The Triumph of Fall Gardens
By APLD VC member Caitlin Francke Boyle, Dirt Diva Gardens
By Labor Day, my garden is limping along. The fantastic colors of spring and early summer have passed, and the plants basically have heat stroke after baking through August. Come September, the garden wakes up again – and it feels like magic.
All of a sudden, elegant grasses reach their full height and send out fantastic plumes of red and tan. Backlight by the sun, they glow and move with the slightest breeze, and it’s like the whole garden begins to dance.
Before moving to this house, I had never really contemplated fall flowers. Like most of you probably, I settled for the mums and cabbage and called it a day. But my old neighbor across the street, a master gardener, changed all that.
She was moving away, and left a tall purple aster on my porch from her garden. I was so moved and I immediately planted it. Come fall, this riotous 5 -foot purple aster started blooming like crazy – falling over my hydrangeas with such ridiculous, over-the-top, splendor. I was hooked.
While you may think of fall as autumn colors – gold, red and brown – that scary signal the coming of winter, the reality is there are many plants that throw up a Mardi Gras of hues – hot pink, purple, yellow.
Now, most fall plants are not well-behaved: they grow tall, more than a bit wild, leaving the tailored look of spring behind. But if you come to embrace that, it’s a little like letting your hair down for one last hurrah before we all have to go inside for the winter
There are plenty of articles about the mechanics of gardening so I wanted to write about the emotional side of gardening – what it did to me and how it changed my view of the world.
The Impact Of Gardens On My Life
New ways to connect: We all spend a lot of time at cocktail parties talking about (complaining?) about our kids. But gardening gives us a whole other topic of conversation, and a new language to use.
It’s like it gives us a life, finally, separate from our kids and work. And it’s fun. My friends and I go on road trips hunting for plants and 911 text each other constantly – “Do you like where I put this salvia?!”
Changed animal perspective: Easter Bunny!! So cute! Peter Rabbit – a naughty rascal but so lovable!
Here is the truth: rabbits are the devil. They swoop into a garden and trash it with their little, gnawing teeth. I planted strawberries with my daughter – and they were gone overnight. It was like murder.
My dog does nothing. She is practically out there taking selfies with them. The previous owner had a bunny statue that sits at the corner of a bed. I glare at it.
Dirt Therapy: If there is one thing we have all learned in recent years, it’s that we really don’t have control over a lot. While the big world can be ugly and unkind and downright evil, I have taken to the backyard to make sure my little world isn’t.
I remember after one election I spent days digging 80 lbs of organic fertilizer into the soil. “What is she doing?” my daughter asked her father. “She is in mourning,” he replied.
Patience (for the first time in my life): As a former journalist, I live for action. And in my current corporate marketing job, the act of “getting alignment across multiple stakeholders” is absolute agony. But gardening doesn’t happen fast – you need to wait seasons for things to bloom and sometimes years.
My mother loves to tell the story of asparagus (in all caps naturally) – You have to wait three YEARS FOR THE FIRST HARVEST!!! Not that she grew it – she too is a former journalist so patience does not run in our family.
I wanted a blue wisteria tree to contrast with my coral peonies. A tough plant to find, I ordered it online and it arrived as nothing more than a stick. I planted and waited. And waited.
Finally, on the third year, it looked like blooms were coming – omg!! But they grew in WHITE – not blue as the website promised. I lost my mind and immediately called customer service. They said, “Well, that does happen, give it ANOTHER year.” I said, “I don’t think you know who I am!” with all the bravado of some garden master with published books.
Mercifully he didn’t know the difference and yielded. I got a refund and now have an order in for a blue wisteria tree for NEXT YEAR. So yes, patience, however maddening.
I have learned so much from gardening but Audrey Hepburn said it best:
“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow,”
AUDREY HEPBURN