Spring - the garden beds are gone but the memory lingers on

Today I bought a geranium plant. In the scheme of things and being that this is Spring, it's not an unusual thing to do. Condo living is great but it's missing one vital component. I'm missing my garden.

While shopping at the supermarket, the front of the store was devoted to wooden display racks filled to capacity with annuals and hanging plants. Since it was an unusually warm sunny day, people were feeling the need to get down and dirty and feel the earth beneath their fingers. I know exactly how they feel.  Somehow, placing the plant on my still empty balcony gave me a feeling of kinship with gardeners and brought back memories of my garden.

Let me state for the record that my garden was not a display out of House and Gardens. Far from it. In fact there were more deaths than there were survivors. The wine-colored iris's growing in a bed on the side of the house could always be counted in the survivor column. They were my pride and joy because they required little care. Neighbors and people passing by frequently asked the secret in acquiring the magnificent display. Nothing - absolutely nothing other than separating the roots periodically. Mother Nature did the rest.

It's those rose bushes that tug at my heart. At this time of the year, I would be pondering whether the two remaining hybrid teas made it through the winter and/or whether they should be pulled. They were frequently in the in-between stage making a decision on their viability difficult. I've always been of the belief that roses in particular make slaves of their human caretakers having to primp, preen and fuss over them and in the end, they thank us by croaking. It was always touch and go and in a good year they would give me three roses each. In a bad year, they were afflicted black mold on their leaves but I loved them dearly. They are frequently in my thoughts.

I miss digging my fingers in the earth and feeling the soil sift through my fingers while preparing a home for new flowers and annuals. Our front lawn was composed primarily of dandelion leaves, which gave it a green shade and in dandelion season, the lawn was a mass of yellow flowers. It was an un-winable war trying to erradicate them and in the end, we conceded victory. In retrospect, perhaps we should have tried making dandelion wine or dandelion salad, since dandelion leaves sell at the supermarket. Had they asked us, we would have gladly donated ours for free.

It's been five years since we sold our house but the pull of the garden still seduces my senses. It's obvious to onlookers that we were gardeners since we embelish our balcony with hanging plants in addition to filling planters that we had brought with us, with annuals. There is no way I could part with my "pussycat" planter with the smiling black cat peeking out from behind trailing flowers. Neither could I leave the hand-made wooden planter behind given to me by my next door neighbor. In the end, you takes your planting as you get it. Meanwhile, there's always the geranium.

"In joy or sadness, flowers are our constant friends."

- Kozuko Okakura

Excuses don't count when it comes to hanging plants

Really, we never intended to be cruel to our hanging plants and now they’re paying us back. They can best be described in a state loitering between life and death, more to the latter as of today. In the end, it really doesn’t matter how honourable our intentions were because plants aren’t interested in excuses.

Every May we visit the various garden centers in search of a species that will stand out visually, add pizazz to our condo balcony, is easy to care for and are tough plants. Is that a lot to ask? The latter is important since we live near a river where it’s always windy, which in turn dries out the soil necessitating constant replenishment of water.

It was instant love-at-first-sight when we spotted calibrachoa, a relatively new species that resembles mini petunias overflowing with branches of coloured blooms, growing in a plastic hanging container. The mixture of bright yellow and orange flowers stole our hearts and judgement, obviously. Given the lush but overflowing state of the greenery and the size of the pot, we ignored the warning signs that over-crowding could be a problem. More flowers equals flashier showing, we assumed, plus the garden center clerk assured us the specie was easy to grow. Good enough reason for purchase, we decided.

Visually, they provided a visually colourful sight swaying in the wind but watering the plant was difficult, since it was almost impossible to know when or if the water was reaching the roots. To ensure that they were being adequately hydrated they received a half-litre of water, a lot of which seeped out the planter holes.

Rarely do we take a summer vacation that takes us away for more than a few days but this year was an exception. This meant that the plants were on their own for a week at the mercy of Mother Nature for liquid hydration. In retrospect we could have asked a neighbour to plant sit or if our plants could join someone else's plants on their balcony, but we didn’t. We believed that our plants would take care of themselves in our absence. Silly us! We took them down and placed near the balcony railing dependent upon natural conditions to provide a balance of sun and rain. Having watered the plants well and giving them a pep talk along with apologies, we left assuming they would be alive upon our return. Again, silly us.

It never occurred to us that the plants would or could – well – die or would give up in a mere week without water. Actually, they should have lasted longer but given their crowded state, their root systems most likely were packed too tightly together. Personally, I blame the seed company for over-crowding. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it! Much to our dismay, we returned to a brown-branched, somewhat shrivelled up and crispy dried out plant. What was once a colourful, lush and vibrant orange/yellow plant was now a collection of brown shrivelled-up branches of crispy nothing-ness. Rather than toss them out immediately, instead they were given a liberal watering and decided to monitor the situation for a week after which a decision would have to be made as to their viability. On the fourth day, one of the plants started turning green at the tips of the branches and suddenly some flowers appeared, leading us to believe that a miraculous re-birth was imminent – and still more flowers. Unfortunately, it was a short lived omen and the green has turned to a deathly pallor of grey-ish/brown-ish. Such teases, our plants!

It’s obvious, at least to me that once new plant raisers and owners take over from garden centers to become the care givers to plants, we become responsible for their well being. Plants do not and will not stand for excuses and neither do they tolerate long-ish absences. Unless there’s another re-birth, tonight we’ll be bidding adieu to the calibrachoa duo on the river bank, at sunset. It will be a short ceremony to match our short relationship. It’s the least we could do.