Garden Gone

"I love the fall. I love it because of the smells that you speak of; and also because things are dying, things that you don't have to take care of anymore, and the grass stops growing."
- Mark Van Doren

As the fall moved into its dreary days I let the gardens go. I didn't feel up to spending a wet day in the mulchy backyard. And as the days got shorter I found myself with little daylight to work in the garden after work. The weekends were busy and I stopped paying attention to my green labours. I had cut the herbs weeks before. The cucumber had stopped growing. The day lillies were turning into limp yellow strands slumbering on the earth. Only the tomatoes soldiered on. Now crawling across the neighbouring trees to support their 9-foot height, the tomatoes grew. Until the morning when the temperature was more than they could bear.

"The third day comes a frost, a killing frost.
- William Shakespeare

Finally, I found some time to deal with the garden. In a gift of unseasonable warmth and sunshine I spent the day cutting and clearing. I dug out the wilted annuals that my mom and I had planted in the spring. I clawed out the weeds that had enroached into the dirt due to my negligence. I raked the away the leaves and scraped the dirt back into protective piles over the sleeping bulbs waiting for newxt year.


In the backyard the task was long. I had to say goodbye to the gigantic green hosta that had sprung up as a surprise only to dominate the right side of the yard. I had to remove the dead hibiscus that I somehow killed over the season. I emptied the mint pot to find the soil had become a bundle of mint roots wrapped around each other in a circle. And I had to remove the tomatoes. The great green giants were toppled! But one little plant did not want to say good bye. Somehow a purple annual that my mom had bought was still in full bloom and clinging to the edge of the flowerbed with an incredible will. I thought about keeping it there, letting it live out its last few weeks ...


... but I hated the idea of the snow taking it in a slow tortuous death through frost bite. Instead I ripped it free and sent it to its composty grave with the friends it had summered with all year.

In the end, the yard looked much like it did when I moved in last April. A barren space just waiting for some love. I reset all the stones along the border and cleaned out the debris. I raked the dirt to make sure all the day lillies were covered for their winter rest.


Now I can leave it with peace of mind. I have done my work. Now I can turn my attention to planning for the spring ahead and the new projects that may unfold in my garden space.

"If I'm ever reborn, I want to be a gardener — there's too much to do for one lifetime!"
- Karl Foerster