My Garden here at Garlands, Summer 2025
So the garden this year has not exactly been a roaring success. Forr floral interest, I planted three Lantana plants. These produced a profusion of blooms last year. This year, for whatever reason, their showing has been very lackluster. The two sweet pepper plants have languished, just as they did last year. I’m never planting them again – so there! The single sweet basil plant is struggling.
On the other hand,,,the tomatoes are flourishing, although they are falling all over themselves due to the cages I provided for them being too short. Little round green balls are currently presenting themselves, especially on the cherry tomato plant. But the summer squash plant…well, it is completely out of control, growing like a wild thing! Leaves the size of dinner plates. Still waiting for the actual vegetable to make its debut, though there are several flowers hopefully peeping out from below the gigantic foliage. I keep thinking of the man-eating plant in the musical “Little Shop of Horrors”…
Anyway, here I am, standing beside this dubious achievement.
Autumn Comes to The Garlands
We are currently being treated to a succession of beautiful sunny days:
This gentleman continues to walk his Schnauzer every day up and down this path in our courtyard. (I have noted them before.) Their appearance, though poignant, lifts my heart. You can tell from watching them interact that they have a lovely relationship.
Meanwhile, the gardening season is drawing to a close. The flowers are making an especially luminous display, or perhaps it only seems so.
I am deeply grateful to have at present this beauty, man made and natural, surrounding me.
Progress of a Summer Squash
From this near-death experience (Plant was crudely dug up and replanted in a different planter box – namely, mine):
To this valiant struggle to survive in the new environment (cheered on by the surrounding flowers, I like to think):
To the production of this robust miracle!
And ultimately to this – my first home cooked meal in nearly four months (a long story – maybe some other time):
We named it ‘Summer Squash Stir Fry à la Rood.’
Who knew chopping vegetables could feel so good….
‘How easy it is to fall in love with a dog. You just do. They make you.’
One of the unexpected and delightful pleasures of our current location is the frequent appearance of small dogs. Many of the residents here are dog owners, and the courtyard that our unit backs onto is a favorite place to walk and exercise these little ones.
A gentleman walking his schnauzer is a frequent sight. I appreciate the way in which he accompanies his canine friend, always pausing when necessity demands, and waiting patiently.
In our former neighborhood, there were many dogs of all sizes, but I was dismayed by the sight of their humans glued to their phones as they walked, paying little or no attention to their pets.
Another frequent visitor to the courtyard is a very cute, very lively beagle. Name: Snoopy, of course!
Recently, a very small denizen has been making the scene. Chihuahua? Not sure. He looks something like this:
There’s a really neat little fellow that we often encounter in the library. Once again, I’m not sure of the breed, but he looks quite a bit like this little one:
His name is Rambo!
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The title of this post is a quote from The Rescue by T. Jefferson Parker. I’m half way through this wonderful novel and I wish it would go on forever.
Garlands Garden, supplemental – in which Yours Truly receives the unlooked-for gift of a squash plant with huge leaves
And little squashes peaking out from beneath them.
Day one:
So, what happened was this: I was proceeding as usual to my planter box garden to water the denizens of said planter box. (We had gotten some rain, but then it stopped, so once again the water had to be hand delivered.)
I had no sooner arrived when a gentleman approached me most purposefully: he had, he said, a plant that he could not identify growing in his allotment at a alarming rate. It was crowding his tomatoes! Could I identify this…this thing? I walked over with him and took a look. It was a summer squash, already beginning to produce. This excellent entity had already made an appearance in a previous post:
Somehow, in the course of this interaction, said gentleman convinced me that I should take custody of this rampant vegetative entity. Either that, or it was going into the trash! Now, wouldn’t that be a shame and a waste?
So he dug up the squash plant and we conveyed it to my modest allotment. He wielded a mean trowel, and we had that baby in the ground in no time. I then proceeded to deliver the promised moisture via the snake-like hose.
I then returned the hose to its proper station (a much trickier undertaking than it would at first seem to be). When I got back to my allotment, another gardener was gazing ruefully at the plantings. It soon became obvious what she was looking at: although the annuals continued to flourish, the gigantic leaves of the squash plant seemed to have heaved a collective sigh and keeled over. I said: “It appears to be in shock.” We shook our heads sadly.
What next? Well, we shall see…
Day two:
I wish I could report a dramatic recovery – or any sign of recovery – for the summer squash. Alas, all is as it was yesterday – maybe even worse.
At least, the annuals are growing and glowing!
I administered the water cure once more. I will return to this subject when and if I detect a change.
And so, to Gardens!
This past Saturday, horticulturally inclined Garlands residents participated in a Garden Walk. The ostensible purpose of this enterprise was to get ‘up close and personal’ with the various planter box efforts on display and to socialize with our fellow garden enthusiasts.
I can’t get over how ambitious some of these efforts are! Unlike my own modest foray into the world of gardening, vegetables were very much the order of the day. Not just the usual suspects – read, tomatoes and sweet peppers – but also beans and cucumbers – and even summer squash.
But the flowers – ah, the flowers!
Oh – and my little plot? Just a few annuals. I felt that vegetables would be too ambitious for me, at this point:
The bright red blossoms are zinnias; other reps of the flower world are dianthus, dwarf snapdragons, and marigolds.
Meanwhile, to my surprise and delight, daylilies popped up among the planter boxes, beside some decorative grasses:
As if this were not sufficient for promoting pleasure, a drinks and ice cream truck appeared. Then there was a musician and her Celtic harp, providing soothing music beneath the trees…
I would also like to know the names of the plantings done by the landscaping company. For instance, these lovely purple blooms, which grow right beneath our alcove windows and are much beloved by the bees, which dance on them and over them in the early morning:
These low growing trees may be found throughout the grounds of The Garlands. As the winds blow frequently and with great strength, they react predictably and dramatically:
Just a few short weeks ago, these trees looked like this:
For an additional musical accompaniment, I suggest “A Walk to the Paradise Garden” by Frederick Delius:
Garlands Horticulture Update
So, two days ago, it rained for about five minutes. Everyone got excited. Then it stopped.
We are presently getting a taste of what they’ve been dealing with in the Southwest and in California (my two favorite regions of the U.S.). What does this mean for the gardens? It means getting out there every day and watering. Here at the Garlands, this is easily done. The most challenging part is wrangling with the hose. I have, however, subdued this varmint. When you are done, you’re supposed to empty the hose. When you turn it on again, it writhes like a snake.
As to the flowers, I didn’t have much hope for a while, but they have rallied bravely.
I knew I wanted to plant marigolds, because you can’t keep a good marigold down. With their stubby stems and compact blooms, they are proving to be tough little guys! This turns out to be true also of zinnias, which I’ve never grown before. (This selection was helpfully suggested by pediatrician sister-in-law, who is wise about plants as well as children.)
My planter box effort is extremely modest. This fact was brought home to me when I saw what some of the other gardeners have done.
Note the park-like environs just beyond this planter box. One of my favorite places here, it provides an oasis of cool shade amidst the bright sunlight.
Rain is predicted for tomorrow. I’ll believe it when I see it.
Places in The Garlands
Wherever you walk here, you are met with beauty and comfort. Long hallways are punctuated by lovely seating areas; these in turn are accessorized with interesting works of art.
Light pours in through numerous tall windows.
I love this vase and I can’t explain way:
Each residential unit has a display shelf located next to its entry door. Residents may use this space to place beautiful or mysterious objects where passers by see them and wonder at their meaning. Here are a few of my favorites:
This last image is of our own shelf, where I have placed a beautiful ceramic mask, acquired by me in Italy in 2011. (How can it be that twelve years have passed since that memorable sojourn on the Amalfi Coast…?)
Planter Boxes
Here at Garlands, residents are provided with a welcome if modest chance to do some gardening. Several rows of planter boxes are situated within the grounds. You can request space in a planter box, and if it’s available, management will assign it to you. Typically, you get half the space in a given box.
This past Friday, we purchased several flats of flowers at a local supermarket. Yesterday, I put them in the box: dianthus, snapdragons, and marigolds. The result is, I think, quite pleasing.
I haven’t done any gardening in a very long while. I used to be quite the enthusiast until I got kicked out of two gardens in one year. It’s a long story, which I won’t trouble you with here. I’ll just say that it had to do with the amatory aspect of my life, which was not going well. It’s all ancient history now; I’ve been married to my wonderful Ron for over thirty years; past wounds are long healed.
Anyway, digging in this little garden felt like a verification of the fact that we’ve arrived at a safe place. Can’t help thinking of the words of D.H. Lawrence: “Look! We have come through!”
It is Mothers Day. It is also my birthday. I am so very thankful.
The Move, Second Installment; or how it felt to say Farewell to the House on Twilight Grove Court
I’ll confess right here and now: I way underestimated what this undertaking was going to demand of us – not just physically, but mentally, psychologically, and emotionally.
To begin with, we’d been living in the house in Ellicott City (MD) for thirty-five years. My son Ben was with us until he went off to college in 1993. After that, we had the four bedroom house – with a full unfinished basement – to ourselves, to do with as we wished.
And what we wished – in our happy, thoughtless way – was to accumulate Stuff. This process continued unabated until February of this year. Then suddenly it became necessary to divest ourselves of most of this detritus before it swallowed us whole. Or, more prosaically, we needed to be rid of a great deal of Stuff.
This meant deciding what to keep and what to toss. We were moving to smaller quarters, but not that much smaller. It was all very vague. We decided to leave almost all of our furniture and replace it with new items for the new domicile. (See The Move ). That was the easiest part. The smaller the items got, the harder the decisions became. Some were discarded with reluctance bordering on pain. Others were gone with barely a shrug. (‘Well, that’s that, I guess….’) The process seemed endless.
Decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse..
There was one closet in particular, in my son’s former bedroom. Several years ago – well, more than several – I found that that particular closet was nearly empty. Well! What a fortuitous discovery! I filled it up in no time flat. And filled it and filled it… with what? Would-be objets d’art, little gewgaws, clothing mistakes that happen frequently when I shop from catalogs, a college dissertation by my mother on a topic in an educational psychology class, written circa 1935…wait, What??
My mother was the first person in her family to attend college, the others being too busy fleeing pogroms in Byelarus. She obtained her degree in 1938 – graduating Phi Beta Kappa, no less – and married my father that same year.
How, how is it that I never before now appreciated the immense pride that my grandparents must have felt in my mother’s achievement, attained in this new world, made possible through their courage and commitment?
I have no recollection of ever before laying eyes on the aforementioned document. But there were many similar experiences during the Great Clear Out. Finding things that I never even knew I had. Not finding things I intended to keep. Finally, finding them and losing them all over again in the course of the Great Resettlement, here in the country’s heartland.
So anyway, back to the aforementioned closet. This cornucopia of clutter was cheerfully excavated by an emissary from Caring Transitions – and boy, do I recommend them! I kept thinking she was finished, but she kept finding more and more stuff in that closet. Meanwhile, as we were shedding our belongings, it felt as though we were shedding pieces of our lives. Yet we stayed in the house almost to the end, as though observing a series of little deaths to which we had given our assent.
Ultimately we understood that the house was too much for us. I kept saying, Whether we move across the street or across the country, this had to happen. And so it proved.
In addition to all this, I had to make my farewells to an exceptionally wonderful group of friends and colleagues. Most of the retirees from the library had remained local; we often saw each other through various functions, especially book discussion groups. I was part of a mystery book discussion group that originated with a program on crime fiction presented at the library some years ago by my friend and coworker Marge and myself. My fellow members in AAUW were especially gracious at the last meeting I intended, honoring me in a way I hadn’t expected but deeply appreciated anyhow.. Saying goodbye to people you’ve come to care about, knowing that in all probability you will never see them again, is hard. My last few weeks in town, I got taken out to lunch more times than I can count!
Everyone kept assuring me that I would make new friends. But all I could think was, I want my old friends. I have a history with those people, and they with me. I am still processing the loss.
But in all fairness, I have met some lovely people here. Spring has arrived. When I took my walk today, I couldn’t help thinking that this is like living in a park.
There is one object that managed to make it here to our new home. I’ve owned it for many years but never paid any particular attention to it. Now, as it sits serenely on the table in the alcove, it has become strangely precious to me. I am grateful for its presence.
Books to the Ceiling