Demands and Decisions
This week the garden feels a little disjointed to me.
Or maybe more accurately, I feel disjointed in it.
Early May has a way of producing demands faster than decisions can be made. Everything is emerging at once. Things that seemed fine a week ago suddenly require attention. The spring show is fading fast and expectations of summer are mounting. Everything is starting to grow at a shocking pace. Weeds appear. Opportunities appear. Problems appear. Watering systems and equipment to attend to. The weather changes its mind every three days.
And somewhere inside all of that, the gardener is supposed to decide what matters most. Weekly. Daily. Hourly.
Attempting to sort out a theme for This Week in Gardening my initial thought is 'panic'...but panic not! We have been through these seasons before and will be through them again. now it's just time to tighten sails, set intentions, and appreciate the lengthening hours of light - you can work into the evening!
Garden Demands
There are certain things that each garden predictably demand. The first of these - for gardens that have them, are lawns. Keeping up with mowing and lawn care becomes a first priority now. Things are growing too fast to ignore them for long. l'm not going to get into a whole 'lawn thing' here - we can visit this touchy topic in 'A Growing Conversation' sometime. suffice it to say, while i am not 'lawn crazy' and in my design practice keep turf areas pretty compact, i do appreciate one thing about my gardens with these spaces. i HAVE to attend to them. Lawn care and cutting can be really unforgiving, the must do nature requires me to show up. A mow is also one of the few 'decision time free' moments in garden work, once you've got your pattern and approach, you can in fact turn thoughts to other things or tune out entirely.
The other demand i try to keep in mind is access. my old boss peter used to say 'in a beautifully maintained garden one should be able to walk through in the mornings dew, with not a drop of water on one's silk robe'. i like to lower the bar on this one to something more like 'one should be able to get from the street to the front door carry a bag of groceries - period', but you get the idea! things grow fast this time of year and access matters. Even if means not doing a full pruning job or perfect clean up, clear the ways.
Client Demands
These comments may be directed primarily toward those of us who garden professionally, but they may still be helpful to anyone tending a place through May. As the season gets intense, it is important for those of us working for clients to remember to try to listen. I often say that in my professional relationships, there are three voices, mine, the client's, and the garden's. If these get out of balance, things can go awry pretty quickly. Right now the gardens themselves are starting to scream to the gardener and can easily drown out client voices. If you are a professional gardener - please listen and try not to roll your eyes (I'm reminding myself of this right now!). If you are a client, please remember how stressed out your gardener is. Finally, if you are the garden - just do what you are going to do because I know from experience there is no telling you.
Weather Demands
Of course, alongside all of this sits the weather, also making decisions of its own.
As I write this sitting at my desk, I am hoping the call I made for today to be a 'rain day' was the right one. All can be so unpredictable - a cool spring can suddenly become a week of summer. Rain predicted disappears entirely. Wind arrives just as the peonies open. A dry garden becomes saturated overnight.
Gardening often asks us to make decisions with incomplete information, and weather may be the clearest reminder that this work is ultimately collaboration and not control.
We gardeners learn to watch conditions carefully, adapt quickly, try to allow the conditions to direct work, and occasionally accept being completely wrong. Sometimes the smartest thing to do is press ahead. Sometimes it is to stay inside and make lists and sharpen tools. Or sometimes maybe just chuck it all and go to the movies while it rains.
Physical Demands
The days are long now. Lengthening hours of light make it possible to stay with the gardens for hours and hours, With things now moving so fast, if you find you don't have anything to do, well, just wait for 20 minutes. Physically you can wear yourself thin pretty quickly. The good thing about this time of the season with so much to do it is easy to vary activities. It is much easier on the body to not be too repetitive in task. I try to coach my team - and myself - to try to do a few different chores at once. If you are working with a ladder and long-arm pruners, come down every so often and do some weeding. Getting lost and stooped over in weeding? Get up and give the lawn a post mow raking. Out of breath from raking? Get back up on the ladder! Varied activity makes for an easier time on the body, and if you are working with a team, it is engaging to share, trade, and discuss tasks. Just make sure you are keeping pace so that it is all going to get wrapped up before dark!
And then the generic reminders - hydrate, take care with the sun, try not to destroy yourself. Create some space for other activities that will make the garden world easier to inhabit ( a yoga practice, some hiking, maybe a team sport). Finally (and perhaps less obviously) leave the space for rest. Rest comes in all kinds of forms - I think an outdoors life makes inside activities especially appealing. A lunch indoors in the darkest corner of a restaurant can be a real change of experience, a museum visit, a book on the sofa, or the aforementioned movie day (can you tell I love the movies), can make for a needed respite. This kind of thing can be hard to get across to your friends who are in offices all day every day, it's hard to explain that no, you don't want to sit out on the patio, but go on and give yourself what you need in terms of a break.
In this disjointed time, I am reminding myself - and everyone else too - that it is this constant stream of decisions that defines experienced gardening work.
This season can feel a little like sitting in the front seat of a roller coaster just before the first drop. You can feel the climb ending. The pace is changing. Gravity is about to take over a bit.
But it is also worth remembering: we put ourselves in the front seat on purpose. So brace yourself, be brave, get ready for the thrill, and maybe even throw your hands in the air and scream a little.
