Sudden Death in the Garden

I may be a strange person. I get attached to my plants, and I think of them, not as people, of course, but as pets. Some of them are favorites. For example:

Have I bragged enough about my red banana plant? I featured it in my blog posts several times over the summer. Here is a photo I took of it just last week:

Two days after I took that shot, my red banana plant was dying. One morning it looked fine, though surely I would have seen signs if I had looked closely. By that afternoon the central stalk had wilted and fallen over and all the leaves were turning crispy brown. What strange fungus or virus killed it, I don't know. I was heartsick as I amputated the top of the plant. The core was mushy brown. Some sort of rot? I cut the stump to the ground, and at least here all the tissue appeared healthy. I covered the stump with pine straw.

Gardens are ever changing, and experience has taught me not to cling too tightly to the past. But whenever something happens to one of my plants, I grieve a little bit, and right now I am missing those beautiful banana leaves.

I have shifting emotions. There is always hope: perhaps the plant will send out new growth next year. Or I can buy another one if it doesn't. And what if the same thing happens again? Well, that is a problem for another day!

Meanwhile, I have a hoard of plants waiting to be planted as soon as the weather cools in September. I will be working on a new fern glade in the woodland garden, and I have additional plans for parts of the lady garden and front garden. And Lou wants chickens! I have to figure out what to do about that...

The Garden Experience

I own an oil painting, thick with strokes of greens and blues, rose tones, and golds. It was done in the impressionistic style, reminiscent of Monet, and only after gazing at it for a moment does one realize that two women are standing in a meadow of flowers. One is wearing a white dress and the other a long blue one. Both have on wide-brimmed sun hats, and they seem to be gathering flowers. It is the idealized garden experience. What woman gardener hasn't fantasized about walking through fields of blooms, wearing a beautiful gown?

Reality is a bit different. Whenever I am in my garden I am likely to have on baggy pants and a loose cotton or linen shirt. It's not a bad outfit. (When my neighbor Betty works in the garden, she wears old rags, held together with safety pins.) A sun visor protects my eyes and keeps curls off my forehead. I like the kind of sun visor that has a built in sweat band, because I am going to sweat. Sweat is not lady-like, but most of the things I do in the garden aren't lady-like. Digging and pulling, shoveling and cutting and hauling, mixing and squishing and pouring and spraying are activities that get me dirty and damp, unlike the ladies in my painting. I bet they had servants to do those kinds of things. 

But I know my garden. I took these shots while walking around the front garden.I know the soil. I know the plants. Close-ups of some summer flowers blooming in my gardenThe Lady in Red hydrangeas offer interest throughout the summer.

I can't say how much I am enjoying my Red Banana plant! The foliage is very photogenic.

Many plants have interesting seed capsules.

I am familiar with its wild inhabitants. This Haploa clymene moth looks like a crusader's shield.

I usually leave red wasps alone, but I recently rescued one from inside my car. This one let me take his photo.I know when things go wrong and when things are good. I listen to the orchestra of sounds in my garden, the music of the day and the night.  I am always aware of the weather. I know the sun and the heavy humid air, and I know the cool touch of a breeze on my hot skin.

Every day my eyes are on the horizon. I can tell when dense clouds are coming, charged with lightning and echoing with thunder, sending rains that may bring sorrow or joy.

I don't have a garden experience so much as I experience my garden, and there is an elemental difference. I think it may be what separates a gardener from someone who merely owns the space.