Lessons in Tenacity

When it comes to survival, our cultivated gardens and the wilder nature around us can, if we watch for them, provide many lessons in hanging on.  I was reminded of that this week when I passed by this incredibly tenacious tree, seemingly growing out of the bedrock.  It stands on the edge of a ridge leading from my backyard to the pond.    The primeval seabed of the Flint Hills is exposed by erosion and time on these ridges and, in places, the rock itself becomes porous with holes as the lichens eat them away.  Often, those holes become pots for the germination of wind-blown plants who trade the inconveniences of the cramped position for protection from prairie fires.  This tree has been growing here for a decade, untouched by fire after fire, until it has now filled the hole that birthed it.

I feel, in this time of quarantine, a kinship with this tree, a bond forged by the urge of life to grow and expand despite the constraints around it.  My adherence to stay-at-home edicts from local "authorities"  suffers from both my lack of paranoia about catching the virus and my lack of faith in those authorities.  I do wear a mask in public, despite knowing the science and all-the-time wondering why I bother.  Running "crucial" errands, the number of which expands exponentially with my cabin fever, I often think of the quote on my office refrigerator at work, purportedly from Marilyn Monroe, which reads "Ever notice that 'what the hell' is always the right answer?"  Yes, I recognize that subscribing to guidance from a woman who tragically passed away in the fullness of life may not be the wisest choice. It is, however, more satisfying, and soul-serving than listening to nonstop gloom and doom from the news.  

Yes, I'm running risks daily, but I, like this tree, know instinctively that every day of life brings risks that we must face in order to flourish.  A deep core of fatalism helps me in that regard. I might catch coronavirus today and die next week. I might also get broadsided by a semi-truck on my way home from work.  Neither is really that likely.  I've watched this tree, an elm, grow for years, steadfast in the face of wind, fire and storm.  To have grown this tall, this broad, it must already have once pierced completely through this layer of rock, allowing the roots to reach more fertile soil around it.  Now it faces another challenge and I'm intrigued by what happens next for it.  Will the tree die, girdled by the constraints of its environment?  Will the rock yield, split or dissolved by the irrepressible forces of life? 

Time will tell, both for the tree and for us.  Will we wither now, paralyzed by fear of the world outside our holes, or will we grow on, breaking the barriers and pushing against the sky?  Me, I'm betting on life and the spirit of this tree.  Staying in the hole is not an option.  

Guilty Gardening

ProfessorRoush is embarrassed, embarrassed I say, by his own recent display of poor taste.  I blame it on perfect product positioning, I blame it on a weakness for impulse purchases, I see it as a culmination of  poor life choices.  No, forget those, it is surely all due to the coronavirus quarantine.  Wants have replaced needs and frivolities have replaced necessity in the service of boredom.

For whatever reason, I have twice recently succumbed to the wiles of blatant consumerism.  The first was when I spied this plastic Zen Flamingo during a grocery run for milk and eggs.  I did not ask myself why a large grocery would be selling garden statues in the middle of a pandemic.  I did not ask myself where I would place it in the garden or more importantly WHY I wanted it.  I did not remind myself that I hate fake flamingos in the garden and in the past have poked fun at every pink plastic abomination I've seen.   I simply looked for the price and, of course, found it on sale, marked down to acceptably-priced luxury from its original fictitious retail level.

And then, later, there was this over-adorned solar garden lantern that I came upon while dodging the gauntlet of coronavirus-ridden zombies at Walmart.  I picked it up and put it back thrice before my weakened soul surrendered to its siren song and I came back to my senses as it was being placed into the back of the Jeep.  It is rather unique and a focal point in the garden for those moments when I choose to admire the garden while stumbling around in pitch darkness, but its rechargeable solar nature does not outweigh its garish construction, nor that I suspect it will barely last a season before disintegrating into worthless rust and plastic.  I apologize in advance to the Seventh Generation.

The worst part of these narcissistic indulgences is that my guilt for breaking every self-imposed rule of tasteful garden practice has not yet caught up with the internal endorphin release from their purchases.  Fresh from the damage of late spring freezes and snowfalls, a dispirited gardener has no apparent limit to shame.  I would argue that the garden lantern is, after all, quite pretty in a faux-Vegas-glitter sort of way.  Moreover, the Zen Flamingo makes a fitting partner to my long beloved Totally Zen Frog, don't you think?  Two small echoed passages joining in the symphony of my garden?

Alternatively, I could just own up to a complete collapse of any sense of decent garden style and refinement and place all the blame on COVID-19.  Surely, that sounds much better than "I lost my mind during quarantine."

Quarantined Quiet

ProfessorRoush was captive in a circle of solitude this morning, smothered by a silent world generating its own form of isolation for me, a blanket of clouds held low to dampen motion and moment.  Riley County has declared a two week minimum "stay-at-home" period, effective tonight, and the entire state of Kansas added its own, effective Monday, so the fog is a perfect partner to events local and afar. We are battening down the hatches here at home, anxious but able, resolved and ready.

I'm ready for this time, this transition to tomorrow.  As you can see from the photo at right, there is plenty to do here.  These few bags of mulch are a small fraction of those pre-placed around the house, ready for spreading as soon as the predicted winds diminish.  As the quarantines were announced, I ran out for straw and mulch and project supplies to substitute for activities that soon cannot be.  For some time to come, I'll be mulching instead of dining out, renewing pantry shelves for Mrs. ProfessorRoush instead of watching movies, weeding instead of worrying.  More fortunate than most, I still have work too; as a veterinarian there are always sick animals to care for and as a teacher there are always lessons to prepare.   And it never hurts ones ego to be designated as "essential personnel," however true the reality of it.

For this morning however, it's pleasant, the fog, and the privacy it imposes.  Invisible birds sang as I took these photos, a morning choir unseen but heard, at hand, but also away.  Neighbors and their houses have vanished, foretelling the next few weeks, a safe "social distance" seemingly mandated and enforced by Nature itself.  The mysteries deepen ahead of us; concerns for health and loved ones, uneased by change, disquieted by the quiet.   God-willing, as the fog lifts into sunlight, so our lives will climb from this uncertainty to normality, not the normal of before, but a new normal to travel onward.  Stay healthy, my friends.

 

The Quarantine Is Real

Friends, ProfessorRoush wouldn't be blogging again quite so soon, but he noticed an interesting little fact after he finished Saturday's blog.  While checking the statistics for Garden Musings, I was astonished to see that blog traffic from Italy had risen to 2nd place over the past week, behind only the United States.  You can see that depicted in graphic splendor on the map on the right, the prominent medium-green boot under Europe.  Welcome, my Italian gardening amici and amiche!

Since this blog started, a decade ago, Italy is in 7th place all time in blog visitors, behind the United States (always #1!), Russia, Germany, Ukraine, Canada, and France.  I would like to believe that the massive increase in interest from Italy has occurred because I've recently written some stellar Tuscany-relative plant potboilers.  However, the hard truth is that I am forced to conclude that there are at least a few incredibly-bored gardeners in Italy who have quarantined themselves and, having exhausted Netflix and AmazonPrime, decided the next best time-occupier is to read the blog of some gardening weirdo in forgotten Kansas.

Yes, I know 174 visitors from Italy may not push me across the edge to stardom as the next great garden prophet, but from another perspective, compared to the numbers from the U.S., Italy normally is about 3.5% of the U.S. total.  This past week those numbers are 50% of the U.S. total!  It has to be coronavirus quarantine-driven, doesn't it?  Please though, don't ask me to speculate why the numbers from Turkmenistan are up.  I can't even find the latter on a map.

My beleaguered Italian friends, I hope you stay well and can get back into your own gardens soon, whether that garden is the small balcony planter that I imagine hanging over your ancient cobblestone streets, or it is an entire square mile planted with lavender, laurel, and rosemary surrounding a country villa.  If it helps you pass time reading of roses and forsythia in Kansas, if you are amused by pitched battles against Japanese Beetles, rose rosette disease, and sun-scorched drought, then please keep reading away.  In the end, if my small script in life was to help you keep off the plague-ridden streets, then I'm content that I've served in this smallest of ways.