Crawling from the Wreckage

By Bess Taylor

This year’s growing season was like a used car. It started out in spring all shined up and humming along nicely, looking like a pretty good deal. But as soon as summer came, the warranty was up and things started making funny noises. We could ignore them at first, as they seemed minor. But as the symptoms piled up and things started dropping off, we knew we had a lemon. We did the best we could to maintain dignity, but eventually the thing pooped out and it was all we could do to shove it to the side of the road still smoldering and call a tow truck to take it to the dump.  Let’s face it- with the severe drought in our area, this gardening season turned out to be a rather a clunker.

When watering conservatively stopped doing much good and weeding only exposed the dustbowl-dry soil, I gave gardening a rest. I often do when the humidity makes the air outside so clammy that the swarming gnats and mosquitoes run the risk of drowning in sweat if they land on my arm. Ha-ha on them! That’s the time of year I choose to stay inside and have iced tea while vowing to get back to it all in the fall.

Eventually I really do get back to the garden, when autumn’s first cool whispers draw me out of my hidey-hole. I love September mornings when the sun is still low and the sky is a deep turquoise blue. The crickets sound like tiny violins sustaining a note of suspense and expectation, like at the beginning of an opera. I feel like striding out in the middle of it, lifting my arms and bursting into song right there in my bathrobe. It is then that my gaze drops to the brown and twisted wreckage of the garden now barely visible through the amazingly healthy mega-snarls of weeds. Mea culpa! Has the opera ended in tragedy? Not yet, for if you recall the fat lady has not begun to sing. (It’s too early and maybe she didn’t want to wake the neighbors.)

Once I get over the big picture of disaster, I start to notice the small miracles of survival. The daylily leaves that drooped and withered away have started up afresh. A nasturtium that failed to thrive earlier has finally managed to lift a few lovely tangerine blossoms to the sky. The sedum that sat so stubbornly close to the ground, green and plump through it all, now holds crowns of pink stars aloft. Uninvited morning glory vines, which have managed to sneak unseen through the shrubbery, have surfaced and bloom in eye-popping shades of sky blue, deep purple and shocking pink.

The most impressive survivor to me however, is also the smallest: my nine-year old daughter’s Bluebeard (Caryopteris x clandonensis ‘First choice’). She bought it last year in a fit of Jonny Depp-inspired pirate enthusiasm at the Fauquier Autumn Plant Show and Sale. This little herbaceous perennial has sat patiently all year, stout-hearted as a pirate, through snow, rain and drought, just biding it’s time. Now, after many herbs have long ago dropped their flowers, its woody stems are suddenly topped with sprigs of tiny blue-violet blooms, each bearing a delightful little fringed beard. All this without nearly as much special attention as I gave some other new additions to the garden that gave up the ghost during the drought’s peak.

Fauquier County’s annual Autumn Plant Show and Sale, by the way, is a real treat for anyone who loves garden shows but hates driving long distances and slogging through heavy crowds. We discovered it last year and we had a great time. It was on the same day as a few other local fairs, and there was a light drizzle, so only true, die-hard gardeners seemed to be there, merrily chatting it up along the rows of plant vendors. The admission and parking were free, there was food, door-prizes, plants, and garden-related tools, crafts, machinery, books and demonstrations. You could get a complimentary jeep ride to your car with your new purchases. I discovered a quiet little “Guess That Plant” contest hiding in a corner of the festivities, gave it my best shot, and won even though I failed to identify every plant correctly. I was not at all sorry that the place was not mobbed. This year the Autumn Plant Show and Sale will be on Saturday, September 29^th from 9am-4pm at the Fauquier County Fairgrounds. (See the Marshallva.com Events page for a link to the schedule.)

Theory has it that drought years are cyclical, they come and they go in turn. Since we’ve had a couple of them in a row now, I am hoping that the cycle will tilt toward rainy and lush next year. Thus I will go to the Plant Show and I will invest in the future. A true gardener tends towards optimism even in the face of defeat. He may give up on a plant, but never gives up on the dream of Paradise in his yard. It is because of this determination alone that he is occasionally rewarded with glimpses of Heaven on Earth. These moments of sheer wonder at the beauty of nature are certainly worth all those moments of desperation when he shook his fist at another rainless sky.

©2007 Bess Taylor