Entanglings

 

Good morning from the porch, where I am watching new star jasmine acclimating themselves to the fence in back.

Back in March, I'd ordered 6 small ones from Southern States, but it wasn't til yesterday that they called to say they were in.  Not quite what I wanted, they admitted a little sheepishly:  the order arrived in 3-gallon buckets.  I laughed, and told her I'd take two of them.  "Instant gratification!" said the register attendant.  

Well, true.  Already they are spreading themselves out to make a lovely view from my kitchen window, and will curl around for a little porch view, too.

I am happy to grow things from small to large, but this time I won't have to fight the deer off for the tender sprout beginnings, as I have for the chocolate vine babies, the honeysuckle, and the clematis.  I gave the clematis away, but the chocolate vine, though with barely any leaves left on its upper tendrils, is still climbing possessively up the fence wires.  It shows a spirit I admire.  

Meanwhile, the birds seem to be enjoying the looping plant encasing one of the old iron gates at the edge of the yard behind the small patio I built...I can't remember its name...it will have tiny summer flowers.  There must be a nest nearby of red and brown wrens, for I see those more often, along with a bluebird and a cardinal couple, hopping around among the plant and the iron chair and table.

The point I think I am slowly coming to is that, although I talk about my "garden" and the "gardening" I pretend I work at, this yard is a mass of things crunched together, entangled in ivy and vinca in the back, or scattered here and there on the front slope.  Real gardeners might call it a jungle, with good reason.  But because it is roofed from April to late November in deciduous trees (and grows in poor, you could say non-existent, soil), after March and April's energetic planting and weeding and arranging and re-arranging, I let it all go where it wants and will.

I've even decided that this year the wild purple mint that is already sprouting in the driveway can encroach all it wants.  There are other weeds to pull, and I as usual will do a few each day, as well as pick up the endless twigs and branches the trees rain each morning.  Until the mint reaches its 12-inch height, and then I will yank it out where it's getting too big for its roots.

So I apologize if previous posts have intimated that I am more a gardener than I am.  I've decided that I like my jungle of green, sometimes unplanned, often surprising over-growth.  I like to see what does and doesn't make it, year by year.

For instance, the bulbs I planted last year, in what was previously a wildflower garden I thought had failed, came out magnificently in March, but now that they are spent, here come the wildflowers again reaching, pushing themselves through and around the folded-over daffodil and iris leaves. 

 Likewise, the peony I thought was dead by winter has, Phoenix-like, sprung up again, with a healthy bud, maybe two.  

The two small magnolias which have grown barely an inch or two a year since Tom Krenitsky brought them to me from his magnificent magnolia preserve have sent up signs that they might bloom at the top this year.  (Tom advised me just to let them be what they will be, no care needed.)  

So I keep watching them, and others, as they mature, or not, making a wilderness of yard and sometimes mind.  And will do so long after I can't pick weeds anymore.

  

Happy garden to you all, however yours grows.