Flower gardening is the
passion that inspired this art. I am in the garden whenever I can be. We
have very long winters, and when I can't be in the garden, my mind will often
wander there. I am by no means a gardening expert, being more of an
experimental gardener, but this page contains some of my personal garden tips,
techniques, experiences, and thoughts. |
Winter is the perfect time to pour over seed catalogues and create garden fantasies in your mind. The last thing I would ever want to do is to squelch someone's
fantasies, but they sometimes just don't turn out as imagined. This is the story of one of my gardening fantasies.
I had read in some magazine about creating a lush and living little secret hideaway for kids using a pole bean teepee. Since I was a stay at home mom with small
children, my kids loved secret hiding places and also loved playing in the dirt and getting filthy, and I loved gardening, it seemed like the perfect idea. I could
visualize it in my mind. It would be a cool and shady little oasis for a hot summer day, the beans would be hanging down on the inside just waiting to be plucked
and eaten fresh and crunchy right off the plant, it would be quiet and green and secluded. The kids and I could have a little picnic hidden away from the world, or
take books in and snuggle up together and have a reading fest. This was going to be perfect and so much fun! I couldn't wait to get started.
As soon as planting time arrived I went out to the woods and found big branches and staked them in the dirt at the edge of the garden. The tops were tied together
and I planted beans all around the base. I decided to add my own special touch so made a path edged with flower seeds to the entrance of our future little hideaway.
I could barely contain my excitement and had no idea how I was going to be patient enough for those little seeds to grow. I could picture the flower-lined path
beckoning toward the entrance to this little secret escape.
Slowly the seeds sprouted up. It was all so exciting. I bought streamers to tie to the top of our teepee. I had the
brilliant idea of using soft grass clippings to line the floor of the teepee so that the ground would be soft and cushiony to sit on. The kids may have been happy
sitting in the dirt, but that idea did not exactly thrill me. Although this may have started out to be a teepee for the kids, more and more it was becoming my own
personal escape fantasy.
The garden grew. It grew and grew and grew. Apparently in my zest to have a lush floral path to my perfect secret hideout I had neglected to take into account
what big plants those tiny seeds grow into. The path was nearly impassable because the plants were so close together. That was a mere trifle and did not deter my
zeal. I convinced myself that this made the whole fantasy even more exciting because now the entrance was quite invisible and it would be like working your way
through a jungle before you came upon the now truly hidden entrance.
At last the day came when I the deemed the twining bean plants had grown high enough to make our much anticipated grand entrance into our secret little place.
Through the flowery jungle we traipsed, bent down in our hands and knees and made the long awaited entrance into our secret bower. What a surprise awaited us.
It was cool and shady just as I had anticipated. However I had not factored in that these conditions would cause those nice soft cushiony grass clippings to turn
into a damp mildewy soggy ground covering that actually made dirt look like fine carpeting. Not only was I not wild about sitting on this spongy mess, it also caused
the air to be heavy and smelly and very unpleasant. I had not taken into account that the Japanese Beatles that plague my gardens in late July absolutely love pole
bean plants. Or the fact that picking any beans off the plants would disturb them and cause a flurry of activity among them which involved frantic blind flying about
on their part that inevitably involved getting tangled in our hair and clothes with their sharp creepy crawly little feet clinging to our bare skin. This caused the
erratic blind flapping of arms on my part. Suffice it to say that I spent a very short time inside that teepee. I bailed out like a rat from a burning barn, never
to return again.
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