Into the Woods
So, my friend, Geoff, calls me out of the blue and asks me if I want to go with him to check out Brookside Gardens, a well-known (to everyone but me, apparently) public garden in Montgomery County, Md. I’ve never been, so I say OK. We drive to the gardens, called by many “the jewel of the Montgomery County Parks system,” and spend a delightful couple of hours exploring the park with Geoff acting as guide. The best part of the visit for me is seeing a variety of perennials that I have in my garden and comparing the spring growth at Brookside to my own plants. If you ever get a chance to visit, I highly recommend it. It’s very kid-friendly, an important note for those of us who are grandparents. We drive back to my house and Geoff insists that he wants to see my garden, which is a mess because it hasn’t been mulched and I’m still doing spring clean-up. As we head through the gate and down the steps to the back patio, we make a right turn to look at what I call the woodland bed. To my surprise, Geoff isn’t looking at the flower beds. He’s turned around and looking at the scruffy, ugly, woods that border the property line on that side of the house.
“Ken,” he says, “You really need to trim the vines from these trees.” When I protest, he says, “It would only take you 45 minutes to cut through all these vines. If you don’t, they might kill your trees.” I tell Geoff that I really don’t pay any attention to the woods out back and that I barely have enough time to take care of my flower beds. What I’m thinking is, “Geez, I’ve got seven different flower beds back here and this guy is critiquing the ugly woods behind the house?” Truth is I’ve always thought of those woods as part of the open space behind my house and tried to ignore them.
Geoff eventually left for home, and we agreed a fun and interesting morning was had by all. But guess what? His comment about the woods was bugging me. I soon found myself outside staring at the woods and considering whether I could actually kill the vines in a short period of time. And as you may have guessed, dear readers, there began my downfall.
I borrowed a Sawzall reciprocating saw from my neighbor, Sam, grabbed our loppers and pruning shears, donned some clear plastic eye protection, and headed to the backyard. Pruning the vines was something of a puzzle because it was very difficult to tell where they started and ended. In fact, it was clear that some of the vines grew at least 50 feet long, winding tightly around branches up towards the tree canopy. If I cut the bottom of the vine, in many cases I could just yank it as hard as I could, and if I was lucky, I could wrench the whole thing out of the tree branches high above my head. If I was unlucky, the vines were tightly wound around dozens of branches of one or more trees, and it was impossible to free them. Those vines were wrapped so tightly around branches that in some cases the vines were as thick as the limbs. The trees have been there since the original owners built the house, and I’m guessing some of them have been growing for more than 20 years. Jerking and shaking the vines from below resulted in branches large and small raining down from above. It slowly dawned on me that my methodology was somewhat dangerous…and stupid.
Nevertheless, with a great deal of determination -- and only a few cuts and one pulled muscle -- I succeeded in clearing the area around two trees and one fence. (I may not have mentioned that there are sticker bushes around the edge of the trees, and I was using fabric gardening gloves. Not overly smart.) Later Linda joined in the fun and cleared even more of the vines, leaving us with a huge pile of broken branches and what must be hundreds of feet of dead vines.
It turns out that after all that, the trees were, for the most part, already dead. My lawn guys are going to clear the debris and take down three dead trees on mulch day for a very reasonable price. Halleluiah.) I guess I owe Geoff a thank-you for pointing out the disgusting condition of the woods so close my garden beds. I just wish his estimate of 45 minutes wasn’t off by about two full days of hard work.
In other spring garden news, every day brings surprises that are much more pleasant. Today I noticed that all three of the hostas I purchased last year have finally made their appearance under the arborvitae trees. It's worth noting that I’ve been checking for them every 10 minutes for about two weeks.
I cleaned up the bird feeder and filled it to the top, looking forward to seeing the pretty finches and other birds that gather at mealtime. Instead, a huge flock of large black birds (starlings or some other) took over the backyard, crapping on everything, and finishing the bird seed in about three days. Linda and I agreed that we will wait until much later in the spring to put out more seed. As it is, I have a large pressure washing job ahead to get the bird guano off… everything.
In the annual race to see if I can get a ground cover to thrive in either the waterfall bed or the woodland bed, there’s good news. It seems the epimedium plants are making a decent showing this spring. Everything I read says they should be easy to grow in partial shade. Hopefully this will be the year they finally get established.
Some garden whimsy has appeared this spring. I love my gnome taking a coffee break and will have to decide where he finally belongs after the beds fill in a little more. I also purchased some metal ornaments: a butterfly, a bee, and a sunflower. I’ll figure out their placement later in the season as well. I’m worried that I like this stuff a little too much. I’ll have to check myself to make certain I don’t turn the garden into a junkyard.
I think that should do it for today’s newsletter. Thanks for being a subscriber. Please share this link with friends, family, enemies, etc. You can find lots of Painful Education of a Type A Gardener content in the archives.
Well the lazy gardener would have just cut the vines at the ground and left nature to do its own devices. That would have taken no more than 45 minutes. Clearly, the Type A (OCD?) Gardener is not in sync with that approach. I am glad that my advice has now provided you a large new canvas on which to impose your gardening will. There is a certain joy to seeing a fresh layer of mulch accompanied by an awkward feeling that you are that guy in the GEICO commercial.
This was a great, heart warming post! Thanks to Geoff, great idea. You must be proud of all your efforts!!