From Scratch: The Lutherville Garden

I begin, alone, staring out on some despicable forsythia, a few pines (or are they spruces? I’ve had little experience with such evergreens), and a whole lot of bamboo, pachysandra, and ivy. I rake fallen leaves from a weedy silver maple into outlines for beds and kick rotted green walnuts into the stream. As I play with the shapes of these tentative beds, deer peer out from the woods and survey my handy work, salivating with anticipation of spring’s fresh, tender young shoots.
The beds I have outlined are expansive – silly, really, since I now have diminished energies and finances and should probably stick to a front bed of inpatients and dusty miller. Gone are the well established Hellebores, sages, and shrubs thriving in a Bambi-free zone. I am embarking into futility. But even the simple act of creating beds from fallen leaves, impermanent and wind-blown as they may be, sustains and carries over the feeling that I am creating. I am beginning. And I am in love with the water, branches, and earth.