Taproot

Part II: Things I didn't know...

...before gardening.

• Ants exist to piss us off.
• I had no idea what "pinchis babosos" really meant until I started worrying about slugs.
• We should just call bird feeders "squirrel feeders" and be done with it.
• More on squirrels: we can learn a lot from them.  They know what they want and don't stop at anything to get it.
• Grass is a weed that has figured out how to kiss our ass.
• A rose by any other name will still attract aphids.
• Thinking something is pretty doesn't mean you shouldn't prune it.
• When you say you're finished, you have no idea what you're talking about.

 

Replace your divots...

As you may have gathered from my last entry, I golf.  It's a game I picked up, somewhat reluctantly, a few years ago.  While I play fairly often, I have yet to achieve a skill level that would justify calling myself a "golfer", as opposed to "one who golfs."  To be fair, the fact one can rarely be satisfied with one's level of play is a major driving force behind people's addiction to the game.  I have been force fed more humility on a golf course than I had ever previously ingested on any other field of play.  For that reason, you could say my experience with golf shares much with my experience as a gardener.  However, this post strays a little from the theme of humility and addresses another aspect of the game: etiquette. 

The rules governing the game of golf are at once maddening and refreshing.  Love it or hate it, it is a game steeped in etiquette.  Introduce yourself to your playing partners when you start.  Don't talk during someone's back-swing.  Don't step on someone's putting line.  Don't leave the green until everyone has finished putting.  Best score on a hole has the honor of teeing off first at the next, unless they choose to waive it.  Even if you have an awful round, thank your playing partners before you leave the last hole.  Above all, minimize your impact on the course...other people play here, too.  No matter how frustrated you are with your bunker shots, rake the sand after your shot.  If you're good enough to land your shot on the green, repair your ball mark.  And, especially if you're a hack like me, track down the chunk of turf your iron carved out of the fairway and put it back where it came from -- replace your divots.

I thought about this on Saturday while rushing to put my border down before a late morning tee time.  As I swung my pickax, carving out a sixty foot trench, I began to accumulate chunks of grass.  My initial instinct was to dump them in the green waste bin and be done with it...but as I looked around, I noticed all the bare patches in my lawn that could use them.  I'll just put down seed, I tried to tell myself.  No good.  I had living grass sitting there, a product of many days of watering, meticulously cared for by my gardener and his high polluting mower...it's very existence had already impacted the course everyone else has to play on.  I couldn't let all of it go to waste.  I had to replace my divots.  Etiquette demanded it.

Though I knew it would prevent me from finishing the project in the time I had that morning, I started placing the turf in the bare patches of lawn.  I became more careful about how I pulled the turf up to begin with, knowing I would be placing it somewhere else and not wanting to render it unusable.  I was careful to not work too far ahead of myself, not wanting to pull up more grass than I could replant before I left.  It was frustratingly slow, but it was right.

The job didn't get finished before I traded my pickax for a 4 iron and, even though I enlisted Sharon's help the next day, I ultimately wasn't able to save all the grass I displaced.  But it put a change in my life in sharp focus.  From re-using wood from trees I've pruned as fencing or arches, to trying to limit my water usage in the summer, to wondering where my meat comes from and trying to not buy unsustainable fish, I have suddenly become someone who gives a shit.  Don't get me wrong, I'm no tree hugger...but I'm sure a lot of the guys who stayed quiet in my back-swing and shook my hand on the 18th green were no saints either.  We're not always going to do the right things, but it's never a bad thing to remember you're not playing alone.

One final note:  having replaced many a divot in my career as "one who golfs", I have always been slightly skeptical that putting a slice of turf back in a hole and stomping it down actually does anything.  Having never returned to the exact scene of the crime, I had no way to know if the grass actually survives.  As I had my morning coffee on the back porch, I noticed almost couldn't tell the replaced turf hadn't been there before.  Replacing divots works.  Who knew?  
 

Succulents

We went to the nursery today.  Sharon wanted to by some back-up artichokes, and I figured it would be a good time to start filling in the planter I'd built a few weeks ago at the base of one of our palm trees.  I was looking for succulents, and the nursery had dozens of different ones to choose from, each one looking like a different alien species. Seeing that I was a little stumped as to which ones to bring home, Sharon told me to pick the ones that made me happy...so I did. :)

Earthquake Weather

David!  David, wake up!  Come on, mijo, we're having an earthquake and you need to get out of bed.

My father rousts me from my upper bunk, the world wobbling on its axis, swaying back and forth like a ship clinging to its anchor in a storm.  My older brother and I stagger sleepily to the hall and huddle in a door frame, terror and excitement battle for control of our senses as books fall from bookshelves all over the house.  And then, as suddenly as it began, it is over.

California is for earthquakes, and this is one of my earliest memories of them.  I remember it vividly.  Perhaps it's because I was so young.  Perhaps it's because, after a lifetime of shakes and tremors, earthquakes have lost their shock value, individual instances blending together into one continuous rolling motion.

Others are not so blase.  Not everyone grew up with potentially catastrophic events as an everyday possibility.  For them, every tremor reminds them they have moved to a place that might one day slip its moorings and drift into the ocean.  Here in the San Fernando Valley, the memory of the Northridge Quake is still fresh.  People lost everything, their lives slid from their foundations and collapsed into chaos.  "Minor" quakes are major reminders of previous pain.

I skipped the garden this morning.  I got up late, rushed through the early morning routine, and skipped coffee.  But as I let the dogs out and looked around from the back porch, I couldn't help but notice an unnerving calm in the air.  Leaves stood still and quiet beneath an orange overcast sky.  Later, standing outside the office, feeling the heaviness of the air, it hit me.

This is earthquake weather.

How to explain that concept to the uninitiated?  I'm not sure how, but over the years quake veterans develop a sixth sense for these things.  For others it may be different, but for me it usually has to do with what I perceive to be unnatural stillness, lethargy almost, and a redness to the sky.  There is a taught tension to the atmosphere that strains at the earth.  And then the ground moves.

Sometimes a shudder.  Sometimes a shake.  Sometimes a prolonged rolling motion so gentle it takes a moment to realize it's happening.

Something's coming.

Somehow, I know it isn't bad.  I, too, am calm.  This is not The Big One, but a more gentle reminder to not get too comfortable where I am.  After weeks of dozing, boredom even, it's time to get out of bed and brace myself.  Things are moving.  Things are shaking.

I am ready.

Sunflowers

Whoever coined the phrase "Fragile as a flower" had limited access to sunflowers.  Having purchased the occasional bouquet of them at Trader Joe's, I have often marveled at how hefty they are.  Though guaranteed to put a smile on Sharon's face, a bunch of sunflowers could just as easily be used to cudgel someone senseless.  Beautiful?  Yes.  Fragile?  Hardly.

Given their general sturdiness, I figured growing them would be a cinch.  Umm, no.

My first set of seeds went in the ground behind the durantas, but all they amounted to was a bunch of empty shells littered along my nice little furrow of dirt.  Apparently, birds LOVE sunflower seeds.

Round two involved me scattering them around without much prep work.  More empty shells.  Did you know squirrels love sunflower seeds, too?

Sudden death round had a little more prep, but focused on on quantity versus quality.  Plant a LOT of seeds, and SOMETHING is going to grow.  Right?  Okay, so I probably should have called it something other than "sudden death", since that's what most of my would be yellow giants suffered at the hands of our backyard wildlife.  Still, the mass planting strategy worked the best.  After a couple weeks, we had some baby sunflowers growing between the lavender and the duranta.

And then we waited.  And waited.  And then, suddenly...we waited some more.  You see, growing flowers with stalks as thick as young trees takes time.  After what felt like several weeks, two of the sunny survivors started to form buds.  ETA for sunflowers: any day now.

Again, we watched and waited, eagerly anticipating the dramatic appearance of a big, showy bloom, the familiar abundance of yellow petals around a dark brown center.  Then, after a few more days we walked out and saw:

WHAT?!

I felt like someone secretly swapped our sunflower with a toothless redneck replica.  We spent a couple days making fun of it, laughing about how silly it was, imagining what it would sound like if it talked (think Sloth from the Goonies).  A few days later, the second flower bloomed.

Now THAT'S more like it!  Big.  Beautiful.  Awe inspiring.  The way a sunflower is supposed to look.  The way every sunflower one sees in pictures or in bouquet looks.

Call me crazy, but I like the first one better.

Not-So-Endless Summer

Ahh, Summer!  As I child, I dreamt of you, anxiously counting the days left till I could run amok, unfettered by school schedules and homework.  June to August were an unbroken chain of swim meets and summer camp, offset by gluttonous bike riding, and all framed in the glorious golden brown of a summer tan.  College brought a new sense to you, oh, Summer season: an orgiastic haze of sun soaked beaches and freedom, extending from my last final to the day I could tell my summer boss to kiss my collegiate ass goodbye.  Even in adulthood, you have been a harbinger of vacation days and barbecues, camping trips and margaritas by the pool.

Oh, Summer!  Stupendous, sumptuous, Summer...why do you suck so bad this year?

I'll tell you why: Because I've never had a garden before.  Summer, once the bastion of a blissful, carefree attitude, has bio-degraded into a two and a half month long worry marathon.  It started with a nasty letter from the Department of Water and Power informing us that, not only were our rates going up, but our spring planting and month-long marathon of visitors taking showers had landed us squarely on their compost list.  That has set off a litany of changes to watering schedules, time durations, water conservation practices...all the while watching our beautiful plants wilt, and our gorgeous lawn turn brown under the weight of 100+ degree heat.

The garden itself seems to be holding up quite well, all things considered.  The problem is, compared to the explosion of color and growth that was spring, Summer is positively boring.  In Spring, we would walk out one day and be amazed by how much something had grown...then walk out a couple days later and wonder how we could have been amazed at the previous growth, when the newest growth was SOO much more dramatic.  In Summer, we walk out and wonder if things are going to make it.

Last summer was like that, too, I guess.

Everything I read says that plants go dormant in extreme temperatures, switching from growth mode, to survival mode.  I suppose I can relate, having lived through one of those extreme changes in living conditions myself.  I remember how I looked for the tiniest signs of life, how much I rejoiced at glimmers of beauty...and how resigned I was to nature running its course.  Then I think about the fact that, on Monday, Sharon and I will celebrate our seven year anniversary.

I resolve to cut my garden (and my lawn) a little slack.  We went out in the middle of the day to hang our new birdhouses.  We admired the flowers on the Canna that are still brazenly blooming, the way the salvia have turned from slender stalks to woody bushes, and the random busy bee working through the noon-time heat.  As I wandered, I quietly reassured everyone that it's okay to take a break for a while, that I don't love them any less than I did a couple months ago...and I promised to give everyone an extra drink of water tonight, a toast to the fact that Summer doesn't last forever.

***Note:  Everything I've read also says that planting things in extreme summer heat is a surefire way to fail.  Glad I didn't know THAT a year ago.

Gloomy Day Garden

The sun hasn't shone in three days.  Overhead, sunlight battles with a cloud barrier that seems unwilling to give up its grip on the sky.  Below, bright has given in to gray and the world has faded to soft focus.  But in the garden, there is rebellion.

Canna, defiantly yellow against the deeper green of sunless hedges, lead the assault on the senses, with a burst of budding roses following close behind.  Petunias pick off the dark as it nears the ground, with patches of brigand pansies, having strategically replanted themselves throughout the groundcover, cut down any straggling bits of gloom.

From our chairs, we sit quietly and watch bright flashes of color explode, like rockets o'er the ramparts of our refuge.  This day will pass, as will the night that follows, but our garden flies the flag of hope in the face of all obstacles.

And we feel safe here.