Summer in the Garden

Holy Smokes - well, it's been awhile since a gardener has checked into Halfmoose. Even so, you can't stop nature, and even if it hasn't been thoroughly documented, the green things are doing their grand work, and then some!

2012 was one of the hot years. Hot and dry, and the farmers sure did moan. We're all crying now as the prices still soar from last year's woes. But this year, lovely half-over 2013, is cool and WET. Maybe not torrential downpour wet (although we've seen a few barn-busters) but the skies do seem to open up for a bit every day or two.  Normally by July we're pretty much done mowing the lawn, as the grass begins to  brown and the garden hoses unwind to freshen the perennial beds. The lawn mower in July and August only comes out in mid summer to trim the weeds which seem to be the only things growing. Hoo - they're growing well, no change there, but so is the Kentucky Bluegrass. It's thick and lush and wonderfully cool in your bare feet! Yes, 2013 is one of those years to remember.

I do love the mornings off in the warm months, when I can brew a cuppa and walk out into the Twisted Gardens with my pooch and a grass stained pair of untied sneakers. We'll stroll the brick paths and note the new buds or maybe a flower preening on its vine. Sometimes I pluck a spade and comb the lawn plucking Toby's poos and tossing them aside for the moment, to collect later. This morning I was lazy and scooped a small pile and chucked it under the William Shakespeare Mulberry. His trailing branches were so long they lay in heaps upon the bricks, making one section of the pathway seem more like a jungle passage then a suburban retreat. The mulberry has tremendous green leaves and looks like Cousin It's rainforest cousin.

"Ach! Niggity poo-addled bums!"

Ah. That would be the Little Man in the Garden, I presume. It's mid July already and I'm surprised I haven't seen him yet, but the garden is so full - almost overgrown - that it makes sense. Under the Mulberry was once a more open space with ground cover and some wispy coreopsis waving little yellow blooms. Now the place is shaded and dark as deepest Africa. I push aside some branches, wet with dew, and see the Little Man waving his walking stick at me from the mulch littered river rock. OMG, he is wearing a pith helmet. He has built a small enclosure by the Mulberry's truck, whose girth I haven't noticed yet this season.

"Shite an' carbuncles, ye idiot brainer, sheep and walleyes, kerbliggitty jo! Der be poop 'n me hippo pen!"

What? I see no tiny hippos, but the preparation seems to be under way. There is a nice paddock and shallow pool for a diminutive hippo in any case. "I see you're expanding from merely spreading weeds in my yard and garden, into zoo keeping?" Why not.

"Ack, Billy an' I, yer weedness, sup an' have de odd hand o' cribbage here, ya ol' bent whiskery dolt. Knock about an' toss yer savage beast's brownies 'n der bin, poo-handler! Knack-kneed goldarn anklebiter 'n 'is gobber-head goober! Uncle-dee-dunkels!"

"Sorry," I say. I guess I'll get a bucket and walk the lawn for now on. I wouldn't want to disturb 'his weedness'. Feckless little imp that he is.

It's July, well beyond the 4th when the skies light up and blasts of gunpowder send the beasts upstairs to cower under beds. The trees, all of them, are shooting up over my head and filling the air above my garden with gentler type of fireworks. The Maple towers now over the roofline. Its shade will make the deck much more pleasant than previous years, and now the ferns will last though the hottest of the summer. The Twisted Filbert is as dense as a neutron star and its gnarled branches are lost under the canopy. Purplish red Smoke Tree is resplendent in her plush and drying blooms. Soon the cloudy wisps will fall and cover the grass and blow into corners. The newer Chokecherry is poking ever skyward with deep red, almost black leaves, highlighted with newer green shoots. Tiny little berries, turning nearly black,  dangle like jewelry and are horribly astringent - good only for the birds. The Indians harvested them and made Chokecherry jelly. There are others, but I'll save them for another day. For now, another cup of tea is needed, and maybe buttered toast on the bench. We'll sit awhile and just look at the plants and birds and scurrying chipmunks. Toby will growl and chase them into the bushes. Soon enough I'll grab the spade and clean up poo and weeds. Morning is the time to take it all in and whistle at the red-winged blackbirds. Happy Summer, all.

Ye can check in HERE for last year's Little Man sighting. He's been happily (begrudgingly?) spreading weeds in my garden for many a year. Little asshole.

i love the smell of cut grass in the morning

Spring this year has come in like a lion, which is unusual. Hot, really hot, like 80 degrees in the shade hot and the nights aren't much cooler. Now a week or more into it, Spring is doing its thing like a good little season. Here we go with a typical cold and gloomy Midwestern spring day, just in time for the break when we could be hosing winter's grime off the car or pumping air into the bike tires.

Still, the early warmth has done its damage. The grass is growing and the trees are blooming. We may yet get frost, but nothing stops spring fever once it gets to rolling, and if you get down on your hands and knees and put your ear to the moss growing between the cracks do you know what you'll hear?

Wake up sleepy heads! The moss doesn't care about the sun or the rain or the frost, it just goes on about its business of being soft and green. It's hard to get the feet moving under your body when the mornings are so cold, but the brisk air assures one thing. We won't be breaking a sweat raking the leaves that crept under bushes or pushing the mower through thickening lawns.

A day in the life; it's not very glamorous and the little things we have to remind ourselves to stop and notice, sometimes, in our trance, are too small to see. With a coffee cup I'm out wandering in the yard. I have pruners sticking out from my back pocket. The branches from my Twisted Filbert are laying in a small heap upon the deck because I'm saving them for a friend. There's a bucket of twigs sitting on the grass, has been for three days, and thinking it's time to chuck them on the fire, I lift it by the handle. There's a round depression on the lawn wear the bucket was, but the flattened blades are still green. I swing the bucket and hear a woozy little yelp.

“Corn founded, pimple headed niggitys!”

Great honking Canadian geese, it's the little man who lives in my garden. I should have known he was about, seeing all the weeds that have sprung up like...weeds. They're everywhere. In the lawn, in the mulch, in the brick pathway. I think the little man has a friend at the Burpee seed distribution center that sends him packets of their most virulent weeds. Sticky, stinky, stringy weeds. Nasty wee imps they are, spreading their foul seed. I guess that wouldn't be so bad in itself, but this little man who lives in my garden is just crude and ill tempered.

“Why're ye chopping up me humble abode now, ya fliberty pie eye? Gots a right to live, aye, I do, methinks I does! Away wit yer clackity scissors, those acootermints of death.” Toby comes running out of the house hearing all the racket. “Farg!” The little man ducks back into the twisted twigs inside of the bucket. Some mumbles, I'm guessing he's swearing and carrying on about the dog of whom he's frightened for some unknown reason. Well, he has a damp nose.

“He won't hurt you,” I shout, but I know it's no good. The little man will be hiding now for some time. Good, at least if he's in a bucket he won't be spreading disease over the expanse of my lawn. I can get some picking done and be ready for planting when winter's trespass over the spring is truly done.

Toby loses interest and chases a ball over the grass. The William Shakespeare mulberry gets caught by a wind gust and shrugs away, as if he's shying from my pruners. “Another day, then,” I say to him, bending over the flower garden to pluck out a dandelion. Toby brings me his ball. “Here you go, Tob; go get it.”

...the little man who lives in my garden has a soft spot for his mummy.

spring and the little man in my garden

The William Shakespeare Mulberry is weeping quietly in my yard. I pruned him up this spring – cut him deep. Remnants of the past summer of his hairy dreams litter a sunken brick path now, and the little man who lives in my garden picks through the detritus. He is saying, 'tut, tut' like so much illusive Poo. The little man has been busy. How can someone so diminutive pack such a virulent punch? He is crooked from bending and creeping beneath the undergrowth, though at this early stage of the growing season he is fairly easy to spot. I can stand inside the picture window and see him easily as he sows his weed seeds like the curses that spew from his foul imp lips.

.

Yesterday I pulled binoculars from my closet to spy upon the circling hawks. They were hovering in packs over the near wooded lots of neighboring avenues. Toby stood against the window, thinking maybe I had spotted that rabbit he so doggedly pursues. I caught him lying on his side peering beneath the shed. Was he hoping the rabbit would come out to play? Probably not, as he oftentimes looks out the dining room window and menacingly growls at the fur-tailed rodent while it sups on shoots outside the front door. Fur-tailed indeed; but I would wear its lucky foot around my belt if I could catch it nibbling the shrubs down to a nub over the long winter dearth.

.

Today I will throw the trimmings on a fire and let the strong west winds carry the smoke away. I'll carve out another bed, lay the foundations of a short walking path leading from the fence to our short plank deck and try not to let the gruff rumblings of the little man who lives in my garden ruin a sunny day. The crisp air will cool my exertions while the wind cracklin blaze might muffle idle exacerbation from a gnome who dislikes fecund pleasantries. It's spring – bring it on.

The Little Man in my Garden, and gnomes at work

First off let me say that not only am I losing the battle of the weeds this summer, I have thrown in the towel. The war is over. Weeds is won it.
This year the Little Man in my Garden and his uber weeds have taken the day. They have won the season.
I've been pretty good at working about the garden, but the yard is a disaster. Not too many dandelions, but the crabgrass. Ich! And there's some viney stringy stuff too, and the thistle starts creeping in when I take my eye off of it.
Yeah, the Little Man is having his way with my green space. I went to search him out beneath the William Shakespeare Mulberry with Toby (backup) and got a surprise.
“Nay, he has not been here this long summer of your discontent,” said Willy, and he ruffled his tresses. I'd given him a bit of a haircut and by George, the old man was looking pretty dapper. A bit of Will's structure could even be discerned, and he didn't look like an unruly mop head anymore. Toby sniffed at his leaves; some were trailing onto the Coreopsis below.
I asked about the little man's whereabouts. “He went up North, so say the Finches, to visit his mum; but 'e left weeds about for the spreading. These wee creatures have gathered and sewn. Precious mites.”
Incredible. I was expecting a shouting match, and garbled slurs. Instead I get mulberry soliloquizing. And weeds! No rest from the weeds, even with the little sprite gone on vacation. Toby was no help. He didn't even pee on the tree. Just shuffled off to sniff a snapdragon and get startled by a mammoth bumble.
Gads! I can't even win the fight when the caustic little shit is away! Okay, so next year will be different. I'm doing the winterizer this fall and the preemergence next spring, and we'll see who gets the jump on who.
“Aye, snigger a digger! Ya puny googliget!” What's that? “Is he back? Toby, go get him! Bite his head off!”
“Woof.” wag waggity wag.
“Erg, ya crumbumbler. My mum booted me; said get thee back and weed 'im up, ya scraggler. Yer no son o' mine if ya let'im get those weedys by der roots! Har.”
“I'm gonna take my yard back next year, Little Man. You just wait and see; you may have won this summer, but I'll be back!” Thanks for the help, Toby.
“Ar...teweedly heehee and snicker snicker pffft.”
And he's getting all the best of my grape tomatoes now. Drat, I just can't win.
“Hee hee. Hoo! May a toad pee on yer toes! Ya sniggle tee hoo!”

oh, that little man in my garden!

I gave the little man in my garden an old Discman and lent him the Dresden Dolls; she sang uh-uh, oh but he disapproved.

“An I be a wee fellow, ya blunderin' tosser, but 'eh, she wails like an banshee! Sure 'nuff.”

Well, I was just trying to make amends for last spring when Toby nosed him up a bit and got his blood roiling. And I told him so. “Please, go easy on the weeds—my old back isn't up to it.” The little man had pulled weeds out of his sleeve that hadn't seen the light of day for a century. Not that that kept the little blighters from claiming every spare centimeter of vacant soil. Last summer I had weeds on top of noxious weeds. I had weeds I swear had feet. I had weeds the like of which chewed my grand-pappy's tobacco and were propagated by the Guinness Book of World Records' long spit! I'll not forget those weeds any season soon.

The little man was out earlier than usual this year, what with the record temps, and he and the William Mulberry tree were forgoing the usual mumbletypeg ritual for a game of toss the catkin. You see, the corkscrew hazelnut is going on a couple years in the dirt, and this year has sprouted the most delightful and fluffiest of dangle firs, like soft little caterpillars, or miniature mink stoles. Apparently Willy covets them; his drooping branches don't seem to flower or seed—not that I've noticed.

“Ah Willy, yer nigkneed flop-ter-sop! Ye's ugly as my baboon's ass; nekid and droopy! Gads—put on some clothes, prevert!”

Will just shrugs and harrumphs a bit, straining to pop out some meager spring foliage betwixt naps.

What's the hurry, summer comes soon enough when the leaves will fill in the empty spaces and hide the bones. Until then a couple or more catkins decorate his lower bits.
I just transplanted a small fir shrub into a fresh location, as its old residence will soon be sporting a new junk habitat, but I have my doubts that it will survive the move. The little man was there as usual to help. “No, you fat bloated ferny goat head! O'er here, now o'er there—k-niggits, you arr one for da astronauts, you blitherin' pie dome! Now lookee, poor lil chap is bummed, no way 'es coming out the other side, now! Foo.”

Sorry, it was either move the fir or get trampled by the installers; “heads it grows, tails it's for the fire pit.”

Oops, did I say that out loud?

“Farg, that's a fine ting ta utter, ya loose twit! Now 'es a cryin', naugh! It's the weed for ya, ya hairy kneed scrum scrubber! Go now and say yer deh sorry!”
Ugh. Not that apologizing will help any; more weeds. Great—I can feel my back tighten up already!