This is my Garden in the Spring
of 2000. (Click it to see it bigger.) I don't want to brag, but
it ended up exceeding all of my expectations. This Spring I plan
to document its development from the frozen wasteland it is now
to the incredibly lush jungle it becomes. I am especially proud
of my roses. I keep some 30 rosebushes as healthy and happy as
I can. (More than half of those are miniatures, but the miniatures
have really stolen my heart...they are so hearty, so prolific,
and so cute.) Come over sometime, and I will give you a bouquet)
The garden is finally, with its
patios, terraces, and walls, complete. Next year's project is
documenting its incredible vigor. (Many of the plants in the picture
above reached twice the size shown in the picture above. Some
of the rosebushes grew from 12 inches tall to seven feet tall
despite severe pruning!) Perhaps tomorrow I will take a baseline
-- everything is dead or dormant, and buried under enormous piles
of snow. Until then, you will have to satisfy yourself with a
poem I wrote in the garden the other day:
In the garden tonight
dead chrysanthemums tremble
as headlights growl by.
Roses frozen
in stark thorny protest
sit as I do...
leafless, pruned,
biding my time.
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