Even though I’ve gardened this 1/4 acre since 1993, it still surprises me.
In 2019, it was the jack-in-the-pulpit that I feared might have given up the ghost — only to find a hearty specimen over by the basement windows. Where or whether the plant will pop up each spring is a mystery — one that has yet to disappoint. This year the biggest jack-in-the-pulpit I’ve ever seen rose up on the east side of our shed. It was easily three feet tall with massive leaves the size of our catalpa’s. Just astonishing.
In 2024, a beautiful cloud of rudbeckia appeared under the black walnut out front. This was surprising for two reasons. One, I hadn’t planted them there and two, the black walnut roots have a toxin that has a way of killing plants growing nearby. The next summer, this summer, they didn’t come back. Poof! Not a one. That was a third surprise.
(A neighbor told me she has a similar growth and disappearance, so I don’t think it was the black walnuts).
Same with a vigorous and glorious crop of echinacea near the house. Go figure.
Not a single iris or yellow primrose bloomed this year. I have no idea why.
Weeds have a way of changing. This year it was some serrated-edged leafy thing as well as shallow-rooted, thin-leafed umbrella-like plants (Threeseed Mercury?) Both were absolutely everywhere. Neither had ever been an issue before.
One year I planted a chocolate Joe Pye Weed (It’s native! Blooms in the fall!) only to discover 3 to 4 years later that it was massively aggressive. One clump turned into three clumps on the side yard. Then they jumped the house and started populating the backyard. So many clumps! For several summers I dedicated myself to getting rid of them and mostly did but they’re sneaky, so every year I have to keep an eye out for a stealthy rogue. There are usually a couple. Sometimes, if hidden near the chimney say, they might attain a height of 12 to 14 inches before I discover them (always with a loud AHA!). This year, though, a regular colony took up residence under the Jack Pine. They were hidden by the ostrich ferns. Quite the incursion.
I think of these plants as nasty and it’s all I can do not to pull them out of neighbors’ yards when out and about walking Finn. Sometimes I even wonder (no matter the distance from our house) if my plants were the progenitors.
When we first moved here in the early 90s, there were no chipmunks and there were no rabbits. Now we have lots of chipmunks and lots of rabbits. At first, I didn’t mind the rabbits so much. They’d pick one or two thin-leafed hosta each season, eat them to the ground and leave the rest alone. Lately though they are voracious and I hate them. This summer they destroyed an entire hosta bed near the back patio, all plants lovingly positioned there from divisions, by the way. Worse, lately they don’t even eat all the leaves, instead strewing them about — evidence of such violence that I’ve taken to calling them murder scenes.
Over by the shed sits the stump of the pin cherry that fell in a wind storm in 2018. I happened to be looking out back when it went down. A few branches landed on the roof, but the bulk of the tree missed the house by inches. Naturally Ken was abroad, as he was when the pipes froze one year and that time the basement flooded. It barely missed Finn too. I had taken a picture of the dog in the exact spot where the trunk landed on the deck just ten minutes prior. Two blessed near misses!
There are two rhodies that were rescued from the adjacent schoolyard during the years I acted as landscape volunteer for the PTA. I’ve mentioned them already this summer. They thrived like crazy for years until this spring when the leaves turned rust-colored and curled in sorry defeat. I thought they were dead. I cut everything back but didn’t pull out the stumps. Then they came back. A lesson in maybe taking a beat. Evidence of a glorious refusal to give up.
We have liriope and zebra grass from Cathryn, whom I don’t see anymore, and a towering lilac from Reba, with whom I’ve also lost touch. The prodigious comfrey, a massive sprawling plant that I’ve split and split again, came from Barbara, who has since moved to California and we do stay in touch.
Ironically, the forget-me-nots given to me by my mother only lasted two seasons.
The shed stands as testament to the fact that we have too much stuff. It reflects a recent history of kids heading west with duffel bags only, a sister dying, and my husband’s parents downsizing. From Ken’s father we ended up with extra socket wrench sets (what are we up to — four? five?), antique edgers, hoes, and shovels, as well as grape-stomping boots from his Slovenian grandfather that I can’t quite see clear to giving away.
Under the shed lie three cat graves: Calypso, Tyler, and PeePee. Calypso, a spunky, ace-hunting calico, died first. It was the summer after D was born, which was also the summer after my mother died. I cried and cried picking up her limp body at the base of the tree a neighbor reported seeing her climb after having been hit by a car. Full-chested sobbing. It was a time to notice how pure the grief for an animal is, as opposed to the more measured grief for a loved person. I did not cry nearly as much when my mother passed. But of course nothing is so reductive for in crying for Calypso, I was also crying for my mother.
It was a mixed loss, Calypso’s death, because she was a bit of a nudge and had been known to try and sleep on C’s neck in the cradle. In the bleary exhaustion of life with a baby and a toddler, she would not have been well tolerated.
Tyler, on the other hand, was perfect. An orange medium-hair with a dash of coon cat, he regaled us with his LOUD motoring purr and never before or since have I stroked fur as soft as his. Add to that a dignified and affectionate disposition. He was perfect. Did I already say? We could never bring ourselves to replace him.
PeePee was an orange, short hair that belonged to my sister. She was almost round at death.
We buried Jack over by the western lot line.
Hosta and lily of the valley grow where the mini-ramp used to be, which is also where the swing set and slide used to be. The summer of Covid, we had a patio built — a testament to the empty nest as well as the pandemic need to entertain outside. With an umbrella on wheels and a birdfeeder, we thoroughly enjoy sitting out there on the rare quiet day.
I may have come to the end of finding little bits of boyhood in the soil. I knew the day would come. For years, Lego bricks, hatless Playmobile figures, glass stones, and plastic army men revealed themselves as I gardened. They showed up like treasures. Remember, they said. The plastic litter was dense near the site of the old clubhouse, but there was also what could be called a debris field below D’s second story window. Who knew? Clearly, he routinely launched shit out of his bedroom. With what mood — glee? rebellious anger? — I can only guess. There is so much we don’t know about our children.
And now I close by thanking you for reading. Any gardener knows there is a ton more that could be said, but this is already too long.
