Goodbye To All That...

The first post in an eternity, and for many reasons…
While not the main reason for my lapse, this was in general a very bad year for gardening – overall the worst since I began eight years ago. What started off as an incredibly mild and kind winter came to a close with temperatures nose-diving after many plants broke dormancy. And the warmth never really returned until May. Plants cut back by the late winter freeze languished for weeks in a suspended state, with many tropicals and sages that previously sailed through colder winters still struggling to push up new growth well into April.
Then, just as everything was making a comeback and starting to thrive, came the drought. Summer sun and no moisture turned the soil into dull terracotta and continuous watering from the tap just couldn’t supplement summer thunderstorms or a drenching from a tropical depression.
And at the end of summer came the possibility that we would be moving and I would have to bid farewell to my first real garden. The growth of the family could no longer be contained in a single story, two-bedroom cottage and we started searching for a larger house. My gardening stalled, or, more honestly, came to a complete stop. Divide and rearrange plants, or start to dig them out of the ground in preparation for a move? And there wasn’t any sense in investing in new plants to fill out or complete beds.
Instead of getting my hands into the soil, I walked around the beds and debated which plants should and could take a move. And when to start digging them up? If we ended up not moving, plants would be left in pots to survive the unpredictable winter for no reason at all.
Well, the move is happening, in just two weeks at the start of December. And a fair number of plants have been yanked from the ground and put into pots where they will have to survive against the long winter. But many of my most favorite plants will stay behind – the established sub-tropicals that have thrived in my garden, such as the pomegranate, “State Fair,” the Eucalyptus neglecta, and my beloved needle palm, Rhapidophyllum histrix Rhapidophyllum hystrix – plants with roots that need to be well established in the soil to get them through the winter. All of these plants would probably perish with a late autumn relocation.
And then there are all of the plants that are now too large to dig up. I will feel lost with no brightly blossomed witch hazel to keep hope alive in the late winter snows, no intoxicatingly scented daphne to announce that winter’s worst is in the past and wonderful spring days of warmth and lushness are just ahead.
And what now is ahead? Well, for starters, the plot of land we are moving to is over double the size we are now on. That will give me a chance to spread out and breath a bit more. There is also a stream with a simple arced bridge crossing it, leading to a grove of mature bamboo on the other side. Yes, a defiant, greedy bamboo wearing boxing gloves and steel tipped boots…but I do love the look of it, and with the bridge it inspires visions of a marvelous Asian garden.
For the front, I want to develop a backdrop of native shrubs – especially some oak-leaved hydrangeas with another witch hazel. And I need to have another Magnolia grandiflora, my most favored tree of all. And I’ll have to etch out a sun bed from the prevalent shade for my sages.
So it’s time to start from scratch. Perhaps exercise a little more discipline this time around and create a cohesive whole. With sadness I say good-bye and with excitement look forward to breaking my back breaking in new soil.