After a decade and more of cultivating my little patch of hillside I have come to accept the truths of the Bayview garden: it won't grow vegetables (just a few hardy herbs); it won't consent to being "cottage" no matter how many vintage roses or hollyhocks I plant in it; and the squirrels (how I hate them!) have shown me that what the garden really wants to be is an oak grove. So I concede these truths and proceed with much more patience and a bit more humor to garden around the edges of the realities. I will plant sweet peas anyway. I will build a little green house for one tomato plant. I will dig up the rust-ridden Kathleen Harrop rose. I will pull up all the non-blooming daffodils, Dutch iris, and unsuitable bulbs that only make big green leaf bunches and then turn brown in a heap for months. I will cover the last of the "lawn" with bark and I will let most of the oak seedlings grow where the squirrels planted them (except for the ones in the flower pots and in the middle of the annual beds).
Those little acorns the squirrels are compelled to bury are the hope that will spring eternal in this accidental garden.
Posted by briggs at February 21, 2006 4:55 PMAll gardening is a battle with nature. One just has to choose how hard to fight.
Part of my San Francisco yard is a hideously foreign mix of rampant Chinese vineweeds and subtropical root plants (i.e. Roses and Dahlias). Without some nurturing (soil, fertilizer, water water water) these would never make it. And yet, with this small amount of help they thrive and are beautiful.
Gardening is an exercise in desire, denial, brief satisfaction, and acceptance. Sounds an awful lot like sex.
Posted by: Richard on February 23, 2006 1:48 PMMy banes are twofold - RABBITS! OAK ROOT FUNGUS! I never imagined either when I created my garden 20 years ago. I have submitted to the tyranny of the rabbits, and am now trying things like hellebores in shade and nepeta and lavender in sun (could be worse!). The fungus means dry gardening only, and I'm not quite there yet. They say that limitations force creative solutions, and I hope it's true.
Posted by: Nancy on February 27, 2006 9:00 AM