Gardenopia
I may waffle on week after week about the pleasures of gardening, but to my credit, my intention has never been to pretend that all things are rosy in the magical land of Gardenopia. I will leave that to larger than life personalities with exceedingly good marketing teams and a supernaturally large gardening staff. The plain fact of the matter is: it is hot, the garden is dry, the spirit is willing but the body is weak. So weak in fact that it was frighteningly easy last night to pick up the latest issue of something gardenesque in the supermarket checkout line and spend all of my evening weeding time reading it on the deck with a glass of Pinot Gris – while the surrounding plants sung mournfully of the promised land.
They are seductive, these paper purveyors of garden dreams – far from the realities of heat, humidity and children who need an hourly nutrient infusion. Summer mags in various shades of pastel green sport Hydrangea macrophylla cover girls in the prime of their lives – young, moisture retentive, and bursting with the kind of health you could reach out and touch. I have Hydrangeas – but most of them are begging me to reach out and touch them with some type of quick kill herbicide rather than force them to endure another day of these insane temperatures. When you’re having to water twice in one day to keep their sad little chins from hitting the ground, you know there is a heat wave on. But there is no talk of heat in these publications – unless of course it is to discuss the need for a thirty foot in-ground pool with attached cabana and all the landscaping possibilities this scenario could provide the young, independently wealthy homeowner. I have scanned these pages intently, and the only things I can find to help motivate Harry the Heatstroked Homeowner are recipes for pitchers of pomegranate lemonade and a $120 watering wand that can be controlled from one’s iPhone. But why would I expect anything else? Crispy rosettes of wilted lupine foliage do not a successful gardening magazine make. What these magazines fail to understand is that their audience needs to hear that others are battling the heat and the dust and the pests and did I mention the heat, and feeling just a little bit inadequate. Let’s be truthful for a moment – who among us doesn’t sigh with relief when, walking through the perfect lands of professional gardens, we see wilting foliage and pest-tattered leaves? Could it be that these people are human too? That they can’t magically avoid the strain that the hot summer months put on the garden, not to mention the gardener? Or maybe it is merely that the magazines understand us far too well. Maybe they understand what we do not, that we actually enjoy beating ourselves up for perceived inadequacies as we read about Martha Stewart’s daily “to do list” (June 9 – Mow the meadow, bale hay and set up for cocktail party at 7:00). That we always want something to aim for, even as we are aiming our blow torch at a thirty foot row of borer infested zucchini. Perhaps the very idea of believing someone can bale the back forty and give a five-star party on the same day fills us with hope for our Fritos and porch painting event next Saturday night.
I promise...you don't need this to be happy.
My advice for the heat-beleaguered gardener is simple. Step away from the magazine. Pull your eyes from its pastel pages and clear your head of seersucker napkins and perfect pitcher drinks. Feel your head begin to return to the realities of your climate, your endurance levels, your bank account. Now… visit your garden for maintenance and harvesting between the hours of 6pm and 11am only – unless of course the words “farmer”, “certified horticulturalist”, or “Mad Dog or Englishman” follow your name in print. Avoid all eye contact with your plants during other hours. Invest in some high quality mulch to keep what little moisture there is right where it needs to be. Start researching that DIY drip irrigation system with the sweet little timer that makes whimpering while you water a thing of the past. It’s summer. We are going to experience the hottest temperatures of the year relative to our own particular climates. There’s going to be some whining involved and it could get a little ugly for a while. But this too shall pass. And if you really must break down and spend a couple hours reading one of those Hydrangea dappled mags, make it easier on yourself and read it like you read a good novel – for the sheer joy of fantasy entertainment.
