Delicious Ambiguity

For all of nature's wonder and beauty, it is also hostile and unpredictable. 

          ~Liam Neeson

I have written before about my rose garden. I get my love of roses from my father, who always had them in each place he lived. I remember being awakened early on a summer Saturday morning by my father spraying insecticide on his roses, which were in a little garden area right under my bedroom window-- and my bed was under that window too on the other side. Later, in the year or so he lived in Indiana, he planted roses in a little garden at the cottage he and my mother lived in at a retirement village. He used to pick the best blooms and give them to my mother (or once in awhile to me!) and he always clipped the thorns off them before he brought them in the house. Roses to him were gifts from God that he could grow and give to others. It was a way to share his love.

Anyway, the house Lanny and I live in has the perfect place to grow them, so over time I have planted about 20 bushes. Some are tea roses that give single, magnificent blooms. Some are "floribunda" that bloom in clusters of fragrant color. Some are "knock out" roses, bred to be hardy and bloom all season long. I have had some problems growing roses... first, the dreaded Japanese Beetle invaded, and thousands of the black irridescent bugs munched on my roses. The blooms seem to attract them, and I would find a shrub covered in blooms which were completely covered in these awful creatures. So, Lanny and I got to work-- he spread an insecticide specific to this bug all over the yard and I got some spray which I doused the plants in. I would go out every morning and remove any bloom that I found a beetle on and spray the little -------'s with the spray. Our war lasted all summer and I never had a bloom that was fit to bring in the house after the attacks started.

When I retired, I decided to try my hand at vegetable gardening. I had Lanny build me a 6 inch high wood frame and grew 2 tomato plants and 2 pepper plants. They yielded delicious produce that we enjoyed a great deal, so last year Lanny built two more frames. I had tomatoes in one, peppers in the other, and a cucumber, a squash and a canteloup plant in the third. They were growing well when it quit raining. It didn't rain a drop here from the end of May to early September, so I had to water everything virtually every morning. Then our well started showing signs of stress and I had to quite watering-- my plants were on their own. We had a pretty good harvest of peppers, a few good tomatoes, and as many cucumbers as we could eat. We loved them... the squash and the canteloup didn't fare well though.

This year, with all that experience under my belt, I started the planting season optimistically. The roses burst into bloom in early June, just as I had hoped. I planted the raised vegetable beds just as I had last year, this year only planting cucumbers in the third bed. Lanny and I spent a great deal of time spreading mulch around the yard and weeding the beds I had had to leave to the weeds last summer during the heat and draught. I focused on one flower bed, which had been started two seasons ago with the idea of making a "prairie garden" using plants that are native to the midwest. We moved some plants from the front yard to the back, mulched and weeded ourselves into exhaustion.  And it rained! Our plants were well-watered. It has not been too hot a summer... The plants grew, flowers bloomed, bugs stayed away -- all was well!

One of my favorite floribundas-- covered in peachy fragrant blooms this June...

Theoretically, and honestly realistically, I should have the best flowers and vegetables ever. But, something has gone awry, and I don't know what. Despite lots of rain, some nice sunny days, a few hot ones too, and despite feeding them and tending them, my garden is disappointing at best. The roses have not bloomed much at all since early June. The vegetables are looking yellow and have very little fruit on them-- out of 6 peppers, I've harvested one small pepper and there are no more out there growing. We've had 5 cucumbers, and there is one little one growing but that's it. The tomatoes are a little better but not the crop I expected. Last year we were enjoying cucumbers and tomatoes every evening for dinner... not so this year despite planting more plants and having much better growing condiions.

The rose garden -- see any roses? Most of the foliage has fallen off too. Despite feeding and pruning and tending just like I have every year...  ??

I sincerely doubt we'll get many cucumbers from this vine...

The raised vegetable beds - lots of sun and rain - and not much growth or fruit...

The only thing that has grown are the prairie flowers. And the ones that grew the best are the coneflowers. These are tall, purple daisy-like flowers that attract butterflies and bees and the birds love the seeds when the bloom is done. The birds eat the seeds, and then of course digest and poop them out, so the plants spread naturally that way. I don't have to cultivate them at all-- they love hot, dry or wet, lots of sun. The daisies and day lilies and all the other flowers out there are doing so well the garden looks like it is bursting at the seams... and while I put most of the plants in the ground, I really haven't paid much attention to them.

Here I am in my "Praire Garden" - this one has grown and produced gorgeous flowers! But what is the difference???

So go figure... I am trying to learn something from all of this and so far I'm not getting much... why do plants that have seemingly ideal growing conditions not do well and others explode with blooms? What is it I am missing in the roses and the vegetables that needs to be done to make them the beautiful garden I dream of?  Perhaps this winter I can convince Lanny to take that Master Gardener course with me and we can figure it out. Or perhaps there is no answer-- it just is what it is -- "delicious ambiguity"? Dear Reader, if you have any helpful hints in all this, please let me know-- I intend to have a gorgeous garden next year!

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next.Delicious Ambiguity.           ~ Gilda Radner