A GIRL WITHOUT A GARDEN

There is one thing for sure. I'd better be getting a garden soon or I think I might wither away. It is no surprise to me to hear that the gardening world in England increased its numbers by over 3 million during the pandemic, as people found that gardening was something they could do even in a small place. Also, an increase in people growing house plants.  Even the medical profession is advising gardening to improve mental as well as physical health. 

 Since the end of August I have had no garden and I am beginning to feel an overall sense of desperation to get outdoors. With temperatures touching on 100° almost every day I snatch only an hour or so outdoors in the early morning to walk.

We have taken up temporary accommodation in an hotel in a very built up area while we wait for our apartment at the end of the month. I did think of bringing over a few plants but quite honestly there is barely room for us, let alone a few plants. I looked longingly at the flowers the other day and then realized all the vases were packed away in storage. And I glanced over the cactus at Whole Foods and was very tempted to buy this fuzzy no-name little beauty. But, no, I must wait.

 

Even the apartment to be has only a small patio, with  room enough for just a few plants. But that is just a stop-gap until we find where we want to live. The one thing I feel quite sure of is that next time my gardening skills will be honed in the desert.

You can't be a gardener without your eyes turning constantly to the ground. Right now I am having a hard time with what I see out there, much of it due to the unusually cold winter.  The loss of plants everywhere was staggering and it continues. Much has yet to be dealt with and I hate seeing it. I walk out of my room and this is what I see. I can barely hold myself back from putting on my gardening gloves.....I have no idea where they are... and getting to work freeing up this poor agave from its winter damage.

And although there is beauty in the skeletal remains of this prickly pear this is what greets me every morning when I walk to breakfast. 

Fortunately there are a few simple things that help to keep me grounded on gardening. The first is looking at photos of gardens on Instagram. As most of the people I follow post about their gardens and others fill the pages with beautiful photos of the outdoors it goes a long way to bridging the garden gap.  I am still reading A Vision of Eden, by Marianne North, and the amazing travels and botanical record of this middle aged Victorian lady. One day I will see the collection of her paintings at Kew Gardens.

But most of all I am hooked on my garden podcasts and TV garden shows, almost all of them emanating from the United Kingdom. Well, I still consider myself English. At the moment I am watching the Chelsea Flower Show 2021, and cannot get enough of it. I just won't let myself binge watch the episodes as I need to spread them out over a couple of weeks. I always watch Gardeners' World with the charming, down-to-earth,  Monty Don  and his pups, and listen every week to Gardeners' Question Time and Gardeners' Corner, with David Maxwell. 

Throughout the year Gardeners' World has been introducing us to viewers who sent in videos of their own gardens. Some were of children who has been denied their usual pursuits during lock-down and took up growing seeds. I thought they were wonderful. And Chelsea this year has several exhibits of balcony gardening. It's amazing what you can do with a little bit of creativity. They are certainly thinking of the gardener who is just starting out. And when it comes to design my favorite program is Garden Rescue, with Charlie and the Rich Brothers. If you are looking for ideas for your garden this is the place to look.

FAST FORWARD TO SEPTEMBER

 We closed on the house on August 31st and while I have no wish to relate at present the difficulties of the last month I will do so at a later date with plenty of advice for those of you who might be contemplating this kind of move at such an age within the next 5 years. I have plenty I can assure you.

I dread to think what the move would have been like had it not been for the kindness of my neighbor who invited us to stay in her guest house for two weeks. As well as that she made over half of her garage for us to store some outdoor furniture and the odds and ends of the last day. And.....to move over the plants we had plans to take with us. I needed some time to work on repotting and also giving away many more of them as our small patio, as of October, will not have sufficient space for all of them. I must choose carefully those I want to take. I had already given away plenty and a slew of pots. Two visitors said it was like an early Christmas. 

Naturally I kept my favorites among which is the A. demettiana Joe Hoak.

Finally this morning I went out to start taking care of the plants, fertilizing a few that have been sorely neglected and probably overwatering some of the cactus. And my plan was to consolidate some of the small pots into larger pots. One thing about cactus is they really like sharing and often look better thus. Take for example this little grouping. I had potted these together in the late spring and they have done well. This might be the only squid agave I am taking but knowing its nature it will soon be making pups. 

This Spiral cactus, Euphorbia tortilis, had become so lanky that it was flopping over. It was clearly in need of a trim and some fresh potting medium. I also paired it with some cuttings of ghost plant and an unknown agave. 

This is the ghost plant from which I took the cuttings. It was starting to make new pups and the older ones were also lanky a result of insufficient light. Light is difficult to manage in the summer unless you have filtered shade. Always the errant grass and one of this native portulaca, Portulaca pilosa, sometimes called kiss me quick. 

Although it is a little weedy it does make a nice little mat of foliage and flowers and is at its best in the fall. 

My idea was to try to consolidate many of the smaller pots into a larger pot to make future transportation easier, 

At the same time there are a number of plants that need a good pruning. It may not quite be the right time of year to do this but it must be done. I was fortunate to have purchased a few bags of cactus mix when we were in Arizona. Such an expensive thing to buy in Austin but 1/5 of the price in Arizona. I will reserve judgement on how good it turns out to be but this is what I am using. 

 

Even though the plants are mostly situated beneath an overhead it is still so hot that a few hours in the morning are all I can manage outside, and I must decide between walking and potting. 

 

 

I started off relocating some of the plants underneath a persimmon tree. I thought they were safe there until the mow blow and go guy came and I watched as he blew the leaves and bare dirt from one area right across the plants. Grhh!!! So now I had to move them all back underneath the cover. I must now take the time to remove the leaves with forceps and try to get all the debris from the Old Man of the Andes, Oreocereus celsianus,  bearded body. He fared the worst with his beard now full of grit.

 

 

Exactly why does America have such an obsession with getting every leaf off their path and soil into some hidden place underneath bushes. Or worse still into the road.
 

 In any event the two weeks went by so quickly that I barely made a dent in all I had planned. There is no real rush to remove the plants but I am in charge of care and that involves several citrus and plumeria as well as taking care of my friend's plants while she is away, and multiple doctor visits and on line bridge. 

 

Now we have moved out, and despite her asking us to stay on we thought it best to go to the hotel, plant-less! Except this morning she texted me to say the Echinopsis oxygona, had bloomed. I'm glad she saw and got to enjoy the ephemeral bloom. I wonder how long it will take for my old man to bloom?

 

 

I will go back there every few days to water and check on everything and think about exactly how many of these plants I can take with me to the apartment.