Renovating Dusk ’Til Dawn

I’m looking for relief – from the heat. I’m dripping, and I can’t sleep, so I figure I may as well garden. There’s just one problem: It’s dark. But with each hot flash, you get more creative. I found a miner’s helmet in a catalogue of hard-to-find tools; it’s perfect for nighttime gardening. 

Before you write me off as hormonally imbalanced, hear me out. There are a number of gardening tasks that are perfectly suited for the dark.  Slug patrol, for starters.  Come on, who among us has not gone slug hunting with a flashlight and a six-pack of beer. For bait, of course.  I even talked my husband into joining me one night.  I used the old excuse of “sharing the experience.”  He falls for that line every time.  He was actually quite good at it, but resented the sacrifice – the beer, not the sleep. 

Transplanting, too, is well suited for nighttime gardening. Here’s how it works: during the day, I use Day-Glo paint – two colors – to spray the ends of stakes.  I place the first (orange) stake next to a plant in need of relocating.  The second (green) stake goes next to the pre-dug hole where the plant will end up.  That way, at night, I simply aim my wheelbarrow toward the glowing orange stake and dig up the plant.  I then head to the green stake, where I pop my transplant into its new home.  There’s a massive plant relocation program going on in my yard tonight.  Consider this an invitation.

Mulching can also be done in the dark, especially if you just need to deposit wheelbarrow loads in one location.  I save the finer tasks, like spreading the mulch, for daylight. I’m not crazy.

Deadheading in the dark is an ideal task too. The shaft of light provided by the miner’s helmet is just enough to shine a light on a single plant, so you can really focus on removing those spent blossoms. No distractions at 3 a.m., either.

There’s a lot happening in the garden at night. My moonflower vine unfolds when coaxed with even the smallest amount of moon- or helmet-light, and bats are busy nighttime pollinators.

All gardening is an act of faith; nighttime gardening is an act of devotion, though my neighbors might call it dementia.

Chipmunks: Commutes, Cats & Walking the Plank

It’s a banner year for chipmunks.

A mild winter and abundant acorns and other nuts last fall meant stockpiles for underground orgies. No need to leave their harems due to hunger and get picked off by a hungry hawk.

My strawberries ripened to perfection, and then I saw the tunnels. As I got closer I noticed the backside of each berry was eaten. And with all those antioxidants they’re getting from my strawberries, these chipmunks will live forever.

Turns out I am not alone.  Everyone I talk to this summer has a chipmunk remedy or two. Here are a few:

One neighbor fills a bucket with water to within two inches of the top. She floats sunflower seeds on the top to cover the water. Then she props a small board from the ground to the top of the bucket with a little of the board hanging over the lip of the bucket. Think chipmunk diving board. Finally, she sprinkles a few sunflower seeds at the base of the board. Eager for the seeds, the chipmunks “walk the plank” and drown. Not for the faint of heart though; you have to empty the bucket.

And there are some very long commutes in our neighborhood...by chipmunks.

One-way, hopefully.

Another neighbor commutes an hour to the Connecticut hills. His commute began after he excavated his wet basement to get the water out, only to find that newly mined chipmunk tunnels brought water back in.  

The state would classify him as an SOV (Single Occupant Vehicle), but he shares his truck with a dozen chipmunks at least once a week. The number of people commuting may be down, but if the state counted chipmunks, the numbers would be up. Way up. Turns out there’s a lot more carpooling going on. Who knew?

Several miles north, a lawyer friend lives in chipmunk nirvana. Oak and hickory trees surround his house. Every morning he loads his car with legal briefs and chipmunks. He drops them five miles from his home before he heads to his law office. It’s a crowded commute. One week he kept a tally — 35. 

If he had a group of litigious chipmunks he could have some serious trouble. Or he could make some big bucks. . . especially if he charged by the head instead of his hourly rate.

Turns out the only time chipmunks aren’t trouble is when they’re commuting. But they’re a lot better than most people. They’re quiet occupants; they don’t take up much room; they don’t smoke (well not unless they escape into the engine compartment); and they don’t argue about which radio station the driver should to listen to.  Plus, no matter where you drop them off, they never complain. I don’t know about you, but I can’t say that about most of my former dates.

We’ve got the ultimate deterrent— a cat. I didn’t go looking for a cat, but when one wandered in to our yard one winter — drawn by the smell of hibernating chipmunks — I remembered my ravaged Hosta bed — more tunnels than Stalag 13.

This cat turned out to be one focused hunter. He’s a chipmunk-a-day cat. I’ll put up with the trouble of a cat, the main trouble: I see a garden; he sees a giant litter box, if he’ll keep up with the chipmunks.

We celebrated the shrinking chipmunk population, until my husband noticed the cat was importing chipmunks from the neighbor’s yard. 

And the longer he played with them, the more likely they were to get away. Yesterday, he was playing his favorite game — toss the chipmunk — then he took a break.

The stunned chipmunk got up and limped towards a hole in our stonewall. Our confident cat just watched. When the chipmunk was about 10 feet from the stonewall, the cat rose and nonchalantly headed after him. But the chipmunk dashed and dove into the wall. The cat lunged, but too late.

Turns out the chipmunk faked the limp. I guess possums aren’t the only ones that play possum. Chipmunk: 1 – Cat: 0.

With the imports, is there a net gain? A win or a loss? We’re still not sure.

That night a vehicle stopped across the street and opened it’s tailgate. I heard the clanging of metal, so I walked over to investigate. A man was stooped over a Havahart® trap.

“Hey, what was that that just scurried into my yard?” I asked.
“Chipmunks,” he said.
“Gee, we have plenty of those already,” I told him.
“Oh,” he said and drove off.

God only knows where those chipmunks came from. The good news is that at least the license plate wasn’t from out of state. The bad news is one of them looked familiar. He had a limp.

Fetching Undersides: The Marilyn Monroe of Plants

My husband still admires my backside – which seems to be holding up better than my front side.  Like people, some plants look lovelier from their backside – when breezes lift their leaves and expose their unusual undersides. Like Marilyn Monroe’s dress in The Seven Year Itch.

I’m thinking of Ligularia Desdemona – so alluring its beauty incites jealousy. My husband, who knows nothing about gardening but helps with the heavy lifting, was helping me plant this in a shade bed, and I pointed out the dark burgundy underside on the leaves. “Too bad you can’t plant this upside down,” he said. 

In spring, the new leaves emerge beet-red, fade to greenish-bronze on top, and remain purple on the undersides. Even the stems are purple.  As if that isn’t enough, in late summer, electric yellow, daisy-like flowers appear on long burgundy stems. Still, for all that, the underside is where all the action is. 

That’s also the reason I wanted Chocolate Eupatorium. The top and side views are lovely enough and reveal their deep, saturated dark chocolate – purple leaves and stems, but the real drama is on the underside of the leaf, which is so loaded with color that it illuminates the tops of the leaves. Being top heavy they need help staying upright. I can’t help think of my Great-aunt Ida whenever I’m staking then. I only saw her at Christmas, but she had a holiday headlock that held me tightly to her large bosom – so pendulous that they resided at her belt. Air was hard to come by there, and I wondered if my release would correspond with the amount of oxygen that remained in my lungs. Luckily, I had four other siblings, and she’d release me and move on to them. All of us emerged gasping and slightly blue.

In fall my Eupatoriums are pumping out huge flower heads made up of hundreds of miniature white flowers all abuzz with bees and butterflies.  

While admiring my assets the other day my husband made this pronouncement: “You have a bionic butt. It shows no signs of aging.” It’s probably from squeezing my cheeks through years of client deadlines, not to mention his snoring. Some women hold tension in their necks, some in their backs – I hold it all in the backside. But, if it keeps up, that just may remain the loveliest in the end. Just maybe.

Mulch Madness

Maybe because it’s arriving by bag and by truckload, maybe because it’s the main activity in my neighborhood, maybe because it’s everywhere, I’m convinced we’re buying more of it. I’m also convinced it’s ending up where it doesn’t belong. A case of “overuse abuse” is my guess. Mulch that is. Hey, I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

What I need is market research.

My neighbor to the east is applying mulch right up against her foundation. “Do you really want to trap moisture there?” I ask. She ignores me. “Remember your problem with termites last year?” Now I’ve got her attention. “You better leave at least six inches between your foundation and the mulch or you won’t be able to see signs of termite activity. You know, those mud tubes.” She pulls the mulch away from the foundation, muttering something about pests.  Insect, I’m sure.

Around the corner, a retired English professor has just finished mulching under his maple trees. I guess there’s no harm in pointing out the dangers of mulch right up against a tree trunk. He raises both hands in a sign of surrender and offers, “Mulch mea culpa.” (You’d expect no less from a literary mulcher.) I’m starting to see a pattern.

Finally, my neighbor to the west is holding a handful of finely shredded mulch over her perennial beds and sprinkling them, like a baptism. “Is that mulching or total immersion?” I ask. “Oh, so you’re the self-appointed mulch police,” she says as she mulches my left foot. I shake the mulch out of my sandal, unperturbed; research, after all, requires composure and objectivity. I head home as she finishes baptizing a plant that prefers life in the open air: iris.

Research complete, I’m off to visit our three-year-old granddaughter Anna. She too prefers life in the open air. And she’s against anything that gets in the way of it, especially underwear.  Her parents have explained, unconvincingly, you can’t go outside without underwear. Given the chance, Anna will wiggle her way into a dress and head to the backyard slide before either parent knows she’s not fully clothed.

So she comes flying off her slide, dress billowing with air as she hits the mulch her dad has piled to cushion her landing, and she gets mulch in, well, that cute little fanny. Speed combined with the force of her landing drives it in fairly far. She attempts to dig it out as she runs to the backdoor to seek sympathy from her mother, who offers the most convincing argument so far: “Maybe that wouldn’t happen if you wore underwear.”

So there you have it. My research shows there’s a lot of mulch out there. Let’s try and keep it out of places it doesn’t belong.

Garden Pickup Lines

Maybe it’s my springtime state: revved up from all those winter months spent ogling centerfolds in garden catalogues…all those dormant desires. I’m ready to fulfill my fantasies, and I want every waking moment to be spent in my garden. Vertical. My husband has other ideas.

 I’m betting the first garden came with a well-timed, well-rhymed pickup line designed to lure the gardener to leave her hoe, the weeds, the whatever, for whoopee. And while I haven’t read some of these celebrated poets in over 30 years, in rereading them I now see that literary history is chock-full of garden pickup lines. Why else would these carefully crafted pickup lines use such suggestive images, metaphors, and similes so apt for gardeners?

All gardeners toil against time, decay, and death, so it’s no surprise that most of the greatest garden pickup lines mine those themes. That’s why they’re so effective. They exploit the symbols gardeners hold dear. And what better symbol to exploit than worms?  Never has an invertebrate been used so often in the service of man’s desire than the worm.  And nobody could deliver a compliment to his beloved, while lamenting her lack of interest, like William Shakespeare, in rhyming couplets no less:

“Be not self-will’d for thou are much too fair
To be death’s conquest and make worms thine heir.”

I know I’m on my way to worm food, but that sentiment sounds more convincing in rhyming couplets. As if that wasn’t enough, Shakespeare goes on to seal the deal with this irresistible offer—you’ll be immortalized in my verse: “So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long live this, and this gives life to thee.” Of course, the offer is good only if you leave the garden—now. There’s always a catch.

These poets weren’t without guile. There was singing; there was flattery; it’s all really foreplay. Just think of the willpower a seventeenth-century gardener needed when faced with Robert Herrick’s alliterative-packed lines.  This singing foreplay is designed to soften her up; sure to make a gardener gaga, or at least weak in the knees. He wasn’t called a Cavalier poet for nothing. 

“I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds and bowers,
Of April, May, of June, and July flowers.”

“Hang on to your knickers,” as my grandmother used to say. It’s so considerate of Herrick to break into song before his proposition. He gives the gardener a chance to put her scythe down just before the Grim Reaper carries her off.

But it always comes back to the worm. Here’s Andrew Marvel’s blunt prediction of their collective fate if his beloved holds out much longer.

“ . . . then worms shall try that long-preserved virginity,
And your quaint honor turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust; . . .”

Translation:  Get it on with me before it’s too late. You sort of feel “time’s winged chariot drawing near …” This may fall under the category of sympathy sex, which I see has been around a long time. Since they’re both dying, it’s sympathy sex all the way around.

Then there’s flattery. And nobody tops flattery like Bobby Burns’ celebrated simile:

“O my luve’s like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June;  . . .”

This is quite a compliment, since we lasses were always competing with the drink. In other words: I’ve ‘ad me pint; I’ve ‘ad me haggis; and now I’ll ‘ave you. That’s spring in Scotland. 

Well, there you have it. These bards of the bloomers were all besotted. And they disarmed gardeners as they thumbed their rhyming couplets at time and death, and decay.  But it’s not as if we need a reminder that things around us are dying. We’re nothing if not vigilant in our efforts to rescue the living from the dead. That’s why I’m working in the garden today.

You’d think any husband who knows his literary history would be intimidated by the creativity of these bards. Then again, he might just deliver this direct, rather lame line: “You’ve been vertical all day, wanna get horizontal?” While I’d prefer a little singing, followed by a worm-infused rhyming couplets or two, this will do. In the end, I have to agree with Mr. Marvell: “Had we but world enough and time, this coyness …were no crime.”

Wobbling Towards Vertical

My goal last winter was to stay vertical.

Scraping a windshield; hunkered over an ice dam with my chop, chop, chop; or bent with shovel; upright is the state I prefer. It’s lovelier to greet spring nose to lilac, not feet to lilac.

But then people in my family don’t fall. We’re careful, upright people. None of my grandparents broke bones. Neither of my parents ever broke a bone. Not one of us five kids ever had a broken bone—and it wasn’t for lack of trying.

So It never occurred to me that I might break something last fall when a fully loaded wheelbarrow got away from me on a steep slope in my backyard. And so it never occurred to me to let go. I hung on tight and got dragged over fresh tilled earth—startled by the closeness of my nose to ground. And then came the drop.

 Three feet. While airborne, the contents of the wheelbarrow, manure, that is, must have separated from the wheelbarrow. The wheelbarrow went down. The manure went up. I went down, and then the manure went down. I think that was the chronology. It’s hard to remember the chronology when you’ve just broken the gravity barrier. The wheelbarrow hit with a hollow clang, which I realized, as manure rained down on me, was because it was now empty. I sat breathless, bordered by manure.

Now my back yard is private, very private, but the first thing I did was look to see if anyone had seen me. Pride can take a real beating when your flawless record is flawed. I sat there stunned. I landed on my fanny, which divine wisdom has amply padded. I started to move body parts carefully. I unfolded my left leg, which was turned in and under my right leg. I took my right arm and cradled it in my left arm. I moved all the fingers on my left hand. Everything seemed to work. I examined my arms and fingers and legs and feet like a newborn discovering them for the first time. I took a deep breath and slowly got up. Just the act of rising from the ground was confounding. But my wobbly legs supported me.

Still shaken, I shared my fall with my friend Linda, who said she lived accident-free until a certain age. Then she became clumsy. Her theory: “Estrogen keeps you upright and accident-free.”

But then there’s my mother. She still climbs a ladder to paint the peak of her house at age 75. My friends are afraid for me. Afraid of the call from the emergency room that goes like this: “Your mother is here. A neighbor found her dangling from a ladder still holding her paint brush.”

So next time I’ll either enjoy the ride or let go. I’ll probably let go. Then again, maybe my mother has the right idea: go out with a bang, not a whimper.

Lutheran Versus Catholic Gardeners

Let’s start with Name That Plant:

To a Lutheran, they’re Coral Bells; to a Catholic, Heuchera. Here’s my theory: botanical names are a snap for Catholics after all those dominos vobiscums. Latin lingers in the eustachian tubes, or is it fallopian tubes? After a Latin mass—botanical names hold no mystery.

Lutheran gardeners sing while gardening. I kid you not.  Lutherans carry so many hymns around in their heads that they’re bound to slip out while weeding. If they aren’t mid-stanza in A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, they’re probably humming How Great Thou Art. I often hear my mother singing Holy, Holy, Holy when she weeds. So, if you’re driving by a garden and you see a bent gardener, rear end pointing heavenward and hear this devout ditty: “Beautiful savior, king of creation, son of God and son of man.” Lutheran gardener, for sure.

Guilt.
You can’t escape it, especially in the garden—home of original sin. (Have another apple, Adam.) Guilt is a close kin of remorse. And the garden equivalent of buyer’s remorse is planter’s remorse. The difference: Lutherans go on endlessly about should haves: “I should have planted more beans.” Catholics opine, “I should not have planted so much zucchini.” But the biggest difference is the length of the guilt. It’s short-lived for Catholics. One Hail Mary, and they’re absolved. Lutherans suffer longer, and so does everyone around them.

On authority.
While Lutheran gardeners seek guidance from authority, they question it. And the ultimate authority on their garden? Them. Got that? Catholic gardeners consult a higher authority—usually only one—and they accept that authority without so much as a “but,” a “what if,” or a “how about . . .?” 

Not convinced?
Here’s an example. My Catholic friend, Mary, called the local county extension office about wilt on her eggplant. They told her to remove the wilted leaves and dispose of them, which she dutifully did. The eggplant died. All of it. Turns out her husband, who indulges in an extra Martini or two when Mary is away on business, left the hose on for three days. The poor eggplant roots were as saturated as he was. Now a Lutheran would have questioned, waited, and the problem would have cleared up, when the roots and the husband dried out.

On redemption.
Both religions believe the route to redemption is paved with acts of charity and good works, but mainly when they have too much zucchini. (Here’s an interfaith faith tip: it’s not an act of charity after the first two pounds of zucchini—O.K?)

Salvation.
For Lutheran gardeners, it’s unconditional. Salvation is trickier for Catholic gardeners, what with the all the confessions, the absolutions, and the penance.

A Catholic gardener that confesses he drowns chipmunks is looking for absolution. If he feels the need to do penance, suggest he come weed your acre. No need to feel guilty. After all, you’re just bringing him one step closer to the rapture. If he resists, just mention PURGATORY. It works on Catholics every time. 

Lutherans don’t believe in purgatory; they believe in Lutefisk. Enough said.

And now a few words on transubstantiation—a word as long as this damn zucchini left at my front door. Lutherans don’t buy it, except symbolically. Catholics believe that the bread and wine were changed into the body and blood. Literally. To that I say: “Lord, please turn this zucchini into grilled eggplant and a little red wine.”

Life everlasting? 

Yup, both faiths believe.

Which brings me to my Norwegian friend, Brigitta. She has the flexibility of her Viking ancestors. Those pagan plunderers had a slew of their own gods. They carried coins adorned with Odin entering Valhalla. But right next to those coins, they carried the cross. They figured why not hedge their bets.

I visited Brigitta last week in Minnesota, and as we toured her garden I noticed a little statue of St. Jude next to a replica of a Viking ruin stone.

“Hey, isn’t that the patron saint of hopeless causes?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“But you’re not even Catholic. Since when do you pray to saints?” I asked.

“It’s insurance, in case my green thumb fails,” she said.

And don’t get me started on Anglican gardeners. They disagree with anything, and they go off and form their own church.

A Note About My Credentials
I was raised a Lutheran, but went to Catholic colleges. If that doesn’t give me perspective, it gives me lots of raw material.

This interfaith background helps me spot the differences between Catholic and Lutheran gardeners. Stearns County, Minnesota, was my training ground. It’s easy there, with so many bathtubs cut in half, tipped on their sides to make a shrine over the Virgin Mary. A few wiseass Catholics have Mary in a shower stall.

Garden Vigilantes

I don't like generalizations, but here goes: Gardeners are nurturers. Tending and turning the soil, nursing fledgling plants through disease and drought, they have an abiding respect for life.

Yet, at every garden gathering, the topic turns to pests and how to dispense with them. It starts with slugs, then moves up the food chain.

One woman shared her foolproof method for catching voles: bait a mousetrap with peanut butter and place the trap near their hole. Cover the trap with an overturned flowerpot to simulate the vole's dark den. The peanut butter lures these late-night snackers faster than a pack of Hostess Twinkies draws my husband off the sofa during a football game. Then comes the sound of success: smack, followed by a few helpless heaving thumps against the sealed death chamber. "Does this work on chipmunks?" asks a fellow gardener. "Well, it doesn't kill them, but we have a pond nearby and guess what?" "What?" we ask in unison. "Chipmunks can't swim." A churlish grin. Heads nod in approval.

On to bigger game. "A garden hose attached to your car exhaust pipe shoved into a raccoon's den works nicely," one woman says. She sat in her car listening to All Things Considered as she asphyxiated a whole family who had devoured her sweet corn.

One gardener asks, "Why didn't you just use a HavahartTM trap and relocate them?" Turns out game, at risk for carrying rabies, cannot be transported, so she was forced to dispense with these raccoons while listening to the news. Everyone pats her on the back as we marvel at her ingenuity, her effective use of time, and her ability to multitask. The group casts a collective glance of disdain at the gardener who questioned this brilliant tactical maneuver.

Another woman offers a flambé forget-me-not: add two parts lighter fluid to one part gasoline in a soda can. Stuff a rag into the opening, light, lob and take cover. "Wait," says a retired firefighter, "you don't need both lighter fluid and gasoline. One would be enough." "But the lighter fluid makes a really big bang," she says.

Finally, the biggest game of all: deer. "There's something that works every time," one man says. We move closer to him. He lifts his hand in the air, makes the shape of a gun, takes aim, and his air gun kicks back from the force of the shot. He brings his smoking weapon to his mouth and blows.

Among gardeners, there's a begrudging admiration for every critter's determination. But, at the other end of the weapon of their choice, there's an equally determined gardener. So we begin again, to devise new ways to nurture the life we love and murder what we don't.

This essay first appeared on A Prairie Home Companion Website.