LOVE OF GARDENING
Writing Can Be Done Any Time.
Gardening season is now in Massachusetts.
My mind is cluttered with images of shovels, wheelbarrows, bags of potting soil, and plants in pots waiting to be freed to spread their roots. Plants I know will delight me with their fragrance or beauty — attracting bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies. Or perhaps their appeal lies in dappled or variegated leaves or berries to be plucked by birds.
The Framer’s Almanac tells me I have about 153 growing days in my area, stretching from the last spring frost in early May to the first possible fall one in early October.
I must think about restructuring and refreshing an ancient garden spot with plants like me, feeling their age and not strutting their stuff any longer. Being ruthless is required. Yank or dig out the straggly remains while considering what replacements will enhance the area. A cluster of lilies? Tall spiky butterfly weed? Then again, rearranging some of the remaining healthy growth would allow a small shrub to center the space.
And of course, cut back the daffodils, their blooms reduced to brown strips hanging from stems, to make way for the summer bloomers pushing up between the dying plants. This is how it should be, the summer plants thrusting up for their turn to delight me and…
