Our Garden

Our Garden, November 20, 2009:

We live on the east end of a block of row houses. Our front yard garden is a raised bed of approximately 100 square feet with a southern exposure. In the winter, the garden is protected from cold north winds and receives the maximum amount of sunshine. In the summer, trees to the east block direct sunlight until about noon daylight time and slips away between 4 and 5 pm as the sun sets on the north side of the house.

We are gardeners, not landscapers. While we like the garden to show well from the street and the sidewalk, we also like it to show well for ourselves when we are on the front porch. But we are much less interested in the garden's form or structure than in the individual plants.

We have tried to introduce more and more perennials--less annual expense and somewhat less work. Often they thrive, become invasive and must be held at bay. Sometimes they migrate and other times they inexplicably disappear.

Our true love is annuals. If we see an unusual plant or color or form, we put it somewhere or in a pot so we can move it around.

We live in a transitioning neighborhood near public schools. In the beginning we had trouble with passersby stealing, picking or abusing the flora. Our strategy was to put within arm’s reach plants that benefit by extensive dead heading, such as petunias, snapdragons, marigolds, salvias and even geraniums. Crocus and rock garden daffodils do okay but tulips, hyacinths and monumental daffodils must be kept back out of harm’s way. Gentrification has lessened but not eliminated this survival strategy.

Spring is hectic as plants wintered over indoors go out for sunny days and back inside in case of an overnight freeze. In the beginning we allow almost everything that sprouts to grow until we can begin to determine whether it is a plant we want or a weed to pull. Sometime in April we decide that our need to get annuals planted is greater than the risk of a killer freeze. By May, the wintered over plants are on the porch or in the garden. Sometime in late May or early June we decide enough with letting narcissus foliage die back naturally and clean up the spring plants.

Sometime in June we find that there's simply no more room for impulse buying at the farmers' markets or roadside nurseries. But, there's always a coleus that we have to have and must rearrange plants to fit it in. By July, we are discovering volunteer sunflowers and sorghums from seeds that escaped last winter's bird feeding.

August is always hard on the garden. No matter how much rain we've had since New Year's Day or whether the Potomac is flooding, DC has its annual drought. How can the humidity be so high and the plants so dry? Perhaps the summer heat is cumulative. Somehow we keep most plants alive but blooms decline and the garden looks poorly.

Eventually there is that magic day in late August (or God forbid early September) when a Canadian front drops the temperatures 10 to 15 degrees, the humidity wanes, and most everything perks up.

September is the time when we start finding volunteer zinnias, marigolds and salvias from plants that went to seed months or years before. By October, some plants are giving up the ghost, having fulfilled their life cycle. Most landscapers and many tidy folk jump the gun and put their gardens to bed. But we allow our garden to go on. The yellow and oranges of the marigolds, the reds of the salvias and the purples of the snapdragons are particularly appropriate for fall.

With our northern protection and southern exposure, our fall garden continues into November, sometimes beyond Thanksgiving, rarely to Christmas. We enjoy allowing the late volunteer sunflowers or zinnias to bloom. Slowly we start potting and bringing in those to be wintered over and reluctantly we begin cleaning up or clearing out plants who's decline has become too painful to watch any longer.

Sometime in late November or early December there comes an evening when the air is damp, bone chilling and smells of winter. We know that most plants will not survive the night. We rush to bring in anything that might survive (even though we know that some will only have a lingering death indoors). As we close the door against the cold, we leave the remaining plants to their fate. In the morning, we'll assess the damage and later will be surprised at those that somehow survived last night's assault. We'll wait for a little sunshine and warmth before tidying up this year's garden.

November sunflowers: