Category Archives: In the Garden

No Better Place

31 Wednesday Mar 2010

Posted by in In the Garden, Life at Home, Soul Care

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I can think of no better place to spend Holy Week than down on my knees, out in the garden.

I’ve devoted the better part of the last three days to my garden; I’ve trimmed, cleaned up leaf debris and planted a few bulbs.  Except for planting annuals, which will need to wait for a few more days, my garden is reading for its Spring growing fling.

Caring for my small Mesta Park garden is no full-time job.  After caring for lawn and gardens at our Texas home — which covered almost half an acre, I’m almost embarrassed to call what I do here in Mesta Park ‘gardening.’

Today, with all my ‘gardening’ chores done, but with leftover desire to keep gardening, I rang up the owner of the duplex next door today to see if I could come over and play in his dirt.  He’s so pleased with what we did together last fall — with his money and my time — that I learned I’m to come over any time I want.

So now, in addition to my own property, I have two duplexes whose front yards I care for on the block, counting the ‘Cinderella’ duplex across the street.  These three are still only half of what I cared for in Texas.  It’s my own little ministry, where I share my know-how and love of gardening with some good neighbors.  It’s just me and God creating a little beauty together.

It feels good to work with my hands, to think creatively off of the written page.  The down-side, for my husband anyways, is that I’ve been so tired, we’ve gone out to eat the last three evenings.

Tonight, after dinner, my husband suggested an evening walk with the dogs.  It was so pretty, I had to run back in to grab my camera.  It was quiet — we walked in silence — covered by the light from old streetlamps.  The sky was rosy pink when we began and soft cornflower blue by the time we got home.

On days like these, I can think of no better place to live than in this old neighborhood.

Gardener at Work

11 Thursday Mar 2010

Posted by in In the Garden, Life at Home

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Earlier today, something black and fast caught my eye from my upstairs window.

It was my Scottish Terrier, Cosmo, hurrying as fast as short legs could carry her.  Trotting with purpose, as if on a mission, Cosmo was heading  toward her favorite garden spot.   I don’t normally keep close tabs on my garden loving dog, but it is spring and I’ve plenty of garden chores to get through without any extras from Ms. Cosmo.

That Scottie of mine digs holes where I don’t want them.  She’s severed every one of my drip irrigation lines in the last three months — most were completely ripped out.   And in spite of my close watch, Cosmo gnawed quite a few edges off my new back porch steps.

But Cosmo’s specialty is thinning out garden plants.  Last year, I caught her eating my Spilanthes, commonly called the Toothache Plant.  Another one of her forays left several giant Cosmos and Cleome  dead — these showy flowers stand four to five feet tall, but that didn’t deter Ms. Cosmo, who chopped them off at their ankles.  Poor little flower victims didn’t know what hit them.

Once Cosmo harvests a plant, she works more like garbage disposal than composter —  which would be fine, if her definition of plant debris was the same as mine.  I don’t mind Cosmo pruning back last season’s perennial growth — or pulling up the dead annuals by their roots — but Lordy, that girl hasn’t figured out one from the other.  And really — I ask — is it necessary to chew holes in my ‘invisible’ fence wire that keeps my poodle garden stampedes in check?  If I didn’t know better, I might wonder if Cosmo was in cahoots with the poodles.

Cosmo’s favorite spot in the garden lies behind the garden shed at the back of our small city lot.  In the summer, it offers a cool drink of shade, something that comes in handy for a little dog with coal-black fur.  In the winter, it offers shelter from the cold north wind, a good place to carry out her terrorist activities, chewing to heart’s and jaw’s content without fear of being disturbed.

While Cosmo is out ‘tending’ the back gardens, I’ve been slaving in the front, giving a hundred head of  Lirope or Monkey Grass a nice spring ‘haircut.’  The cold winter dulled their ‘heads’ to an olive-green full of dry split ends.   Though some gardeners use lawn mowers and weed trimmers to groom their ‘Monkey Grass,’ I prefer to cut each one by hand with my pruners, to prevent the weed trimmer from injuring the tree bark.  I could use Cosmo’s help if she were willing.  But when in the front, Cosmo has a tendency to visit with her favorite neighbor — Jessie the cat.  If neighborhood gossip is right, Jessie doesn’t like Cosmo’s visits.

Working outside this time of the year does bring plenty of visits with the neighbors.  Folks are always walking by our house since we live near to Mesta Park — even the ones I don’t know call out a greeting.  Then, my next-door neighbor is always interested in what I’m doing in my garden.  After a few minutes of questions, I’m usually left to my task with some final word of encouragement, like —  “Looking good.”

I know they’re talking about the garden  rather than me, since I never look good when working in the garden.  But now Cosmo — that girl always looks good — even when she’s being a very naughty Scottie — which may help explain why I keep her on the gardening payroll.

Citrus Blues

21 Saturday Nov 2009

Posted by in In the Garden, Life at Home

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We are late for our first seasonal freeze.

Even so, two freeze warnings have sent us scurrying at night to protect our sensitive citrus.  The garage has held the Key Limes for close to thirty nights while our small kitchen has twice hosted our hardier citrus.  Soon the run-from-the-freeze games will end and our citrus will have no choice but to take up their winter quarters on our sun porch.

All the moving of heavy plants has led me to mover’s regret; I should not have moved those lovely southern belles out of their natural hot house environment.  There in Lake Jackson, my citrus could have been planted in the ground to grow tall and produce many fruit.  Here, the best they can become are small unmanageable container plants.

I didn’t know citrus could grow so fast.  Four years ago, they wore one gallon pots.  And now that their feet have outgrown seven gallon pots, I’m trying to recall why I thought growing citrus in Oklahoma was a good idea.

The more I garden, the more I come to believe that it’s best to cultivate what naturally grows in the place one is planted.  Every part of the world must offer its own beauty.  Here in central Oklahoma, I grow peonies and hollyhocks and spring bulbs like Daffodils that I had no prayer of growing in South Texas.  Citrus do not belong in Oklahoma.

But here I sit, mother to four citrus trees —  two tender very productive Key Limes that shiver and turn blue if the thermostat drops below 48F; and two hardier citrus that have yet to earn their keep — a fruitless but very pretty Meyer Lemon and a Satsuma Orange that delivered its first ever bumper crop this season.  Two oranges.

The worst of my citrus blues are the aphids; —  ugly, tiny, pear-shaped insects found on the bottom of leaves — after fighting these little buggers all year, I gave up in September.  But now the trees look so sad I can no longer ignore them, especially those two making eye contact in our shared kitchen quarters.

With wet soapy sponge in hand, I began first-aid on the orange tree three days ago.  Leaf by leaf, the black sooty mold and sticky honey-dew is slowly disappearing.  Three hours into my ministry, I have 75 percent of one tree completed; in just ten more hours , I will land on the spot marked “Routine Citrus Care.”

Today I sprayed all the clean leaves with Safer Insecticidal Spray to temporarily insulate them from further attack. Given that the soap needs to be sprayed every week, I’m planning on making my own home-made formula for the sake of convenience and cost.  Then, for the rest of our unnatural shared lives together, I will give these little four-foot darlings a drenching soapy shower every week, even if they tell me they don’t really need it.

So what else is a mother of four citrus in Oklahoma to do?

I tell myself that the care of these citrus trees will be no different from the rest of everyday life.  After all, the human experience is an around-and-around-we-go sort of existence;  whether it’s personal care or our housekeeping or our gardening or our whatever, the work is never done until we’re done for.

There is no other way than to sing the citrus blues.

Unless. The answer is still lurking under that black sooty mold.  Even now the wheels in my head are turning a different way.  Perhaps I could give my cleaned up trees away — even shedding one would yield a 25 percent time savings (to me.)   And after all, who needs two Key Lime trees?

Wouldn’t a cleaned up but very fertile Key Lime tree make some lucky someone a mighty fine Christmas gift?