August Rocks: Garden Tour 1

The August cooldown is here. A Canadian air mass is holding sway and the air smells of hay and sweet wine. 

I took a garden tour last night after spending much of the day mowing, raking, weeding, and preening my flower beds. I don't do a lot of preening. There's too much of the other stuff to be done. 

I'm celebrating right now because I am no longer in pain. I returned home from New England to find two weeks' worth of grass growing wild on a saturated lawn. It had rained for most of the time I was away. I mowed it into soggy windrows, the mower gagging on the clumps, and Liam and I raked the whole damn yard the next day, after the sodden green wad of clippings had had a chance to not dry overnight. It was like raking wet cow manure. My lower back went into spasm from overuse and stayed that way for almost three weeks. Oddly enough, getting in and out of my car was the most painful thing I had to do. I'd sit and think about how I was going to complete the maneuver for about 30 seconds, then begin the process. I felt 100 years old. Having a complaining back affects almost everything you want to do. I send this message of hope out to back pain sufferers everywhere. It does heal. I mean, an overuse injury does. I also give you this link to Lawrence Gold's simple floor exercises which Liam and I did together. Not surprisingly, he healed a lot faster than I did. These exercises sped the process for both of us, for sure.

Anyway. Pain is boring. I wanted to take you on a little garden tour because the rain that brought the pain has also brought such beautiful flowers to my gardens.  We'll start at the front door.  I'm happy with this hanging basket. Supertunia "Honey" is finally showing some good color after being a bit bleached out for most of the summer. 

I don't think I bought a single lobelia plant this year. They're all seed volunteers from various planters and pots in the greenhouse, carefully picked out and nurtured in separate pots when they volunteer. That's how I roll--scrounging and saving, getting as much as I can for nothing.  I did buy some seeds of multicolored lobelias and was happy to get this one. I was going for the dark amethyst but the rabbits ate most of them to the ground. There's a theme here. If I want to grow rabbit candy, I have to elevate it.

The Achimenes are FINALLY blooming. They got a very late start thanks to freaking chipmunks (I'm looking at YOU, Tilda Sixbuttons!!) 

who climb my bonsai shelves and dig up the rhizomes to eat. Then they chew up the plants just to make sure everything is completely dead. 

I had this beautiful scheme this year to grow Pink Nighty plants for sale at the Marietta Farmer's Market. I had long planters all planted with my best rhizomes, saved back from being sold at my talks (I sold a passel of 'em this spring!). And chipmunks ate all but about 13 rhizomes. I know now I'll have to start them inside next year. I'm thinking about using the glassed in tower room as a sort of auxiliary greenhouse for such tender n' tasty things, when it's gotten too hot and sunny to have them in the greenhouse proper. 

This is "Pink Nighty," and man, oh man is it pink. Shocking Pink Nighty. The iPhone exaggerates, and takes away some of the nicer coral tones, but it is that bright!

I just love this little gesneriad. Adore it. And am so happy to finally have some abloom on the benches. I don't dare put them on the front porch. Tilda will definitely devour them, if Notch the bunny doesn't get there first. 

A chipmunk-planted black-oil sunflower came up amongst the evening primroses in the front bed. It's too tall for the front but it's so charming I let it stay. 

A first for me: Fuchsia magellanica, native to temperate parts of southern South America, and hardy in Ohio, started blooming in July! It usually waits until September. Don't know why, just grateful. And Hosta "June" is incredibly late to bloom, so I have this probably unrepeatable combo going in the front shade bed. Hummer heaven!

I absolutely love having a hardy fuchsia around. So durable, too. And it roots from cuttings in plain  water. What's not to love?

Moving on out from the front door, Chet pauses to make sure he is in the photo. You can see those big beautiful hibiscus thoroughly enjoying their summer at camp. They just love sleeping under the stars.

Creole Lady says YEAH!!

An awful photo of that gorgeous little dwarf pomegranate bonsai which is exceeding all expectations for flowers and fruit!!

It's got at least four garnet-red pommies about the size of cherry tomatoes and a continuing cascade of neon-orange ballerina tutu flowers in leathery calyxes. What an awesome plant!!

Let's head out along the garage sidewalk toward the vegetable garden. Rudbeckia "Goldsturm" is battling with a hardy hibiscus  for supremacy. I've about had it with the hibiscus. So big and leggy and woody and thuggish, and it makes babies everywhere. But the thought of digging it out makes my back twinge. Maybe I can poison it. :D

I'd really rather grow roses, zinnias, cosmos and Rudbeckia. The foliage to flower ratio is much better on those.

Yes. Dig out those hibiscus. I will help you. Well, I will supervise.

Look how his little paw is just striking the sidewalk. 

The Healing Trees: How I Fixed My Aching Back

So I'm not invulnerable, it turns out. I messed up my lower back bigtime with a perfect storm of 

1. cleaning out, on Wednesday, our dying refrigerator/freezer, hauling three contractor's bags of gone food, and then putting what I wanted to save into the new one and the very next day 

2. filling all paid orders for my jigsaw puzzle. I packed about 40 boxes in a single day. If you've paid via PayPal, they're on their way!! Let me know how you like it!

 Both of these activities entailed a LOT of bending and lifting. Because neither was apparently enough for the Energizer Zicky, I finshed Thursday with a six mile celebratory lope with Chet Baker.

And when we got back after dark Thursday, I found to my great surprise that I couldn't get out of the car without making a high keening noise. I couldn't bend over or even sit down. 

My God. What have I done? I am NEVER sore. Ever. I've run through all that pain. 

Nothing fazes me. 

And now every muscle in my back was howling out loud.

Chet, looking like I felt. (This is what he does when he feels cold and there is no one around to come cover him up. He covers up his nose holes and breathes the hot air and feels warmer all over). 

It's been bad. I am not used to being infirm. What I'm used to is

 testing myself daily and finding myself strong, invincible. Well, I've met my match, and my match is me. I have to say, not being able to sit down is a problem. The only thing that felt OK was moving around, walking. As long as I didn't try to bend over. Or sit down. 

Thank God lying flat on my back didn't actively hurt. As long as I didn't try to roll over in bed, I could sleep. After a year without using it, Ibuprofen and I got close again.

On Friday, I could barely hobble on rising from bed. Shila, always my healer of first resort, gave me some stretching exercises to do which involved lying face-down on the floor and assuming weird positions, lifting my torso, lifting one leg at a time, balling up, arching, flattening my spine. They helped. They helped amazingly, instantly, from the first time I did them. I did them five times over two days, and as I finish this post Saturday evening, for the first time I can sit comfortably, and get up without weeping. I don't hurt any more. If you've screwed up your back, whatever you do, don't just give up, lie down and suffer. Please try these amazing exercises.  

They release the clenched muscles, the ones that are hurting you.

Remember the otolith that got stuck in my inner ear, the one that gave me vertigo? Shila gave me a head-rolling exercise that fixed it. Poof. Like that. This was only slightly less fast and dramatic. And it actually felt wonderful to feel those muscles release. I even heard a loud pop. Mmm. That felt great!

Friday evening I went for a walk on uneven ground. That, we have a lot of. And that often helps an out-of-whack back. Because I was moving very slowly, I had a lot of time to take photos. The shadowed driveway held the promise of an enchanted kingdom, just ahead. 

This is the time of year when just stepping out the door is like the moment Dorothy pokes her head out of her tornado-tossed cottage, opening the door on Oz. 

Who could keep feeling bad when this is going on all around outside?

There's a special right now on red maples. They're at peak, and they're everywhere, and they're stupendous.

Spicebush fruit pale by comparison. You can barely see them against the flaming red maple leaves.

Chet knows how to make me feel better. He strikes pose after pose, holding them until he sees me 

raise my iPhone and take each one.

If you don't believe me, just look at these photos.

Most dogs can't be bothered to stop what they're doing to please anyone. This dog is hooked right into my eye, my brain, my aesthetic.

He knows. 

The light just got moreso.

I flexed my aching back and visualized being whole again, being out of pain. When you're in constant pain, just being out of pain seems like heaven. 

The moon smiled down to tell me I would be OK again, in time. It won't be fast, she said, but it will end. 

A gigantic hickory, as gold as it gets. 

I said it was big. Dog for scale. 

I'm drawn to an odd break in a fenceline tree. I stop to ponder this. I'm especially taken by the tortured broken tree, in contrast with the baby-smooth trunk of the red maple just behind it. I watch the leaf shadows dance on that slick pale bark skin. I look into the aching shattered square the broken tree has made.

Looking down, I see it's been crippled by having fencewire tacked onto it. Then it's grown around the wire, but at what cost? I've little doubt that's why its wood was weak enough to break in this strange formation.

What we do to trees without even thinking about it. Run wire through their waists, because it's easier than sinking a fencepost. 

Looking down into the woods I'm mesmerized by the tapestry of color. Sassafras' mittens of gold against the maples. 

There's a planted patch of rye at the upper border of the field, the dark green slice before the trees to the right. It's been planted for deer, who love to graze on tender grass when they get a chance. And there are three deer there, grazing and resting.

As we walk closer, two of them lie down. Oh. 

So this is where our walk ends.

When we reached the rye field

an emerald runner on autumn's table

Two deer had just lain down

folding thin hocks

and begun to chew their cud.

I couldn't make them run

so I called you to me and we started home

leaving them in peace

And us, aglow in knowing

they had nothing to fear.

And the  moon rose over an open field...

A field like a blanket, rolling down over the hill. The contrails, that ever-present track of man, on a thoroughly man-tracked landscape. And yet to me it's all so beautiful. I do love the hand of man in agriculture, when it's not a soybean/corn/ethanol wasteland.  When it's not eating virgin prairie, but holding open space for meadowlarks, kestrels, woodcock and bluebirds. A good hayfield like this one is a beautiful thing. Ask the meadowlarks.

The same view, later...the smiling moon, higher than a kite.

The little black dog, still making sure I see him posing for me.

Hearing a fluttering in the hedge, I move closer.

A field sparrow pops up, a seed in its bill, to peek at me. I hope I've gotten him in the photo, but I can't tell on my phone. I look for a long time on the laptop screen until I find him. How sweet!! Hint: he's on the left margin of the tangle in the blow-up below. If you click on the photo, you'll get an even larger version.

 What marvelous habitat this is for me and Chet. I feel so much better, having walked this meadow, the same one where I found a shed antler late last winter.
As hard as it is to say goodbye to color like this, I'm already looking forward to walking here, looking for sheds next February and March.

I thrive on the season changes here. October is my favorite month. Spring's too busy, too full, too hurly-burly. October is reflective, alone, and so heartbreakingly beautiful, ephemeral. October is a leavetaking, not a coming on. It's bittersweet. The poet and painter in me has to mix sadness with joy, dreary tones with color. They make the color all the brighter.

I look back at the deer, and they're still lying down. Score one for the walker and her dog. My goal is always to avoid changing the behavior of the animals and birds I observe. If they feel safe enough to lie down and start ruminating, who am I to walk up on them and put them to flight?

These three tulip trees are my second string Three Graces. I don't get to see them as often, but they sure dress up the hayfield.

 Time to head home, little Chet Baker. We'll leave the does in peace.