somewhere in the world, who can’t wait to see the hot months go? Bring on autumn, I usually say, though as I’m getting older, I’ve started to feel a catch in my chest over the sense of loss with summer’s downward slide into wintery, cold sleep.
"I’d like to think so, but if they do,
it’s not in any way we, as humans, understand.
But gardeners do."
The first of my daylilies has finished with its glorious, tall orange blooms, a bit early in my opinion, but then again, it didn’t bloom anywhere near the prolific levels it used to. It too is feeling its age and is getting old. July is wrapping up; the daylilies are usually going strong into August. In a couple of months, nothing but a mound of dried, brown strappy leaves will be left and the dreams of next spring will begin. Do flowers dream? Do plants dream? Do plants dream of generations of flowers not yet formed? I’d like to think so, but if they do, it’s not in any way we, as humans, understand.
But gardeners do.
WS and I talked briefly this evening about removing some of the bigger plants out front of our house. A decade ago, we planted everything thick, intentionally, knowing we’d thin and remove plants, bushes, entire trees if need be, when the time came, if and when the place began to look too crowded or cramped.
I think it’s time, it definitely will be by this fall. Another Hinoki cypress or two will come down, perhaps a six-foot burning bush that’ll kill me to see it go; if not that, then the tall, bluest of blue juniper at it’s side; planted before the three-foot tall burning bush doubled in size.
Back when we started landscaping this place, the running joke became, “All plant tags are wrong.” Boy, did we ever have a long string of those. If the tag stated the plant, bush, or tree only got a particular height or grew a certain way, even if I had looked up the supposed exact variety and knew what it would look like in two, five, ten years, it almost always turned out to be a lie. The plants would double in size. The color in either foliage or bloom would be wrong. The trees would spread wide instead of columnar. Slow-growing dwarf anything would take out walkways, fences, and bury water features. Low groundcover would become tall, raging pests that choked out shade-loving, and expensive, flowers.
"…to where? Why, the yard debris bin more than likely.
No room at the inn, as they say."
Back to our front yard, a row of perennial purple Chrysanthemums, lovely over the past four years but too floppy tall, have just been begging to be removed but to where? Why, the yard debris bin more than likely. No room at the inn, as they say.
If the economy were better, those out-of-control barberries would be replaced with the true dwarf variety (like the behaved kind on the other side of the walkway) so the white-bark birches could actually been seen and enjoyed by the occasional passersby and I wouldn’t have to hedge trim the nasty things three times a year. And though it might not be exactly the right time to take out the five seven-foot tall Alberta Spruces (gosh, were they actually cute, little foot-tall things just ten years ago??), they are all looking worn and haggard, leaning and brown on the edges, and too crowded, too old.
Or maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m just in a clearing out, thinning out, less-is-more mood. It’s the economy, stupid and I’m drowning in debt and overgrown landscape. I’m ready for a change but change isn’t coming in the way I’d like it to. I’d like to rip most of the front yard landscape out and begin anew, armed with the last ten years of knowledge and a new, cleaner vision of what could be. Looking at our place, it’s clear a plant-lover lives here, but to find her, you’d have to cut a path through the thick summer foliage.
