Gardening is applied optimism. Maybe that is why my yard and gardens are in such disarray. It drags on me. Truly. I want to have flower beds all tidy and weed free. I want margins and edges clearly delineated and precise. I want lush shrubs and robust berry canes and bushes.
Instead, the wild blackberries refused to fruit — probably because the previous lawn man weed whacked them down when they had the flush of barely opening white blooms. The destiny of fruit lost to the plastic guillotine. I must make it another year on the stocks of seedless blackberry jam made last summer. The blueberries produces enough fruit for a batch of jam. Of this I am proud. Next year, I will not need to pick at another purveyors field. The raspberry canes are not thriving. They barely survive this heat despite being rated to Zone 9. The loquat grows and seems hearty but bares no fruit. The pecans has a few bundles of webworm that require dispatching today. The voracious caterpillars could strip my fledgling trees. I’ve been told the birds will eat the worms if you open the web pods. The pears thankfully, have fruit and today will become conserve.
But how to be optimistic about well, anything, when the grass grows so fast and the weeds overtake you if your stride is not swift enough? Stand still for a moment and the swamp vine shall ensnare you in it delicate, sticky fern-like tendrils. And attempts to rid the beds of weeds only seems to spread the love, propagating the seeds of the offenders, giving them purchase and new territory.
I must accept my rewards when they arrive, give thanks for the beauty amidst the fury and chaos, through no effort of my own and by sheer chance of random rain and abundant sun, the gloriosa lilies arrived. Their maiden season, debutantes of the blasted lands, interwoven with their delicateness is a suggestion of something dangerous. The entirety of the Flame Lily is poisonous and deadly. Such beauty and death rolled into one spectacle.
