by Donna Andrews of the Femmes Fatales.
Sometime this week I'm going to go out and apologize to my garden. I spent many weeks during the late winter writing furiously, followed by many weeks of spring traveling--to Vancouver by train for Left Coast Crime, to Yorktown for Easter, to New York City for the Edgars, and to Bethesda for Malice Domestic. Given all that, taking care of the garden rather took a back seat. I'm feeling guilty about that.
Not that my garden requires daily attention. I like to think of myself as a Darwinian gardener. It's all about survival of the fittest plants. I try to avoid planting anything that requires undue cosseting. I know myself by now--sooner or later either a deadline or a trip will cause me to abandon any prima donna plants to the not-always-tender mercies of Mother Nature. So I try not to acquire delicate plants, plants that require special fertilizer or pest control measures or even regular watering.
My father was a much better gardener than I am, and capable of working like a dog over his plants, but still, there were things he never bothered with--roses being the prime example. Was he simply not fond of them? Or did he have, to a much milder degree, my Darwinian fatalism: "no matter what I do they will never thrive, so why bother?"
I confess: I do keep a few roses. I don't do well by them. I'm not going to spray them with anything that would affect the bees, so sometimes disease blights them. Since my neighborhood is heavily deer-infested, I mostly grow them in planters on the balcony, and in a particularly cold winter I'll lose at least one to frozen roots. I probably shouldn't bother with the roses at all. But I like roses. I also feel guilty about all the ones I've killed over the years.
But that's a small, ongoing guilt. A bigger guilt this spring is that I haven't given the garden more than a lick and a promise. Haven't cut back things that needed cutting back. Haven't cleaned up winter debris. Haven't planted any new bulbs or plants--no, not even stuck a few cheap annuals in a pot. I'm about to remedy that, but still--sorry, garden.
Even that's not the main reason I feel the need to apologize to my garden. You want to know the biggest guilt trip? I haven't appreciated it enough. In spite of my neglect, the garden went on about its business. Things put out leaves and eventually bloomed, and I wasn't there appreciating it.
I wasn't out there documenting the arrival of the first snow drops, crocuses, and early daffodils. I didn't get filthy from lying on the ground trying to take the perfect shot of the pink-and-white daffodil against the sky. I didn't inhale enough hyacinth and lilac scent. I got a few glimpses of the huge purple azalea before heading off to Malice, and by the time I went out to take another look at it, the blossoms were fading.
I'm sorry garden. I'm going to work on doing better.
Comments