Your garden as sanctuary
We spent the past 12 days cottaging in the Bruce Peninsula, catching up with our extended family (23 strong) with days on the beach, sunset swims and glorious Lake Huron sunsets. It was a memorable holiday.
After a few days away, a case of garden withdrawal starts to set in. Sound familiar?
I try to satisfy my craving for gardening by going for walks along the cottage lanes, taking note of the butterflies, wildflowers, trees and the progress of local gardens. Eventually, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to visit one of those gardens and chat with the owner, who happens to hail from Niagara (more on that in an upcoming column).
But after nearly two weeks away, I was looking forward to reconnecting with my home garden. What had come into bloom while I was away? By early August, the daylilies, dahlias, zinnias, coneflowers and maybe even a second crop of roses should be in full bloom. Did any Japanese beetles return? (Before leaving, I had cut back all of the rosebuds to deter the rascals.) Did the fresh layer of mulch, applied the week before we left on holiday, keep the weeds at bay and the soil moist? Many thanks to a gracious brother-in-law who watered the garden while we were away.
We set off for Niagara early in the afternoon; my plan was to spending a couple of hours with a watering wand in hand checking up on the garden when we got home. You know what they say about the best laid plans …
I came home to plenty of water, but not the kind I was expecting. Our house was flooded from top to bottom due to a cracked toilet tank — yikes! Many homeowners in the north end of St. Catharines suffered even more devastating floods a day or two after our return. A flooded house is real mess, plenty of work and, sadly, a lot of heartache — my heart goes out to every person affected.
Fortunately, our losses will be covered, and we are getting plenty of help, but I was not prepared to hear that we would be out of our house for the next five months. Leaving a flooded house is one thing, but to abandon the garden at the height of the season was inconceivable. Several new projects were just coming into bloom, like the cutting garden and David Austin roses. I was so looking forward to spending August there.
After getting the ball rolling — “It’s a process,” I’ve been told — I was able to spend an extended weekend at the house. Mornings were spent sorting and packing a few essentials, and then I escaped to the garden for the rest of the day. I cannot overemphasize how important this time in the garden was to my sanity. While the inside of the house was chaotic, the garden felt like a sanctuary — I closed my mind to any negativity and focused on the beauty outside — I knew that it had the power to heal my heart.
I started with simple tasks: deadheading the dahlias, zinnias and roses, watering the beds — it was important to be present and in the moment, taking in the colours, scents and textures, keeping an eye out for bees, butterflies, and maybe a hummingbird. I discovered a cache of swallowtail butterfly caterpillars in a patch of parsley, and a single miniature caterpillar in the dill. A monarch butterfly was darting around from one patch of milkweed to the next, and I’ll be keeping an eye out for young caterpillars in the coming days.
The David Austin roses were bursting with fresh growth, and I’m pleased to report not a single Japanese beetle in sight. This weekend I’ll be cutting a generous bouquet of roses for my desk.
I moved on to more challenging jobs like reining in the trumpet vine, weeding the gravel edge below the retaining wall (thanks for the help, Paul) and thinning out the overcrowded coneflowers. Most of the dill in the circle garden has gone to seed, so it will be cut it back this weekend. I’ll also be keeping an eye out for more caterpillars.
Without a functioning kitchen there were no meals to prepare, so we picnicked in our backyard, and I spent more time just sitting and soaking up the garden than I can remember doing in a long while.
A strong breeze stirred the silver grass and rustled through the hornbeam hedge on Sunday afternoon — a sobering reminder that autumn is just around the corner — and it’s time to make the most of the last few weeks of summer.