There isn't a spot in our thirty cultivated acres that isn't putting on a pretty show right now, which is a very gratifying thing indeed. Finally, it seems these past nearly thirty years of gardening and planting and waiting for things to mature and fill their alotted spots have paid off. It would be foolish to say that it's almost as if the gardens are doing it all by themselves now, but that is close to how I feel as I take a walk around. Certainly, we still work hard at trimming and pruning, mulching and weeding and mowing, etc., but as I meander, I feel nearly like a visitor in my own garden, so happily entranced am I by what I encounter.
Those infant plants we planted ten or twenty years ago in the perennial borders are unrecognizable as the brawny stands of astilbe and iris, clematis and fairy rose currently in bloom. Likewise the red hot pokers, coreopsis, daylilies, and heliopsis blazing away in the summer borders. The tiny tufts of thyme and sedum, gentian, daisy, and evening primrose we tucked between the stones in the pool garden are now great carpets and drifts of color and blossom. The roses we planted at the feet of the hoops that surround the French garden now climb twelve feet to festoon them in the most lavish of flowering arches.
This month, even the annual vegetables in the kitchen garden seem to have taken on a life of their own. The lettuces are in high dudgeon, lasting far longer in the prevailing cool temperatures than usual, and the Ruby Perfection cabbages bordering the bean tuteurs are putting on a terrific blue and purple show right now, looking like big moon blossoms. At the same time, the heat of a few weeks ago has also jump-started the more reticent types like the pole beans and squashes, which are beginning their sinuous coiling out of the ground. A particular joy in the vegetable garden right now is also the big stands of variegated horseradish, which, after five years, have finally stopped reverting to green and are displaying their vivacious true colors in a most winning fashion.
And finally, let me praise some of the trees and shrubs we have planted over the years that have finally reached some kind of arboreal majesty. Chief among these are the California redwood we planted twenty years ago at the curve in the drive that now must stand at sixty feet, and the trio of lacy golden locusts in the yellow garden that are brightening the woodland. I am also forced to toss a few accolades at the great drifts of purple smokebush, and purple and golden barberry that are currently adding drama to the summer borders, as well as the weeping copper beeches behind them that provide such a spectacular visual foil.
This is perhaps the greatest joy of gardening: that moment in time when all the work you have put into your space finally achieves the stature you had envisioned for it in those long ago beginnings. And, as if by magic (all right -- and a good bit of annual effort...), you reach that elusive but completely compelling goal of a surrounding and comforting beauty that makes you sigh with pleasure. Such has been this month for me.
