Words of Wisdom from Henry Mitchell

My most favorite garden writer and, incidentally, one of my favorite authors in terms of style. In The Essential Earthman (Houghton Mifflin 1981, pp. 4-5), he offers these words on how to deal with winter in the garden:

The days are now at their shortest and the gardener should keep it in mind that his ill-humor and (as it may be) gloominess is directly linked to this nadir of the year. All that is necessary is to hold on until spring or a few sunny days which will surely come, in January, February, March, April, or May at the latest. Meanwhile, several activities will help the gardener keep cheerful.

• Whenever it snows, go out with a broom and swat all the conifers likely to be broken down by snow.
• Whenever there are ice storms, pull the window shades down.
• ...When Christmas gift plants, if any, stop blooming, either give them conditions they require or else throw them out. There is no point making yourself miserable by watching a poinsettia, cyclamen, or greenhouse azalea die over a period of three months.
• ...Force yourself, for once, to order the varieties of annuals you want from a seedsman in January, so you will not find yourself in a snit in March when you can't find what you want at the drugstore.
• Start saving money to buy next fall's bulbs.
• Borrow money to chop down those maple trees.
• Decide those old gardeners are correct, who have been saying for the past few hundred years that nothing is lovelier or more cheerful than common ivy, common holly, and common yew. And, you might add, junipers.
• ...Feed the birds. You won't get anything much but grackles, starlings, and English sparrows. What did you expect, flamingoes?
• ...Feed the squirrels. This is the same as "feeding birds." ...
• ...If it ever gets warmish again, admire the swelling buds of elm, ash, azalea, flowering quince. Make up your mind once and for all whether you will give space to a pussy willow bush. Whichever you decide, decide, and stop being of two minds about it.
• Thank God you do not have to stay in the garden all winter like a blasted snowdrop (which should, incidentally, be showing some signs of activity within the year's first month). Gardeners, on the other hand, will stir about April 8.

Earthman vs. the Seasons - Spring

In the face of wind advisories and a forecast of nightime lows of 24 for the next week, I'm moved to quote Henry Mitchell at some length:

"The gardener knows those early April days when the air is soft, the sun not too bright, and the thermometer at 63. There have been soft rains, there is little wind. The gardener thinks such weather is his right, this time of year. If a wind of seventy-two miles an hour follows a cold snap and the temperature shoots to 83, followed by hail, he is fit for the madhouse and really should be safely stashed away there for a few days. And yet such weather is not only normal but inevitable--if not this year, then next. Nothing in the natural world is 'always reliable.'
"...The truth is, of course, that there is no day of the early spring that is safe. Usually, after the gardener has carried on a good bit and made life miserable for a number of people, the weather settles back and the gardener stops hollering everything is going to die."
"We are not born to a bonbon-type life you know."
(The Essential Earthman, Henry Mitchell, Houghton Mifflin, reprint 1994, pp 9-10; One Man's Garden, Henry Mitchell, Houghton Mifflin, 1992, p. 67).

In other words, this, too, shall pass, even if we have to replace all our roses.

First Garden Report

I know, I still haven't done a knitting post. I will!

Took the Ts out for a last hour in the puppy pen before I put down the grass seed. While they were playing, I browsed the garden. I'm not really at red heat about the garden--wasn't in the fall, didn't plant anything (including a box of really nice antique tulips from Old House Garden http://oldhousegardens.com)--still really am not now, although, as usual, I'm wishing I had planted more daffodils and siberian squill and some crocus, as well as those tulips. Let's all hope that I can get a trial of T3 and that it turns out to be the magic bullet for this ongoing unending weariness.

Anyway. I have mountains of dead wood to pick up and an ungodly amount of raking to do, but I used my hands to clear away where I knew there should be bulbs and some of the early spring plants coming up, and here are a few pictures:

(photos to go here as soon as the batteries to my camera recharge)

• I saw only the one bud on one clematis, and all the roses look like they've had it, but it's early yet--only the first half of March--so I won't panic yet.
• I didn't see any columbine where I expected them in the shade garden, but there are a few in the raised bed by the driveway (the ugly ones, of course).
• The alchemilla looked so pathetic I was worried, but close inspection revealed a few tiny leaves.
• All the heucheras have come through fine, as has the periwinkle (which I suspect is virtually unkillable) and the lamium (v. Beacon Silver).
• It'll be weeks before I see any sign of hostas or lilies of the valley.
• I think the sweet box bought it.
• The lavender looks stiff and dead, but I'll cut it all back and see what happens (it's still early, I keep reminding myself).
• I don't see any siberian squill, and I had expected them to have spread a bit this year.
• The European ginger has its usual spring limpness, but I uncovered some new perfect leaves, so it'll be fine and will, I hope, continue to seed itself about.
• The striped sedge is looking extremely doubtful, but I'll try cutting that back, too, and see what warmer weather brings.
• The German iris has pulled through yet another winter. It may actually bloom one of these years.
• I have no hopes for the Siberian iris, which makes me sad, since a good friend gave it to me and it's very beautiful.
• The poor sedum may not have made it this year. I never did get it out of the pot last summer, nor did I bury the pot in woodchips for protection as I did the previous winter, and we had some pretty severe weather at the end of this past winter. I swear if it pulls through I'll find a place to plant it once and for all.
• Too early to tell about the various lilies and daylilies.
• Didn't look for peony buds, but I imagine they're down there--poking up out of the ground like red peanuts, as Henry Mitchell described them.

Henry Mitchell wrote several articles about the hazards of the garden in early spring. In one essay called "The Wrongs of Winter, the Rites of Spring," after a long list similar to the one above, he finished, "...I might add, in addition to all that, 'and furthermore nothing is doing all that well and it looks utterly hopeless.'

"And then one bleak winter day as you blast out the front door in a sprint for the bus there, by the grace of God, is Crocus sieberi 'Violet Queen' in full bloom two weeks earlier than scheduled. And there (as you slow down, though of course you must get to the office) is 'Goldilocks' and there (will wonders never cease) is one snowdrop and (what wondrous life is this I lead), incredible as it seems, the cyclamineous hybrids are pushing through the much-too-deep mulch after all, and the wild cyclamen have revived despite being stepped on--it is not to be believed how otherwise civilized people will step on wild cyclamen even as you very tactfully suggest avoiding them--and I do not go so far as to say God's in his heaven or anything of the sort that I know nothing about. But I do say it takes very little to convince a gardener he will make it right into spring."

Amen, Henry Mitchell. Quote from The Essential Earthman, by Henry Mitchell, pub. Houghton Mifflin, and darn if I can find a publishing date for the reprint; probably 1994 since it appeared soon after the great garden writer passed on in 1993; originally published Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1981. Even if you don't garden, he is very much worth reading.

Today's soundtrack: boomeranging between "The Promised Land" (Moondog Matinee, The Band) and "Che gelida manina" (La Boheme)

Today's book: Letters of Dorothy Wordsworth