Garden re-do

I finally mustered the courage, after weeks of rain, to scour the damage of my garden. Last summer's drought coupled with this year's rain has made my garden something of a mess. Add the fact that major repairs were needed anyway to replace old pathways and you have a tangled web of crabgrass, leggy roses and out of control herbs.

It is sad, really, to think of all the work that has been done - and still needs doing - as I wonder amidst the broken twigs of my garden. I see the corner where I removed the roses that were suffocating under blackspot. I see the miscalculations everywhere: too big shrubs here, too little ones there. Why did I think Nandina would work besides the butterfly bush in that small spot? What prompted me to plant mint so near the borders of my perennials? Why did I think that pathway should go left instead of right?

It's enough to make one give up gardening for good.

Instead, I spent a good part of yesterday re-drawing the lines of the garden -- a new garden that I'll spend time re-creating this summer. Work begins this weekend with a load of topsoil that is scheduled to arrive later today. I won't get to it until later in the holiday weekend but just knowing that it's coming gives me hope.

Rebuilding is a daunting task and one that forces tough questions: 1) Why did the original plan go wrong? 2) do I rebuild? 3) and if so, then how? How to make it better?
How not to repeat the same mistakes? What have I learned from the work from before?

Not surprisingly, many of these questions go to the fundamental questions of structure which give life to the garden. Structure gives direction, calms the chaos and defines the garden. Get the structure wrong and you've got weedy paths and tangled vines. Not to mention unnecessary maintainance.

This is where the basics of art, design and color must have their place. It's where you strip back all the "fluff" and lay bare what is -- accept it and decide if you can live with it. As with life, acceptance is a big part of gardening: Can I change it? If not, can I live with it?

These are the thorny questions that make gardening so essential to living a good life. These are the questions that I find solace in, even in the midst of crumbling paths and falling fences.