Staycate

The boiling hot Tuesday of my second week off in August I set foot in a garden. (Not mine. I set sprinklers as soon as I got home but avoided mine until sometime the beginning of September.) I have considered Layanee a good friend for the last 3 years at least but still hadn’t visited her garden – all the way over yonder in Foster, RI. By Rudeyelin standids, Layanee’s garden is days away from mine. In actual fact it took an hour and 15 to get there. Just in case though, I brought my mom because she likes road trips – and gardens – and getting “lost” on the gray roads.

Despite Layanee’s demurrals and apologies her garden was actually still lush and colorful – and full of puppy. It just doesn’t get more inspiring than that. I am disappointed in my pictures but I didn’t even really want to take any because it was such a treat to experience it for reals. Pictures don’t do it justice anyway. Even after seeing years’ worth of Layanee’s pictures from every angle in every season, I had no real conception about the lay of the land. – There’s simply no way to find your bearings in a photo unless you’ve actually been there. I realized – and I feel a little silly to say this because I should always be keenly aware of it – that feeling grounded and present is an enormous part of the pleasure of seeing a garden. Ledge and Gardens was both more intimate in parts and more spacious in parts than I imagined and the vignettes and combinations much more interesting and beautiful for being held within the whole.

I liked my own garden better after the roadtrip – I’m not really sure why since it’s cramped and wonky and young in any kind of direct comparison. Then again there is no comparison, and no competition in gardening. It’s apples and orangutans. There’s only infectious enthusiasm – even when we’re all hot and exhausted and kind of over it.

Vacate

For me it’s imperative that I leave my garden in August. I am so sick to death of the garden that if I don’t leave it, I might wreck it. This year, rather than growing beautifully without me and absence making the heart grow fonder, my garden, out of spite I think (or lack of rain), bloomed out and started to shut down. I missed the full bloom of the brugmansia – had I known that they only give one good show, I wouldn’t have bothered grow it (the pessimist in me knowing I’d miss it.) Happily, our kittehsitter, Z’s sister, enjoyed it for us (if a brugmansia blooms with no one to take its picture is it still beautiful? – Who cares.) Likewise, the night blooming cereus opened all up again and thank goodness Kayla caught it and was gracious enough to say she was awed.

Meanwhile we (Z, Nino, our family and friends) kicked back at “the lake”. My parents found a rental property that by some miracle has been left as its original vacationers intended: A cobbed together house on a rocky pine woods slope, with paths to the hammock and dock worn through huckleberry bushes and scrub oak. Half a dozen – just the right number – of rocking chairs on the porch, shelves full of books and an enormous collection of mugs, loon “artwork”, and one life-size wooden goose. I dove headfirst into crystal clear water and into some of the best books I’ve read in a long time (if you haven’t read Tinkers yet…) and for one week, went as far from any garden as I could possibly could.

Do you need to get away from your garden by now too? (or is it just me.)

(next up “Staycate”.)

Good neighbors

My neighbor, Walter is on a bender again this weekend blaring his four early 60′s vintage albums and I’m extremely wistful for all the good neighbors I met last weekend in Buffalo. I wish my friends and fellow garden bloggers lived much closer to me than the distant interwebs. I also wish that I lived in as sympathetic a neighborhood as the cottage district in Buffalo. In my neighborhood, all we seem to inspire in each other is increased volume. So (with thanks to Lynn for introducing me to the music) I’m here with all of my people. Turn it way up.

I miss you guys!