Bees, Badgers, and Bumbling along

First thing upon waking at home after a month away was to tackle our very overgrown garden. Unusually warm weather and the kind watering by our neighbour had resulted in a jungle of growth. Most of the just-planted lettuces had bolted, although some were buried under strawberries that had commanded their broad leaves and exploratory tendrils to cover as much ground as possible, completely covering one long side of the bed.

The thistles had grown to my height and girth blocking my path to the opposite long side of that vegetable bed. The salvia hot lips and jasmine blocked access at one end while the furry borage had also grown to a gigantic size and blocked the fourth end of the bed. Each of them were doing their job to attract pollinators (yay!) so dozens of bumble bees, admiral butterflies and moths were busily dancing about the numerous flowers. In my insufficiently caffeinated & jet-lagged state I was easily distracted by one thing after another.

This was going to be a more challenging task than I thought. By lunchtime I had managed only to clear out some of the dried up vegetation, give all the tender new plants some extra nutrient-infused water, and make a mental list of tasks for addressing the rest of the garden. However, I had also chatted to the new roses to see how they had been settling in, exclaimed at the growth put on by the olive tree, and commended the dogwood for not giving up after yet another year of insufficient light. I promised I would move it in the autumn.

And I felt great. Nothing like getting your hands dirty and feeling the soil underfoot to get grounded in the place you are. The warmth of the sun helped me adjust to the time of day in this place that is eight hours ahead of where we had left a day and a half before.

It took two more days of work but we finally got the garden roughly into the shape it will stay until the autumn, when we will make a few more transplanting changes. We added trellis toppers to the replacement fence that was built just before we left, and below that we filled in a new bed with soil that is perfect for growing two new varieties of blueberries. I propped up the branches of the apple tree that are laden with our first crop of Cox’s pippin apples, and repotted and moved other plants around to more suitable locations.

I am finally feeling confident about what I want, and what I do and don’t like in the garden. After tearing up the whole back lot two years ago, I left a lot of the initial choices of locations of plants to our landscaper who helped us translate my/our ideas into reality with his hard graft. Now that I can see how things have grown up, I know what is working for me, and what I’d like to change.

At the beginning it was hard for me to visualise what the end result would look like as we waved our hands around and looked at little photos of various plants on our phones. But now having an array of plants right in front of me so I can see not only their size and shape but how they fill the space over time, I can be more specific about what I want to see where, including considering how I move (wander?) around the garden. Also, I am adamant that every plant needs to provide great beauty or structure, delectable food or luscious scent. Not asking much, am I? 🙄

In some ways this process of gardening has been very much like writing and editing. First I need to get all the possible words and thoughts out of my brain on to the page. As the words pour out I realise many of them are not quite right but I keep going which usually leads to other new thoughts. Once I have nothing left to say, the words rest while I do something else. Later I go back and realise the structure is not quite as intended, or some of those words just repeat what I already said. Or, honestly I wonder to myself: what were you thinking! That is dull dull dull. Delete. Delete.

Every once in awhile, something special pops up unexpectedly and I think: YES, that pleases me; I’ll keep you. Or maybe, that would be perfect just over HERE.

And so it goes, over and over, again and again. In the garden and on the screen. Try something, give it some time, look at it again and see if it works with the rest of the flower words. See if the bees buzz happily along with what has been created. Do I sense a rhythm? Maybe a butterfly will stop to admire the view. Maybe it will make me, or perhaps someone else, smile.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you! Our neighbour—the fabulous one who watered our garden—also told us that he saw something special leaving our garden when he came home very late one night. First he saw a badger (a badger!!) come through our gate out to the street, followed by two young foxes! 🦊 🦊 He was so surprised he stayed in his car to watch. The animals wandered in no hurry around a few of the neighbour’s front gardens, then, startled by a noise, they headed back to our gate, and disappeared into our garden.

I have so many questions!!! Where do they live during the day? Why are the foxes hanging out with a badger? Why does the badger let the foxes trail him/her? Are the foxes orphans? Why haven’t the neighbour cats who prowl around at night caught these wildlife? (Pete found a cat in our house the other night since we had all the windows open in the hot weather; the tinkling bell on it’s collar alerted him just before it triggered one of our motion sensitive lights in the house. It bolted back outside through the window when it saw Pete.)

Well! In groggy (still!) hindsight I realise with all my trouble sleeping this week due to the nighttime warmth and jet-lag, I should have been spending that awake time at the window observing our nighttime garden; maybe I could find the answers to some of my questions. Or perhaps I will finish watching David Attenborough’s ‘Wild London’ that I started on the flight home last week and see what he can teach me.

More importantly! I’d love to hear from you: have you ever discovered unexpected ‘life’ in your garden? Are there other wildlife encounters that intrigued or delighted you? Does your gardening mimic your writing? Or anything else?

As ever, thanks so very much for reading! I appreciate your time and always love to hear from you. See you in a couple of weeks!

xx Sabrina

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