Another August Afternoon, Long Ago, Still Very Much in Memory

My Mom, me, and that 1955 Pontiac. 
Don't ask me why I'm wearing what looks
like a waiter's jacket. I would have 
been 15 or 16 in this photo

Yesterday afternoon, I was driving on Route 128 – the circumferential expressway that wraps around Boston – and saw an overhead electric sign flashing the statistic that, in 2024, there were 6429 accidents in Massachusetts involving teenage drivers and 117 fatalities.

The message was aimed at teens; encouraging them to drive responsibly. But it struck a respondent chord in me; taking me back to another August afternoon 59 years ago.

'My' Burger King

In the summer of 1966 – the time between my junior and senior year at Miami Springs High School, I was working at the Burger King on Arthur Godfrey Road in Miami Beach.  On Tuesdays, I had the early shift – be at the restaurant at 8 a.m. to open up, and work until 2 p.m. 

August 16 started as just another day.  I was driving my mother’s hand-me-down 1955 Pontiac Chieftain, 3511 pounds of post-war Detroit automotive supremacy.  At work I scrubbed the broilers and loaded the shake machine.  I picked litter from out of the fringe of landscaping and then went to work on the counter at opening time.

Crandon Park in the 1960s

At 2 p.m. I was out the door, reaching for my car keys even as I punched my time card.  On those early shift days, I had one goal: to get to the beach as quickly as possible.  Miami has many beaches (including one just a mile east of the Burger King) but, to me, there was only one ‘real’ beach - Crandon Park.  But my path was not a direct one.  On that day as on so many others that summer, I planned to pick up the girl I was dating, and so my route took me first to a neighborhood near the Tamiami Airport on S.W. 107^th Avenue.  Thanks to the five-year-old Airport Expressway and the four-year-old Palmetto Bypass, plus luck with the drawbridge on the Rickenbacker Causeway, my circuitous, nearly 30-mile trip through Greater Miami took less than an hour.  We were parked and on the beach before WQAM’s 3 o’clock news.

The only thing I remember about the beach that day was that we had less than an hour before storm clouds began moving in from the west.  By a little after 4, we knew it was time to leave.  Having had only a little over an hour on the beach, we packed up and headed west, back across the Causeway and out Bird Road.  Somewhere along the way, it began raining.  A little before 5 o’clock I had dropped off my date and needed only to make the final trip back home through what was now a pounding, mid-summer south Florida rainstorm.

The site of the crash. I was
just four miles from home.

The Palmetto was my only real option: the lone alternative was 97^th Avenue, a two-lane gravel road that snaked through the swamp north of the Tamiami Trail.  With the rain coming down hard, I got on the Palmetto and started north.  In 1966, the Palmetto was a four-lane divided highway with a wide median strip, and with interchanges only on the eight-mile section south of Okeechobee Road.  The Palmetto had neither guard rails nor a center barrier – just that wide strip of grass.

I would have been at roughly N.W. 20^th Street when I felt my car lurch left.  It was odd that I would be hydroplaning because I had replaced my two front tires only a week earlier (using up an entire paycheck to do so).  Because of the rain and heavy traffic, I was traveling perhaps 35 miles an hour.  I tried to correct for the lurch but, by then, my front left wheel was off of the asphalt roadway and into the mud of the median strip.  The deceleration of one quadrant of the car caused the back end of the car to rotate counter-clockwise.

The Palmetto Bypass
under construction in
1960. No guardrails,
just a wide grass median

In the absence of guardrails, my car began a lazy spin across the median – probably thirty feet between the north and southbound lanes.  That probably slowed my forward momentum somewhat, but when I reached the southbound lanes, I still was traveling at least 25 miles per hour. 

My rotation had me pointed north when I reached the left, southbound lane.  There, I struck, head-on, a 1961 Ford Galaxie (curb weight roughly 3800 pounds) which was likely traveling, in the rain, at 40 miles per hour.

The Pontiac lacked seatbelts.  All I could do was brace myself, hands on the dashboard and feet against the firewall.  I remember the impact and its sound (exactly like the one in the movies).  Remarkably, I was uninjured, as was the driver of the other car (who was wearing a seatbelt).

The Highway Patrol showed up.  I was asked if I needed to go to a hospital and I said ‘no’.  More troopers showed up – the accident likely backed up southbound traffic for miles.  Around 6:30, I was given a ride home and told I was lucky to be alive.  The trooper explained to my mother what had happened; that I had lost control of my car in the rain.  The car was totaled but, fortunately, there were no injuries.  The sole indication that something had happened was that I had a trickle of blood caused by a puncture wound on either knee.  I don’t remember my mother being angry; she was likely happy that I was still alive.

The next morning, August 17, I couldn’t bend my knees.  My mother took me to our family doctor.  He took one look at my knees, listened to the circumstances of the injury, and said I had likely torn cartilage in one or both knees.  This being decades before knee replacements or arthroscopic surgery, all he could do was wrap the knee and prescribe complete bed rest.

The morning after that, two state troopers knocked at the front door.  No citations had been issued at the accident scene and I thought I was about to be handed a stack of tickets for stupidity.  Instead, they asked that I take them through the accident (likely the reason I remember it so well all these years later).  They asked questions about the “lurch” and how I responded or tried to respond.  Then, one trooper said the tires looked new, and asked how long they had been on the car.  My mother produced the sales receipt, which they asked to keep to make a copy.  After an hour, they left and said they would be in touch.  All I knew was that I was relieved to not have a citation I would be working until October to pay.

By now, word had gotten around that I was confined to bed, and a stream of visitors came to cheer me up.  I celebrated my 17^th birthday that way.

On Monday – this would have been August 22, I had a different visitor.  He was from an insurance company, though not from State Farm, which was my carrier.  He was sorry to hear about my accident and wanted to “clear the record”.  My car, he said, was worth $250 and I had likely incurred another $100 in doctor’s bills (the amount was considerably lower, but neither I nor my mother said anything).  He produced a legal document.  In return for $350, my family would hold the tire company harmless in my accident.  My mother signed.

Through the Miami Springs Police Department, my mother would learn that the state police had not just assumed this was a case of a teenager not knowing how to drive in the rain.  My front left tire had more or less exploded, and new tires weren’t supposed to do that.  They contacted the tire manufacturer for an explanation, and the tire company (I have no idea which one it was, and the paperwork disappeared long ago) got out in front of the problem – by getting me to sign away my legal standing.

A '56 Chevy BelAir. Mine definitely
did not have whitewall tires.

I got a 1956 Chevy BelAir out of the deal.  Later that week, my doctor pronounced me healed.  It was too close to the start of the school year to go back to work.  It turns out, of course, that I wasn’t really healed.  The accident had torn out a chunk of cartilage from my knee, leaving behind an imperfect fit between my femur and tibia.  Within a few weeks, I would hear a distinctive “popping” sound when I walked.  Almost sixty years later, I still can occasionally hear that click.

All teenagers believe they are immortal and I was no different.  Of course, I had walked away from an accident that could just as easily have killed or crippled me.  I did not at first perceive that I had been given a gift.

With each passing decade, though, I look on that afternoon as a turning point.  Through whatever cosmic force you believe is responsible for such things (including luck), I walked away from a crash involving more than 7,000 pounds of metal going from 60 miles per hour to an instantaneous stop that could ended my life a few days short of my seventeenth birthday.  And, had it not ended my life, it could have left me crippled.

But I came away with a “pop” in one knee, an appreciation for life, and a need to make a difference.  When I look back at what I have accomplished, the business career end of things disappears in a puff of smoke.  In the great scheme of things, it makes not a whit of difference that, for 35 years, I helped companies do something or other.  Writing 16 books that amuse people (and even give them something to think about) and speaking about gardening from a spouse’s point of view is a better contribution.  The volunteer work I have engaged in since my retirement – including being the ‘healthy control’ in clinical studies that take up a lot of my time these days - has also given me a sense of purpose because what I am doing directly helps other people.

Betty, far left, receiving National Garden
Clubs' Volunteer of the Year award

But the single most important thing I have done with my life is to help and support my wife, Betty, to be the incredible person that she became. I freely acknowledge I got much better at being a supportive spouse when I retired from that corporate world almost 20 years ago. Especially during the last five years, I can finally say I’ve earned my keep.

The Abandoned Garden Plot

There are 75 plots in the Medfield Community Garden, and my responsibility, as its co-manager, is to get those plots filled for the beginning of the season and keep them filled through to the end of October. Returning gardeners take at least 50 of those spaces, but I still need to ‘solicit’ to find new occupants for one out of three or one out of four spaces.

The Medfield Community
Garden

My recruiting materials – primarily on social media – emphasize the benefits: fresh, organic produce; camaraderie; and an opportunity to ‘give back’ as well as to meet new and interesting people. The obligations are explained in a one-page document, and boil down to ‘keep your garden and your aisles free of weeds’ and ‘treat your gardening neighbor with respect’.

I go into April knowing from 15 years’ experience that a few gardeners will find their summer plans have changed, or the time commitment is too great. Usually, I have folks on a wait list; ready to step in and pick up a hoe and trowel. If there is no wait list, I keep a mental list of ambitious gardeners who are willing to take on additional space.

My plot is tidy

Every few years, though, there is a garden that simply gets abandoned. No notice, no apology. The gardener – who has made the financial and time commitment of paying for the plot, putting up a fence, and planting crops – stops showing up. I send the gardener messages but get no response. I do not know if the reason is a family tragedy or just a loss of interest.

Edmund Prescottano volunteered
to help remove the weeds

This is one of those years. And, today, I and a volunteer – a retired veterinarian named Edmund Prescottano who has a heart of gold – went to work clearing the plot. The first thing I noticed is that everything in the garden was new: fencing, posts, tomato cages, row covers. The second thing was that the gardener made every effort to do things right: he or she had created earthen raised beds by digging trenches and mounding the displaced soil. Newspapers had been laid into the trenches to reduce the need for weeding. And, the gardener had followed the advice to not only bury the bottom of his or her plastic fence several inches into the soil to deter burrowing pests, but to add a time-consuming separate chicken wire fencing layer at least six inches above and below the soil level to defeat vermin that would otherwise chew their way through plastic.

A ground-level view of 
just how tall the weeds are

Why did I wait until the end of July to, essentially, ‘foreclose’ on the garden plot?  Why didn’t I do it three or four weeks ago? The reason is that I don’t like to lose gardeners. I want them to come to the garden, see from other plots what their garden could look like, clear the weeds, and start re-planting.
I guess, at heart, I’m one of those soft-hearted ogres. I assume the best in people: that the reason for dropping out of the garden was one tied to misfortune. Yes, it would have been polite to respond, and the clearing would have been infinitely easier. But it’s now in the past.

By late this afternoon, the plot
was three-quarters cleared

I already know what will happen after the plot is cleared. There are already squash vines ready to plant, and those vines will fairly quickly overspread the plot. There is also a supply of cardboard to fill the spaces between plants. The squash the vines yield will all go to the two food cupboards we serve.

Because it is the end of July, the weeds are tall and well entrenched. It is not just a matter of hoeing and pulling: every square foot requires sifting soil to find the weed roots that will otherwise sprout anew: this garden has to be made ready not just to plant this summer; it also has to not be a weed-seed-infested trap awaiting its occupant next spring.

This time next month, with luck and
hard work, the plot will look like
its neighbor

What becomes of the fencing and other materials? Do I return it to the gardener who abandoned it? Or, do I add it to the collection of ‘Ogre fencing’ that is loaned to new gardeners and tell the gardener losing it is the price paid for not replying to all those emails?

There is no moral to the story; no larger lesson to be learned. A gardener came, clearly with every intention of staying, but something happened.  And, for some reason, the gardener did not communicate his or her change of heart. End of story. Life goes on. And, so does the garden.

On the inside, looking out

September 2015: the Conservation Commission is
satisfied with what Betty and I have wrought

Ten years ago in April, Betty and I moved into our newly-built ‘dream retirement house’, our seventh and final home. After decades of moving into houses built by someone else, this one – finally – was of our own design. The lawns and gardens of those other properties were, of course, also someone else’s idea of ‘appropriate’.

You should be able to admire
a garden from inside a home

Just as we had specific ideas about the layout of our house, so Betty had an entire notebook of thoughts about the garden’s design and content. And one of those ideas was something I had never thought of: a garden being something to be admired from inside the home as well as while standing in it.

Her thinking was eminently practical, even though it seemed to go against so many conceptions about "what gardens are for". Betty’s thought was based on the observation that no one wants to be standing in a garden on an 87 degree day with a dew point of 75... and New England has far too many such days. The plants, though, love that kind of weather. So, why not think about sight lines from inside the house when you're getting ready to create that garden? 

That inspiration guided the siting of the house on its lot. Instead of placing our home the same distance back from the street as our neighbors (as was the existing house), we opted to build thirty feet farther back. Doing so provided two advantages: a much deeper garden in front to provide additional privacy, and a clear line of sight in three directions for a large screened porch the we suspected would be where we spent much of our summer hours (and from which this essay is written).

A full-sized window in
the master bathroom?

A view to the outside also affected the design and placement of windows. It takes an act of faith to place a 32” x 48” window in the middle of your master bath. Yes, it has shutters; but they’re left open. To create a full view of the back garden from our new home’s living room, four continuous, extra-tall windows spanning ten feet were incorporated into the design. The library at our soon-to-be old home had been the place where we spent many hours reading or listening to music. The ‘new’ library was designed to have three windows, each with a separate vista.

The view from the kitchen

In October 2014, and with the shell of the house now in place, Betty began sketching a garden concept – imagining the view out of each window. Nothing was cast in stone because we were still at least six months away from choosing the trees that would anchor each bed. But the intent was clear: ensure whatever trees were chosen did not block views from windows. A line of shrubs – each distinct in color, leaf, and form so as not to be mistaken for a hedge – would go across the front of the property to provide a primary privacy screen.

One view from the screened porch

For the first half dozen years, the ‘inside out’ concept was moot. Shrubs and trees were small and seemingly dispersed around a sea of mulch. The lower shutters in the master bath definitely remained closed. Then, seemingly almost overnight, it all came together. The ‘groups of three’ shrubs we had planted (such as Fothergilla, Itea, and Clethra) merged into visually arresting masses.

Ten feet of windows capture the rear 
garden from the living room.

In this, the garden’s eleventh season, the ‘inside out’ philosophy has been verified. The view from the screened porch from every direction is remarkable (even though an allowance was made to allow two Viburnum nudum ‘Winterthur’ specimens to grow to their full, ten-foot height; the better to display their June flowering). The view from the window over the kitchen sink is of blueberry bushes where, at any given time, a rotating cast of birds are gorging on the 2025 crop. And, the views from the library are, well, take a look at the photos. ‘Sublime’ comes to mind.

The view out the front door

My favorite view may be out the front door. A bluestone sidewalk gently bends to the left; flanked on either side by low plantings of perennials that gradually rise to a sweep of Rudbeckia and Monarda, beyond which are those clumps of shrubs. A seldom-used second-floor guest bedroom (as part of aging in place, the rooms we use daily are all on the main floor) has the same view as the front entry, but elevated.

Except for the obvious one, all of the accompanying photos were taken on July 20, 2025.

Thank you, Facebook

One of the pleasures of being part of a Facebook 'interest group' is that it can frequently cause you to, well, get off your arse and do the right thing. Today was one of those days.
I am part of a group with ungainly name, 'Bringing Nature Home - a Native Plant Community'. It is populated by an enthusiastic group of gardeners that have read the books, and espouse the wisdom, of a gentleman named Doug Tallamy. His thesis is that the quarter-acre, perfectly manicured grass lawn is an ecological desert. Instead, as much as practical of that quarter acre ought to be native plants that are friendly to pollinators.

It was truly a blank slate...

Ten years ago, Betty, took that philosophy to heart when she designed the garden for 26 Pine Street. In her vision, it wouldn't just minimize the amount of grass: it would eliminate it. Instead, there would be pollinator-friendly trees, shrubs, perennials and ground covers; about 90 to 95% of which would be native.

The photo I posted

I periodically post photos of our garden to this group. Several days ago, I posted several photos of things in bloom on the property, including one of a striking butterfly weed called Asclepias 'Hello Yellow', The background of the photo showed the spent flower spikes of a stand of Carolina lupine (Thermopsis villosa) and, peeking over the top, several flower spikes of an oakleaf hydrangea (Querecifolia). Many people 'liked' the photo and one viewer asked about those background plants, which caused me to wonder why I was, in essence, hiding the oakleaf hydrangea from view.

My next photo - minus the spent seed heads.

So, I cut the lupine flower spikes and, suddenly, there was a great view of not only the oakleaf hydrangea but also a wonderful, dark-leaved ninebark . I posted that photo, which engendered discussion of whether cutting down seedheads was a good idea (mine stay on the property where they become food for birds and critters). But another viewer inquired as to how much space the hydrangea took up, and what requirements it had for such successful blooms.

The Spirea is the yellowish plant in the
center of the photo. It had quadrupled
in size in a decade.

Which caused me to go out and get a 'real' answer rather than make a guess. In the process, I realized the hydrangea was being squeezed by the ninebark, but even more so by a volunteer summersweet - and all were being encroached on by a spirea which was relentlessly enlarging its footprint. The spirea is the lone non-native in the above discussion.
The spirea has been there since the garden was planned in 2015. Yes, it is non-native, but it is attractive and has a long bloom. But it had also quadrupled in size. Common sense said it had to go. I had even allowed as much in my response to one commentor.

By noon, the spirea was history, and there
was lots of room for plants to expand.

This morning, I went out and removed it. And realized in the process it ought to have come out years ago. with the spirea gone, the four remaining shrubs (there are actually two oakleaf hydrangea) can spread out toward the morning sun. Two ground covers, a Bar Harbor juniper and bearberry (which in fact has a berry beloved by ursines) will vie for the 'floor' space.

The garden at noon today. The 'hole' where the spirea
was located is just above where the driveway meets
the parking pad along the street.

Were it not for those questions and comments, entropy would have decreed that the spirea would stay because... of some semi-plausible reason I would invent. Now, though, the deed is done and the garden will be better for it over the long run.
Thank you, Facebook, and especially 'Bringing Nature Home - a Native Plant Community', for getting me to go outside and do some honest work when where the humidity would have otherwise had me indoors all day.
(click on the photos to see how each one fits into the story)

Now you see it, soon you won’t

Our yellowwood at its peak bloom

After a scorching (90 degrees) day yesterday, I set out this morning to see what damage an early dollop of heat had done to our (primarily) native plant garden in Medfield, Massachusetts. I thought I would focus on our Cladrastis kentuckyea (yellowwood), but there was so much going on, I was outside for the better part of an hour.

This afternoon, there is a carpet
of pink under the tree.

Yellowwoods bloom only once every two years. This year was the most prolific in the tree's ten-year history and, for the past week, it has been a captivating sight in our garden. But the sudden heat forced the tree to make conservation choices.  As I suspected it would, the tree went into overdrive to protect itself, which meant cutting off energy and water to its pantacles of flowers. Two days ago, there were no dropped petals. At noon, there is a carpet of pale pink. If those thunderstorms come to pass this afternoon, the yellowwood’s 2025 bloom will end a little over a week from when it began. That’s my definition of ‘short’.

From brilliant white to brown
in a day.

The maple leaf viburnum (Viburnum acerifolium) went from bright, white flowers to yellow-brown faded ones in a single day.  The shrub has been in bloom for two weeks and so maybe its flowering was about to end anyway; but the totality of the change caught me off guard.

But the same heat that ended flowers also begat them.  The American fringetree (Chionanthus virginicus) in our back garden had what I considered a so-so bloom this year 

Our fringetree's color popped.

– you had to be standing a foot from the bloom to see it. This afternoon, those flowers are front and center – twice as large and bright as two days ago. Will they be gone by the weekend? Maybe, but they’re giving me a great send-off if they are.

The Sisyrinchium (blue-eyed grass)
was apparently biding its time.

Just as surprising, though, was the emergence of flowers where there were none in what had up until now been a cool, damp spring.  We have multiple clusters of Sisyrinchium, better known as blue-eyed grass, around the garden. I usually expect to see it sometime in late June. Well, five different clusters showed themselves today; and they definitely weren’t there on Wednesday. The bloom period isn’t that long – perhaps two weeks – and it’s a one-bloom-and-done kind of plant, in that it won’t please the eye again until next June.

Our ninebark's flowers popped
with the heat.

Finally, the heat got our multiple specimens of Physocarpius opulifolius (ninebark) to open their flowers. They’ve been at that ‘will-they-or-won’t-they’ stage for ten days or more. Well, today they did. The sign at the base of one of the shrubs was acquired this past weekend at the Grow Native Massachusetts plant sale in Lexington.  I had the pleasure to help put it together, and to work the event both days. Principal Undergardeners are assumed to be have skills most closely related to digging holes and moving rocks.  Therefore, I did my duty in the event’s parking lot. There are no small roles; only small players. Happy to have been one of them!

Plants Behaving Badly

 I keep reading articles and social media posts that tell us, “Native plant gardens may be time-consuming to create but, once they’re established, their maintenance is a fraction of the effort of conventional landscapes.”

Removing moss from the
patio off our screened porch.

To which I say, “Ha!” I could also say certain vulgar words that express the sense that people who write such things have obviously never maintained a native plant garden. I know this because I am in the midst of ‘spring maintenance’ of our ‘Homegrown National Park’ in Medfield, MA. The core of the garden is just over half an acre and is starting its eleventh year.

What goes where in our garden, designed by my wife, Betty, intelligently takes into account things like hours per day of sunlight, access to water, and proximity to specimens with similar requirements. She also created the garden to be pleasing to look at; and it is indeed a stunning sight.

But, a garden has to be maintained in order to continue to be interesting to look at. And, plants have a distressing habit of continuing to grow after being put in the ground. And, sometimes they don’t obey the description on their tags (“maxes out at three feet” or “stays within its footprint”. Even native plants can be bullies.

Planting plan of the Magnolia bed. 
Double-click for full-screen resolution.

I relate these realities because my spring maintenance project is now in its third week and I have what appears to be another three weeks of work ahead of me. The unseen asterisk to the preceding statement is that, in 2024, much maintenance was deferred for reasons too complex to explain. This year, there’s no reason to not do the job thoroughly.

There are ten distinct beds (or planting sites) on our property. For the past three days I’ve been working on the ‘Magnolia bed’. It encompasses roughly 1500 square feet of garden and it gets its name from its anchor tree, Magnolia ‘Elizabeth’. The functional parts of the bed are the foundation plantings along the east face of our house: Kalmia (mountain laurel) ‘Sara’, Leucothoe, Fothergilla (witch alder) ‘Blue Shadow’, and a massive Lonircera (honeysuckle) that rises twenty feet, hides the bulk of our garage, and is home to at least a dozen bird nests.

The Magnolia bed before its
clean-up began. Note how the 
foundation plantings have merged.

When we planted those first shrubs, we carefully read the ‘maximum spread’ descriptions for each one. The specimens of mountain laurel (two shrubs) and witch alder (three) have matured exactly as advertised and merged into an attractive clump. The lone Leucothoe – its ‘street name’ (honest to gosh) is dog’s hobble – refused to play by the rules. It has quintupled in size and is in the process of muscling aside its well-behaved companions. Thirty minutes of selective trimming brought it under control, though I am certain each year will bring fresh incursions.

The completed project.

But those miscreants were child’s play compared to the Dicentra eximia (bleeding heart) and Viola odorata (common violet). In designing the bed, Betty envisioned a meandering river of Geranium maculatum passing the length of the Magnolia bed; flowering blue and pink. In 2015, we planted twenty, one-gallon pots to establish the ‘river’ course and waited for them to grow into a stream. They did but, somehow, violets and dicentra spotted an opening and got entrenched. And, ‘entrenched’ is an understatement. The violets (they’re Asian, you know) were thoroughly entangled in the roots of the (American) geraniums. Meanwhile., the Dicentra simply decided to seed itself everywhere and to grow to ridiculous size. Elapsed time to fill six, 40-gallon trash barrels with evicted plants? Twelve hours over three days.

The Leucothoe was overwhelming
its neighboring shrubs

The northern end of the Magnolia bed brought its own set of challenges. It borders our driveway for about thirty feet and, along that path, has multiple layers of flowering perennials. Violets has, of course, become a nuisance than needed to be removed, but the more serious problems were Caltha palustris and Pycnanthemum. 

On the driveway side of the Magnolia
bed, the problem was mint

Pycnanthemum is the Linnean form of mountain mints. At least we planted it. Mountain mint has a lovely scent. But we did so in an oblong bed ten feet long and three feet wide. The key to the how and why of that spreading habit is the second word in its common name: ‘mint’. Pycnanthemum is a member of the mint family and mints sign pledges written in chlorophyl they will devote their existence to spreading far and wide for the sole purpose of annoying gardeners. For five springs I have re-established their boundary, pulling out runners ten feet from the nearest plant. And, for five springs (and apparently having a DVD of ‘The Great Escape’ at their disposal for inspiration) the mountain mint has tunneled into adjacent beds.
Caltha is better known as marsh marigold. I can state unequivocally we have never planted it on our property, yet there were several hundred seedlings thriving in a space about ten feet on a side. Getting them out required an hour of hands-and-knees search-and-pull work. Why not leave them be? Because, left to their own devices, they will grow to a height of six feet and they’re frankly ugly.

In the meantime, two of the ornamental specimens – an upright honeysuckle (Lonerica sempervirens) and beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) – decided independently that world domination begins in suburban gardens. What five years ago were two attractive flowering shrubs decided to invade one another’s turf. Both – using runners – had spread fifteen feet beyond where they were originally planted. It took three hours over two days to dig out all of the wandering runners.

This Lonerica sempervirens
(climbing honeysuckle) hides
the bulk of our garage.

Ridding the Magnolia bed of marsh marigolds, and reining in mountain mints occupied an entire afternoon.

Late yesterday afternoon, drenched in sweat, I emptied the final barrel of plant detritus into a mulch pile far from our house. Now that I have written this, I can go back outside and start on the sixth of our ten beds. Oh, joy.

 

 

Spring Renewal - the 2025 Edition

The 'before' picture

For anyone who thinks maintaining a Homegrown National Park (or any other native plant environment) is a piece of cake once the ‘hard work’ is done, here is a reality check.

By design, there is no late-autumn clean-up at our property in Medfield, Massachusetts. We let our garden sleep for the winter. The leaves that fall from trees end up under shrubs where they provide winter shelter for insects and vulnerable wildlife. The moss pathways that link parts of the garden collect branches and anything else that blows into the property.

Shown here is one small corner of our half-acre garden. We call it the ‘birch bed’ because it is anchored by Betula nigra, a dwarf black birch. At one end of the bed is a clump of three Clethra alnifolia – better known as pepperbush – ‘Hummingbird’. Under the birch is planted Packera aurea, an aggressive ground cover. Beyond the shade zone of the birch is a clump of Chelone glabra, better known as white Turtlehead, and a favored nectaring site for certain butterflies.

The Clethra, also 'before'

In April and May, we slowly bring the garden back to life. Today was cool and breezy following two days of rain. As Principal Undergardener, my job is to, well, get whatever needs to be done, done. Rather than be overwhelmed, I take one section of the garden at a time; figure out what I can do in two or three hours, gather the tools, and go to work.

What a difference a 
few hours can make...

The birch bed seemed like a good place to work this morning. The two ‘before’ photos tell the story of what needed to be done. The moss path than runs between the birch bed and the foundation planting along the east wall of our home had filled in with weeds and Packera. Tiarella and Heuchera that bordered the path had disappeared from view. The Clethra was packed with several inches of leaves. And the Packera was everywhere… despite a late-fall removal of several hundred plugs for a planting project elsewhere in town.

There is no automation for this kind of garden maintenance. You get on your hands and knees and start pulling and lifting. A rake is useless under Clethra: the shrub grows via runners that need to be encouraged. A rake is also useless in the moss pathways. Moss doesn’t have roots. Rake moss and it comes up in pieces or sheets. This is skilled work only in that you use common sense to know what you should and shouldn’t do.

The Clethra, free of leaves
and Packera aurea

And, one of the things you shouldn’t do is hurry.  Speed results in pulling up a ‘good plant’ or severing a Clethra’s runner. Gardening breeds patience.

It took just under three hours to accomplish what you see in the ‘after’ photos. There are three bags of leaves, weeds, and excess Packera in the deep woods behind our home. Over the course of several years, that plant debris will compost into rick soil. What a great natural cycle.

And what good exercise…