From the archive:
Joe Pye is the tall, handsome one in the back.
I tend to romanticize my garden during the winter. In February, looking out my window at the snow, icicles and gray, leafless trees, I dream of my Marion garden with its beautiful Dogwood, Peonies and faithful perennials. I picture myself in attractive garden apparel, basket in one hand and shears in the other, tripping along the walkways snipping day lilies that have passed their prime, occasionally interrupted by oohs and ahs from passersby.
That was then; this is now. It’s hot. It’s sticky. There are ticks carrying dangerous diseases. I have to dress in Hazmat attire just to pull up weeds. It gets worse. Despite all my precautions, one morning last week I found a tick nestled behind my left ear. Luckily, it was a Wood Tick, not a carrier of Lyme Disease, Babesiosis and worse. But forget about day lilies; it’s the weeding that never ends. Thanks to the humidity and frequent rainstorms, weeds run rampant in ways that prized blooms never will. I was once told that painting the Golden Gate Bridges is an endless job: start at one end, paint to the other, and by the time that’s done it’s time to circle back to the start and begin again. It’s the same with weeds. Two weeks ago the vegetable garden looked great when I had finished weeding. Today I went outside to see how the zucchini was coming along and could barely find it among all the weeds.
There’s more. It’s late July now and the flowers that have started blooming are the ones that herald the approaching winter. My favorite is Joe Pye Weed (Eupatorium purpureum). I don’t know who Joe was but I was drawn to his tall, dark and handsome lavender blossoms when we first moved to New England. Eventually I noticed that Joe Pye makes his appearance as summer is waning. I guess the garden is a metaphor for life: beauty is transient, it pays to be persistent, and sometimes the ones we like best–like Joe–arrive late to the party.
