Be Careful What You Wish For

Be careful what you wish for.  It will all come back to bite you in the fall.

All those containers had to be
taken apart and cleaned

This spring I encouraged Betty to plant container gardens… lots and lots of container gardens filled with glorious annuals than allowed us to place points of color all around out landscape.  In all, she planted up a dozen ‘major’ containers and that many ‘lesser’ pots.  In mid-October, a killing frost wiped out those containers.  It took half a day to empty them, separate out the spent potting mix from the bottles and such we use as ‘ballast’, and clean and bleach the containers and store them in the basement so they’re ready for next year.

We left a dozen pine trees standing at the edges of our gardens because I wanted tall evergreens with deep green needles to contrast again the snows of winter, or dull browns when the snow has melted.  The late October nor’easter deposited several thousand pine cones from those trees onto our garden.  Sticky, sap-drenched pine cones.  Each one had to be picked up by hand and transported to a far edge of the property.  Elapsed time?  At least two hours.

Both for ecological and esthetic reasons, I demanded a driveway that would be asphalt-free and allow water to percolate through to replenish the groundwater, rather than adding to what goes down our town’s storm drains.  This past weekend, I spent two hours raking an inch of leaves and pine needles from the aforementioned nor’easter off our 90-foot-long stone driveway.  In the next few weeks, I have to attach skis (quite literally) to the bottom of our snow blower so I can remove the white stuff this winter without picking up buckets full of stones in the process.  And, does it take longer to clear a stone driveway than a macadam one?  It does, and don’t let anyone tell you differently.

Stalks of perennials have been cut
down, stuffed into bags, and taken
to the transfer station

Betty said she didn’t want any grass in our new garden, and so we planted the half acre that is not wetlands in native trees, shrubs, and perennials.  I not only agreed with her on the subject, I encouraged it.  And I keep urging her to fill in the ‘holes’ in the landscape with yet more perennials.  This fall, I have spent several days cutting back the now-dead stalks on those perennials, bundling them up in tarps, and transporting them to our transfer station for disposal.  Betty has spent even more time trimming back shrubs.  I get to bundle up and remove those as well.

I refuse to pay Whole Foods prices for fresh, organically grown vegetables and so we have a plot at our town’s Community Garden.  The garden has to be tended several hours each week, but it’s a small price to pay for placing food on the table that we have, ourselves, grown.  However, come October, plants stop producing and fruit stops ripening.  There’s an arrogant, overbearing ‘ogre’ who runs the garden and he sends out obnoxious emails telling everyone that must have their plot cleared by the end of the month.  And so, on multiple days, Betty and I have taken apart the garden, cleaning and storing the fencing and cages we’ll use next year, and taking everything else to the transfer station (the corn stalks alone filled the back end of our Prius to its limit).

Everyone loves our driveway

The magic question is, of course, why?  If it’s so much work and backbreaking labor, why not just pay someone to do it for us?  Or, more sensibly, stop doing it at all – dispense with the containers, plant some grass, cut down the damnable pines, and pay Whole Foods their extortionate prices?

The answer is that I wouldn’t change it for the world.  I love those 50-pound containers and the unusual plants Betty finds for them.  Those pines do look majestic against the snow and brighten up our cold, New England winter.  That driveway has a distinctive style all its own that further sets our property apart from the ‘usual’ suburban home, and that all-native and grass-free garden draws compliments that no flower bed out front could possibly get.  And pay Whole Foods prices?  Never.  I’d stop eating first.

Oh, and I’m getting serious exercise doing all this.  People ‘my age’ are supposed to be slowing down and becoming sedentary.  I carried 60 pounds of metal stakes in my arms last week and unloaded tarpaulin after tarpaulin filled with plant debris at the transfer station without resorting to pain-relieving drugs.  And, on top of that, it’s fun.  If all those wishes are, in fact. coming back to bite me, I’ll just put it down to the price of having a good time.