Visions of life in garden a blessing

Last Saturday, I was raking leaves.

Sunday I was shoveling snow.

Ah, life in Maine.

As I sit here listening to something frozen beat against the north side of the house, I remember thinking Saturday how thankful I was for one more day to finish the remaining odds and ends of my annual cleanup.

I had to clip back the last plants standing, most of which still had a flush of green about them. Down came the asters and the phlox. Dried stems of day lilies, Jerusalem artichoke and bee balm added to the pile. I chopped off decaying leaves of iris, hosta, peony, goatsbeard and lady’s mantle, only to discover tender new leaves of lady’s mantle and lupine poking up as if spring had sprung again.

Silly plants, I thought, and how blessed am I to see such a sight in mid-November.

I started snipping off the spent blossoms of lavender and trimming the bushes to a tidier shape, and the air filled with the warmth of summer as the scent wafted around me. The breeze was chilling, but suddenly I could hear the hum of bees and the rustle of leaves and see the purple buds of lavender just starting to open.

Foolish me, I thought, to long for what is past, but how blessed am I to have one more whiff of my beloved lavender.

I circled to the end of the perennial garden to look at the huge clump of heath and-or heather (I know not which) that came into its own this year. The one that really gave its all was the white one with the silvery foliage, while the smaller one with the magenta-purple flowers was dwarfed by the ghostly presence of its towering neighbor. Part of me wished that the reverse had occurred.

Ridiculous, I thought, as I realized how blessed I was since I had struggled to find anything that would grow on that dry end of the bed, let alone something that would thrive.

I headed for the back corner of the yard where my shed sits and noticed that all of the leaves had made their final descent straight into that triangular space. Hardly a blade of grass or a piece of mulch was visible under the carpet of brown.

Out came the rake, and I switched between trimming and raking my way to the woods’ edge. The crackle of hydrangea blossoms blended with the song of the chickadees as I clipped away at the hydrangea bush, stopping once in a while to watch the progress of a lone partridge underneath an apple tree at the head of the vegetable garden.

I spotted a single purple pansy, marveled at the vigor of a previously sorry-looking rhododendron saved from a friend’s yard this spring and wondered what kind of display I should dream about from the two new lilacs already sporting next year’s leaf buds. I fussed over my great-grandmothers’ roses, noting that the new growth from each was looking sturdy and poking my fingers in the process. I cut back the spearmint and oregano in the barrel planter and pondered whether they would weather the winter well in said barrel.

Apologizing to the partridge, I clipped the herbs and flax in the raised beds nestled around the apple tree and chuckled at the vagaries of gardening as I eyed the shoots of garlic that was planted last spring and just making their debut of greenery this fall. Who knows what will come of that.

The light was fading as I put away my rake. I looked around the yard and through the trees

saw the moon rising, a thin veil of clouds softening its glow.

Beautiful, I thought, and smiled at being blessed by so brilliant a sight after such dreary daylight.

By Sunday evening, I was groaning under the weight of one fully loaded shovel of snow after another. My dog, Daisy, was flitting about me like a demented butterfly.

I paused to catch my breath and watch Daisy’s antics as she raced hither and yon, executing joyful leaps from one end of the yard to the other. She wiggled and wagged, because for Daisy – for some inexplicable reason – every snowstorm is a gift of paradise and every snowball a taste of heaven.

Remarkable, I thought, and hoped that this blessing would warm my plants all winter long.

Janine Pineo is a NEWS systems editor. Her e-mail address is jpineo@bangordailynews.net.