The Gardens in 2020

I don’t remember growing older
When did they?
When did he grow to be so tall?
Wasn’t it yesterday
When they were small?
Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly flow the days
Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers
Blossoming even as we gaze
Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly fly the years
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears

— Paraphrased from Fiddler on the Roof

COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on humans throughout the world, but Blue Note Garden has fared very well in 2020, with a spectacular, long spring and steady rain. That was an especially good thing because I had to mostly ignore the gardens from May through August due to health issues. As I tried to regain weight and strength following surgery and chemo, the gardens proved, hands down, the best medicine and therapy. 

In the midst of this fine summer, I look out our home’s many floor-to-ceiling windows and I am astounded by all the thriving, mature plantings that have settled comfortably into the landscape. “When did they grow to be so tall?” Most remarkably, with only a very few, truly hot days, even spring wildflowers such as Solomon’s Seal and ornamental trees such as the flourishing, weeping katsura are retaining both their green color and their leaves much longer than usual, making for many layers of infinite shades of green. Foliage is growing vigorously enough and everywhere that the main tasks are to remove it from obliterating massive rocks and to prune as high as possible so that smaller, newer plants can have access to more sunlight. 

Otherwise, there is hardly anything to do in the garden, really, except that I can never resist fiddling with plenty good enough, trying something different and completing projects. But those are just rationale. When it comes right down to it, I much prefer working in the garden than any other form of physical exercise, although walking and hiking are always a strong draw if I can find the time for those as well. I am privileged and old enough that I don’t worry so much anymore about the day’s agenda, but I let the gardens tell me what to do. I finally have learned the lesson I was given by a good friend and fellow musician many years ago when I complained that I went out for a few minutes and came back into the house hours later having achieved none of what I had intended: “But, Theresa, that is the whole point of a garden—to dither, to be lead astray.” Indeed.