The caladiums are running right on time
The caladiums are running right on time
And maybe so am I
Is it too late to buy my young adult novel, FAIR GAME? No, of course not. Anytime is a good time to buy one of my books. Also, read to the end for a list of upcoming book events.
I am not a particularly organized gardener. I’ve tried to be. I’ve designated more than one notebook as my garden notebook and made detailed sketches of each perennial bed. Then I never looked at the notebooks again. I’ve also tried taking pictures to help remind myself where I planted things and then put them in an album labeled GARDEN, which each spring, I forget exists.
All of this is to explain how it was that in the spring, I bought many caladiums, believing that was what I’d filled the pots around our backyard pavilion with last year to great success. It was only as I watched every single caladium wither and die by late May that I realized it was coleus, not caladiums, that had done so well (is it me, or are there a preponderance of plants that start with C, making life as a gardener more confusing that necessary? Caladium, coleus, coreopsis, chrysanthemums, calendula, clematis…). Caladium is the plant I have bought enthusiastically year after year and routinely killed.
So I started again, as one does, filling the pots with coleus (not caladium) and salvia and some canna lilies (another C-plant) for the height and foliage.1 I was haphazard in removing the dead caladium, because I am also a haphazard gardener. I let volunteer plants go all the time just to see what they’ll do. Will that vine turn out to be an actual butternut squash or some weird squash Frankenstein hybrid? The suspense is thrilling.
At some point in July, noticed a few tiny little caladium leaves, poking through the coleus, but it was fifty-fifty whether anything would come of it, given my track record. The leaves were small and hesitant, still not sure all in all they wanted to live.
Then we packed up at the end of July for a long meander down to Tybee Island, followed by a week on the beach and a shorter meander back home.2 We were gone about ten days total. Ten days in August. And it rained. Also, our garden is always on the verge of being taken over by at least seven different varieties of vine. Given all these variables, you can imagine what the garden looked like when we got home.
For the first few days after our return, I mostly tried not to look. I went outside to pick cherry tomatoes (a vine thoughtful enough to give you delicious snacks while taking over your garden) and averted my eyes from the rest of it. You didn’t conserve enough energy for August, I thought to myself. The gardening season in southern Indiana is long, after all. A true endurance sport.
Then yesterday, I reminded myself that I don’t have to conquer the garden all at once. In an hour, I can weed the front bed and uncover the cilantro I planted back in July that actually came up this year.3 I have quite a bit of shame around gardening which gets in the way of just going out and doing the thing. I feel like I have failed as a human if I allow the weeds to win. Maybe it’s just me who was raised to believe that the people who let their grass grow too long were not just too busy or not terribly invested in their yards, but HORRIBLE PEOPLE who were letting themselves and everyone in their community down, terribly. Shame, shame, shame.
Ever so gently, I reminded myself that I had, in fact, been gone for ten days. In August. Of course the garden went wild. I am not a HORRIBLE PERSON.
Yesterday I weeded the front bed (of course you start with the bed in front of your house because if your very visible and public landscaping is weed-filled, you are a HORRIBLE PERSON). Then I cleared the weeds from the cilantro and the tomatillos I decided to try this year in our raised beds. I took stock of the status all the pots around our backyard pavilion and that was when I saw the caladium.
I may have given up on the caladium, but the caladium had not given up on itself. In both pots, it was standing toe-to-toe with the coleus and the canna lily, with its big, gorgeous, tropical leaves. In mid-August, when I had just about given up on the garden altogether, the caladium was just hitting its stride.
One of my favorite musicians, Parker Millsap, has a song on his new album, Wilderness Within You, called, “Running On Time.” It’s a beautiful tune about realizing that everything is, in fact, running on time. Running on time in the sense that it’s on schedule but also, yes, fueled by time. The earth. The sun. The seasons. The caladium in my garden. The vines. Me. All of us are running on time. Doing exactly what we need exactly when it needs to be done. And sometimes, doing nothing at all.
Heaven and Earth haven’t always been here
Even the dirt’s gotta go to it’s grave
I can’t lose or win here
I know what’s coming one day
So while my time is spent here
I’ll cherish the love that wanders my way
Cause it’s running on time
Running on time
From “Running On Time” by Parker Millsap
The lesson of the caladium was exactly what I needed right now, standing at a weird crossroads in my writing life. I needed to realize that even if things aren’t unfolding the way I hoped they would, that doesn’t mean they aren’t unfolding the way they should. Maybe I didn’t get what I want because the universe has something else in mind for me. Maybe like the caladium, I’m just taking my time to hit my stride.
Lots of book events coming up next week. If you’re in Madison, Indianapolis or Cincinnati, come see me! It’s so exciting to get to actually talk to people about your book.
·Tuesday, August 15, 5:30 - 6:15, Madison Public Library. Girls vs. Boys: Exploring Gender and Athletic Performance. Follow-up reception and book signing at Red Roaster.
Wednesday, August 16, 7:30-9:00, Tomorrow Bookstore. Free but you need to reserve a spot ahead of time.
Monday, August 21, 7:00, Joseph-Beth Booksellers-Rookwood. Cincinnati.
Saturday, September 16, Village Lights Bookstore (more details to come).
Saturday, October 21, Kentucky Book Festival, Joseph-Beth Booksellers-Lexington.
Friday November 10th and Saturday November 11th, Louisville Book Festival, Kentucky International Convention Center
When the canna lily did bloom, my husband was surprised and delighted enough to take a picture and text it to me. “Did you know that was going to happen?” he asked. Well, I knew it was possible, but also not the point of the canna lily in that particular place.
I am a big proponent of the meander. First, because being in a car for over 10 hours straight is not particularly kind to my body at this age. Second, because there’s nothing more delightful than getting out of the car, checking into a nice hotel downtown in a city, having an afternoon cocktail and then a delicious meal. Afterward, maybe taking a stroll around the city to check it out. I am a big fan and we had some amazing meals in Knoxville (you must go to J.C. Holdway), Columbia, South Carolina, and Asheville (of course).
One of my biggest frustrations as a gardener is my continuing inability to have both robust supplies of cilantro and tomatoes at the same time. The cilantro goes like gangbusters in the spring and then fails miserably by July, just as the tomatoes begin. It is an eternal mystery and I have tried every method and if anyone knows the secret, please share.
How lovely for you to get this surprise, and I almost forgot what it was like to live in a place with adequate rainfall after living 50 years in the southwest. Neither my husband nor I like to garden, and now age has meant even ten minutes spent weeding means a couple of days of aching muscles and pissed-off joints. Fortunately, our shared motto is whichever plants are willing to survive our neglect get to stay. That means one lone rose bush, lots of jade plants and lavender, and a bank of geraniums that were there when we moved in 30 years ago. Since then, some pitiful store bought thyme and rosemary we plunked into the ground have created huge bushes, and the square of lawn we water for 10 minutes 3 times a week is its usual brown, while an upper back yard is where gophers and weeds frolic.
However, this summer, from shame over the front yard which, after an extraordinarily wet winter, sprouted knee high weeds, making us the one terrible, horrible people in our nicely manicured neighborhood, we finally decided to do our bit and paid to have the front landscaped. We now have a a planter that is half those jade and lavender survivors with the rest succulents, and a front yard of sun baked rocks that with our one tree- an olive tree--feels very Greek to me. All very good for preserving water in what is really a desert climate getting hotter with each year. And it is my hope that except for an occasional water of the succulents in the planter in the front, I will never have to garden again, but I will not feel shame every time I go out and enjoy the neighbors yards in my daily walks!
I'm lucky to live in Portland, Oregon where most people don't care if you have weeds in your yard and garden. (Some do, of course, and there are still places with neat and tidy lawns.) Many of us are aiming for Backyard Habitat certification (me included), which means growing plants native to this area. Along the way I've learned that many "weeds" are actually medicinal herbs. Also that dandelions are important to leave growing in spring as they are the primary food source for our pollinators. I'm no longer interested in a neat and tidy garden; I'm interested in meadows and woodlands. (My yard looks a bit of a mess, and still I am proud of it.)