Spring Garden Chronicles

Quince flowers herald spring

 The five stages of spring gardening have stayed remarkably static for me, whether I was living in B.C., Oregon, or here in Hertfordshire.  This account being chiefly about spring, it omits the hopeful months of late fall and winter, when you stand in the garden with your beloved discussing how next year will be different, and envisaging all the wonderful things you can/should/will do  in the off-season and planning wonderful new heights for the garden. It goes something like this:

Aren't the bluebells lovely?

1. Joy.  Sometime between January and March, you see the snowdrops and crocuses rise defiantly up through the snow or the grass, depending on the year, and you can't help it: your heart fills with joy. As the weeks pass, more and more of the garden comes to life, and you thrill as the garden fills with flowers from bulbs: daffodils, tulips, bluebells, lily of the valley. Fruit trees bud out then blossom in riotous pinks and whites. Giddy with spring fever, you get out the garden table and chairs, prudently leaving on the rain covers. Maybe you even make a hopeful trip to the garden centre.

2. Concern.  As the sun comes out, and showers start, you wonder when the explosion happened. All the old stalks you left for the over-wintering critters now stand dead and ugly amongst the greenery. The trees you didn't get around to pruning early enough go from bare branches to a breathtaking array of green within hours. The lawn is looking shaggy and suddenly one day appears to be more dandelions than grass.

Forsythia in Bloom

3. Panic. You have been glancing with growing alarm at the garden as you dash from the car to the house in the pouring rain carrying sixteen grocery bags.The grass that was dormant now stands three feet tall and surely harbours everything from giant rats to tigers. The vines have overtaken all the trees. Weeds have choked out nearly all the flowers in the beds.Now, after several consecutive weeks of rain, panic sets in. At the first sign that the downpour is letting up, you dash outside and fire up the mower, which groans in dismay as you wade into the lawn, and dies.

4. Despair. As the weeks pass, you manically hack and cut and pull at every opportunity. It never seems to make any difference. One day you realize that the horrible brown-specked scraggly plants you have just industriously cleaned out of the beds were your gladiolas. Your shoulders slump and you drag yourself inside, dolefully clutching the few small stalks of rhubarb you have managed to salvage.

5. Apathy. As the weeks of summer wear on, your sense of community pride shrivels. You mow the lawn every 3 to 4 weeks.With what you won't admit to yourself is a sense of relief, you finally don the mantle of utter failure. You invite people over for garden parties or BBQs and just before they arrive you halfheartedly run the mower over the grass where you'll be sitting.  After a few Pimm's or margaritas, no-one notices anyway, right?

Wisteria temporarily under control

I am hoping to cling to my hapless urge to garden for another few weeks, maybe hang on until the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in June, in case anyone comes over or they have a street party in my neighbourhood. Then all bets are off. I even have a vacation abroad planned this summer; any residual guilt feelings that I harbour can be shrugged off with "What can I do? I was away."  So if you're planning to visit us this summer, do it now before it's too late and you have to hack your way through the holly to get in the front gate, and get tangled in the wisteria before you get to the door.

Following Somerset Maugham's advice that "The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit*, here are a couple of tidbits about Canada, the US and the UK.

One of the sillier quotes about Canada is that "Very little is known of the Canadian country since it is rarely visited by anyone but the Queen and illiterate sport fishermen." Certainly no longer the case, post-Expo '87 and the more recent Olympics in Vancouver. As for the US, I always laugh when I hear the quote about how the US is the only country in history to have gone from barbarism to decadence without having passed through civilization in between.

But by far the pithiest expression I've heard of the great gulf that separates the two Children of a Common Mother, is:

The boundary between Canada and the United States is a typically human creation; it is physically invisible, geographically illogical, militarily indefensible, and emotionally inescapable.
Hugh Keenleyside, Canadian diplomat, 1929

As a Canadian who grew up in a mountainous backwater of British Columbia, the US was always like a big brother: you were never sure on any given day whether you hated or loved it more, you were fervently competitive while harbouring a secret belief that you would never best it because it was always so much bigger, and you bore the good-natured pummeling it inevitably handed you stoically.

To me as a Canadian, however, the UK was like an irritating great-aunt: overbearing and largely irrelevant, but you still had to be polite whenever she came to visit.

Now that I am in the position of living in, or having lived in, all three countries, I have slightly different views. Canada has grown mythologically in my memory since I left in '04. I have an even greater belief in the horrendous failure of the US to live up to its promise as a country, while simultaneously having the greatest regard and love for the American people individually. And the UK has so far surprised me greatly with its civilized way of life and overall sweet disposition of its people (excluding that one jackass in the BMW who raced past blaring his horn when I was trying to back out of my driveway one morning).

Intro

The Peace Arch straddles the border between the US and Canada south of Vancouver, BC, on the way to Seattle Washington. On it is inscribed a saying: “Children of a Common Mother”. I am a child of Canada, briefly immigrated to the US, now migrated across the sea to live in the womb of the mother country, England.

Some of these posts are slightly political, some are philosophical, and sometimes I make off the cuff comments about religion. I do not intend to disrespect anyone’s beliefs, culture or politics. These are my thoughts and opinions, and if you disagree or are offended, please feel free to respectfully correct me or post alternative views, but I don’t want any vitriol so save it for “Ann Coulter is Batshit Crazy” or whatever your chosen outlet for spewing invective is.

I may also occasionally just blather on about motorcycles, dogs, kids or home improvement, so pick and choose your area of interest and thanks for reading!