A few weeks ago, Lenny and I cashed in his frequent flyer mileage, and we ran off to the Big Island of Hawaii for 10 days. We stayed in an old plantation-style hotel in downtown Kona, Hawaii, where a full-time groundskeeper barely manages to keep the buildings from being devoured by foliage. We could see evidence of his work every day: pruned branches, slight disturbances where weeds had once gripped the earth, and the pathways swept clean of all but the most recently dropped Plumeria blossoms.
Our trip was everything we hoped it would be. While we were there, we saw a documentary on the History Channel called “Life after People.” It gave a timeline of how quickly the earth would change if man was no longer around to impact it. I know that some tropical vegetation can overtake a slow child, but surely there is too much building and pavement in our manicured suburbs to worry about that sort of thing. Right?
We’ve had two nice weekends since we came home from Hawaii. On the first weekend Lenny repaired a roof over a deck, while I puttered with yard work.
I usually enjoy mowing, but after hospitalizations in March, April and May of last year, I realized it had been two years since I last groomed the lawn. Lenny and the boys took over the mowing. I managed to plant some vegetable seeds in a prepared bed, but that was all I could muster. The flower beds remained untouched and out of control.
So when I surveyed the state of the estate, it looked like a big variegated mess. My precious Spotted Lungwort, an heirloom plant with blue, pink, and purple flowers over fuzzy, spotted leaves has been engulfed by Snow on the Mountains, a plant that I have renamed Glacial Destruction. It has overwhelmed Astilbes, perennial Geraniums, and even some sturdy Hostas. It has won the battle of the groundcovers by choking out the sneaky Sweet Woodruff, and it’s gaining on Lily of the Valley.
As I poked around the garden, I found a plaque under some sagging, brown fronds of a neglected fern. It bears a quote from Rudyard Kipling that says,
“Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees
That half a proper gardener’s work is done upon his knees.”
My knee pads are ready for action, and while I’m at it, I have some serious praying to do. It’s time for my yearly check-up. This garden and this gardener can’t bear another year off.
By the way, for those of you who didn’t understand my Mother’s Day column about motherhood in the future, please go to my blog for an explanation, for photos of Hawaii, and for the entire text of the Kipling poem.
