Well, hello. I'm back. I've had a few plants that have said that very same thing to me. A few that I was sure were goners, leaving behind a bare little patch where they'd once lived, maybe even thrived for a time. Seeing this makes me feel like I've failed as a gardener, the spot of death reminding me for an entire growing season or two that I'd killed something holy.
Why did it die, I wonder - could I
have mistakenly planted an annual? Some plants, in some areas are
annuals but under the right circumstances may be perennial. I can't
think of one right off the top of my head but I do believe it is true.
And of course, you have to consider that the ground there, in that spot, may quite possibly be cursed.
But one day, poking through the leaf litter, a spot of something green. You'd never see it just walking by, but you might notice it if you were watering say, and in that gardener's trance.
This is where I am today, climbing through the surface to greet you. Hello.
In terms of maintaining a garden blog, I think that, when all is said and done, I am a perennial. I've been a dormant perennial, I've been dug up a few times, I've relocated here and there but a perennial nonetheless. I've been on Typepad, Movable Type (I think), Squarespace - a blog I still maintain for photography where it is currently in the last throes of death.
That is the long and short of it. So, here we are. Playing catch up, getting reacquainted.
I garden in East Austin where I live with my husband, two dogs and once feral cat. We've been on this little piece of ground for 15 years now, long enough for a gardener to have a fairly good grasp of the soil and seasons don't you think? No, don't get too comfortable there.
Let's start off with a short tale of woe because I will have gotten it out of the way and things can only go up from there.The freeze. I think I have PTSD from that blasted freeze in February. It hit me hard and my garden harder. It was in the single digits, the streets were white with snow. Let me repeat, white with snow and they stayed that way for days.
I felt defeated even before the cold and snow hit. I had an idea of was coming but made only a cursory attempt at protecting my plants, meaning I only brought in the ones from the porch. No. I am being too hard on myself. The truer story is that quite an effort was made into protecting two trees that I bought the week before, a Mexican Plum and an Anacacho orchid. I need to give myself credit for that. M. and I lugged the two trees in, bent and trying not to throw our backs out. Three or so steps at a time. Stop. Lift, moving forward haltingly until eventually they were resting together in M's studio.
But that was it. Everything else? My dwarf lemon tree, the pineapple guava, the lettuce, the rue, the yarrow, the sage, all were left to live or die on their own. I watched as the neighbors diligently wrapped just about every vertical piece of greenery in their yard. Their vegetable beds were covered, I'm sure all were watered beforehand. But mine? I quite literally turned my back on them. I turned on my heels and sat it out inside the house which, in my head, should have been warm but in reality, it was not. It was dark and cold. Very, very cold.
All of that is behind us now. My trees, if you are curious, survived and even thrived in the house. They put on their party dresses, blossoming and flowering white. That is a sight that would warm any gardener from the inside out. They now have a permanent place in the front yard. I dote on them and wish them well every single day. Just like I wish you well, and welcome you here to get your Vitamin G, your recommended dose of garden shenanigans.
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