Ann Ferro: A perfect cure

I’ve always been a bit hesitant to believe that such a thing as Seasonal Affective Disorder was real. But lately? Measure for measure, as the long dark days belied the calendar’s promises, I found my attitude less and less vital, more dispirited, struggling to live my days with purpose.
Today the sun was out! After two weeks of seemingly interminable rain, the sun was out and so was I. Sporting my ever so elegant collapsible cane, some clippers, a weeder and my gardening clogs, I began my garden ablutions. The goal today was to rid the beds of the tiny and sometimes not-so-tiny maple seedlings, which along with the dandelions and the obnoxious greater celandine were taking up landscape reserved for other plants. I thought that the Celandine was gone from the garden. I had pulled every one I could find out years ago, but no, it is back with its irritating orange sap.
I am the kind of gardener that believes the garden has its own inscrutable rhythm with which I only tinker. Last year there were an average number of foget-me-nots. I remember carefully pulling the plants out when they were spent, sprinkling a few of the seeds here and there. This year the beds are full of them poking their cheery blue blossoms into the sky. They are, as are many of the perennials in my garden, invasive weeds to some, but not to me. I even planted a darker variety in a shady area and the plant has rewarded me with a show of blue sunlight in a rather dark place.
The forget-me-nots vie with Lysmachia or yellow loosestrife for space. Both are vigorously verdant in this spring garden. Both are regulars, coming back year after year. Not so others. My beebalm comes and goes. This year it is in short supply. I counted only a dozen or so plants as I worked my way down the border.
The peppermint may be the problem, spreading despite a energetic removal campaign last year. It and the oregano which is also a mint, are creeping into the area where the beebalm once held court.
Across the grassy walk, two ground covers that I did not plant, ajuga and lamium, are competing for dominance. Both are in full bloom. Both beautiful, but I pull some of them out by the handful to give the taller plants some growing room. My foxglove and delphinium have disappeared, perhaps because of them.
And my roses… my lovely salmon and pink climber didn’t make it though its first winter. It replaced a spectacularly beautiful rose that grew up and over the roof of the shed for ten years. Fortunately my Kathleen, the name of the other climber, is healthy and ready to take off in a flurry of red in June.
And, I’ve noticed that the violets, the variegated violets are back. They disappeared for a lot of years, but, for whatever reason, they are back. That makes me smile at the persistence of life.
I wonder if they were off somewhere with the greater celandine, waiting. Flowers are just what they are. They become weeds only in our eyes.
When we had our first gardens, short of money but not energy, I transplanted some of these wild violets into the front yard and they spread … how they spread… making a gorgeous bed that even professional landscapers admired when they came to replace them with pachysandra.
There are other invasives, bishop’s weed and English ivy, that mix it up on the bank behind the house. I’ve been advised to get rid of both. They look fine and do seem to provide that incline with stability.
I’ve lost all of my Iris. I tried putting newer varieties in different areas of the garden, but all seem to just rot away. I love Iris and it makes me sad to know that my yard is hostile to this genus.
The rhubarb plants, though few in number are doing well, but the rain has caused them to go to seed. I’ve removed the seed heads and hope that will be enough to assure that I can harvest some stalks for pie.
I worked hard for an hour or so but saved one area where the maple trees and shoots of too bossy Viburnum need to be removed with more powerful equipment.
It felt good today, to be back outside, working in the garden, doing what needed to be done, even if I remain a bit wobbly.
There is nothing like being in the garden on a sunny day to bring you close up and personal with the vibrations of life, how its rhythms and strength are real, how we are part of and rekindle purpose in this circle. The perfect cure for SAD.