Non-gardening mode

I believe the detoxification program helped (see post from December 12). I feel strangely relaxed and in a non-gardening mood. That is, I still like to read gardening books. I enjoy the taped programmes from the BBC series “How to be a gardener”. And I talk to the pelargoniums and promise them a summer on the porch if they just survive the winter. But that is really nothing. I have not been trying to locate the gardening tools. I have not tried to dig in the frozen ground (something known to happen from previous years). I have not even spread little notes around the house with sketches of new plantings, or notes on new plants that need to be bought or located. Instead I walk around thinking non-chlorophyllic thoughts. New experiences are always exciting and this one is really new!

I even have begun to think dirty and forbidden thoughts. Sensitive readers, please stop reading now. The rest of you, don’t say you weren’t warned. OK, here we go… I have always said ‘If I had unlimited funds of time and money, I’d know exactly what to do with the garden’. That is no longer true. I know what I’d like to do with the entrance but the rest…? The dirty thought that has been sneaking around in the back of my head is: perhaps I don’t need to change the more far parts of the garden at all. Perhaps they are OK as they are. I write these words with trembling fingers. Will the world, as we know it collapse? Will the great garden blog spirit come and get me? Will I be immensely ashamed of these words in a couple of weeks? Probably. Never the less, it feels quite revolutionizing and the thought has not quite settled yet.

The outback part in the garden is inhabited by fruit trees. We usually refer to it as ‘the meadow’ but please don’t ask me why because there have never been a meadow there. The point is that it is really fine as it is. A little wild. Romantic. Old trees growing graciously. Yes, I really think I’ll leave it as it is.

A new thought. A change of mind. But life is full of changes. Some are very sudden, others come so slowly they really just can be seen after a long time has passed. I have gone from being an enthusiastic, very organized but inexperienced gardener to be a slightly more experienced, but also more chaotic gardener. The journey has not been travelled alone. The plants have travelled alongside. Literally. I have planted them, changed my mind, moved them and replanted them, changed my mind, moved them and replanted them, … well, you get the general picture. Most plants are surprisingly forgiving. They continue to grow when they, once again have been moved to a new place. By experience I therefore can tell that it is a myth that peonies can’t be moved. They can. Best done in the fall and if one try to disturb the roots as little as possible. Most of the times, however, they survive moves in other seasons to. They look at you a little annoyed the following year or two but as peonies generally are forgiving natures they usually accept that what is done is done and now let’s get on with our lives. The roses too have been moved several times. But last time it really wasn’t my fault. The season after they had been planted a water pipe broke and most of the rose garden had to be dug up to change the pipe. The choice stood between having no water in the house or to move the roses. The family took a quick vote – I lost – and the roses were moved. They spent the whole season and the following winter in the vegetable garden since this was the only pot where there was any bare soil to be found. The roses looked more than shocked to be put in such humble surroundings. A little lecture of old times (they are historic roses after all) and the sight of the excavator however, silenced them. Now they have once again moved and all but the wild Rosa multiflora have left this humiliating times behind them. She on the other hand found she had more in common with the carrots and cabbage than with her snobbish relatives so she moved in for good. At the moment we all live in perfect harmony.

And maybe there is even hope for me. I just found myself talking encouraging to the compost when I passed it. My inner gardener isn’t completely gone. She just dozed of for a moment.