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Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Garden Ghosts

This is being such a weird winter, and our garden has been wretchedly neglected. Ooo, "garden" - false cognate, sort of. In German, "garten" also means "yard". And I guess if you mow it once a week and weed and prune once a year, it's a yard. Anyway, last October while I was in Port Townsend with Mom, and el Husband was here on his own with the kids, of course the annual fall pruning didn't get done. Apparently, Annoying Neighbor asked Mrs. Next Door if she would bug Robert about the pruning, and Mrs. Next Door was all, "Um, I'm sure that when Anna gets back from burying her MOTHER, who just, you know, DIED, they will attend to the shrubberies which so annoy you."

But we didn't, because not long after that, FLOOMP! A winter's worth of snow descended on us and it hasn't really gone away, ever. So all these plants that we usually trim down to about six inches (except the traffic-hazard lilacs) are still huge and looming and ratty and oh-so attractive. Especially the ones with all the dead leaves still attached. Suburban Living Magazine, here we come!

And then yesterday and today have been clear-as-a-bell and sunny and blue and even warmish, in a wintery way. And then around dusk the fog rises, the temperature drops sharply and all that fog goes gnkkkkk- onto every surface. And the giant looming spindly ratty shrubberies are frost-limned and ghostly and almost-beautiful. Except for the ones with the dead leaves. They're still kind of yucky.

3 comments:

Willow said...

Yeah, but they bug the neihbors. That, in and of itself, is a bonus. WHOOT!

Anonymous said...

Sounds like our garden... and you know, they never call it a yard in Britian.. it's always a garden. I think it sounds so much more... gentle and inviting.

Anonymous said...

Happy De-Lurking week - although I've never lurked here before I generally lurk. I live in the US and have lovely neighbors who let their immaculate yards do the guilt thing. They don't have to say anything - they just get out the brooms and sweep the streets! And no, they're not even related to a german! Oh well, the bushes might be good for some weird photographs? All the best.