A few weeks ago I was looking forward to the lilac tree in my front yard bursting into color as Spring took hold. I didn’t expect the blooms to be as abundant and as vivid as they were a few Springs ago when it looked like this:
After that magnificent show, the tree hadn’t been pruned back and so last year’s bloom was rather disappointing, and this year, since another year had gone by without the required pruning, all that old growth and little new growth wouldn’t produce a lot of flowers.
The front lawn had turned into a nice field of very healthy dandelions that no amount of uprooting could control, so I called in a gardener to replace the lawn. That would also be a good opportunity to finally get the lilac tree pruned, I thought, although it would mean few lilac flowers this Spring.
My gardening competence ranks about the same as my competence in the kitchen, where it hardly rises above that of unskilled dishwasher, so I asked the gardener to trim off a few of the tips of the branches of the lilac tree. Of course that would have been futile, and my spouse, who is a proponent of severe pruning, gave him other instructions.
This is not the first time my spouse and a gardener of similar persuasion have colluded against me. At a former house, she and the gardener had arranged to prune a little tree in the front yard that I liked, resulting in my coming home to a skeleton of stubby bare branches of what had been a nice bushy tree. Of course I ranted, but I was chastened when the following Spring that skeleton had bloomed into an even lovelier tree than the one I had liked and it continued to thrive until the next pruning, thriving on that one too. And so it went until today it is a very respectable tree. If you look closely enough you can even see it in a Google Earth satellite picture!
My faith and hope were severely challenged last weekend when at first I saw no sign of my lilac after the gardener had left. Some desperate scanning revealed that it was now no taller than the hedge next to it and its few spare branches blended into the surroundings: the electric light pole, the cable supporting the pole, the hedge and the dead and dying shrubs next door.
Gone were the few buds that might have blossomed into flowers. There will be no lilacs at all this Spring in my front yard. My spouse and the gardener assure me there are going to be a lot of them next Spring. They are going to have to put that in writing.
6 comments:
Louis, a rather sad narrative of the happening in the real world and the way we interact with our other half. I too do not like pruning trees but my spouse would do it and I just kept quiet so as not to start a war. At this age wisdom has taken over our thinking, so it is alright to compromised to save the peace.
Well, my Bougainvillea is still blooming comes rains or shines but every morning I had to rake the dead leaves and flowers to keep the ground clean. It has been a ritual ever since but we cannot just enjoy without working for it. In a way nothing is free in this wonderful world of ours.
It look you do not have spring this year and the season just jump to Summer. Well, it look like our world has changed a lot. Yesterday and today the whole of Europe is a No Fly Zone because of mother nature fury; the volcanic ashes. And that affect the flying folks at this part of the world too.
Well, Louis life is like that, so just enjoy what we have got and whatever nature had to offer. Have a nice day.
Hello Pak Idrus,
Yes, I have learned that in domestic matters, "discretion is the better part of valor", and I have learned the value of compromise, although as time goes by it seems more a matter of unconditional and abject capitulation rather than compromise:)
In Seattle Summer still seems a long way off. The longer days, the sunny skies are there but you still need to wear warm clothes outdoors and use heating indoors. Within a single day the weather is liable to oscillate between Winter and Spring, sometimes several times in one day.
hello louis,
Probably it's the global warming issue. The effect seems everywhere nowadays.
Maybe it need more time to produce the flowers due to the inconsistent weather. Anyway Enjoy your gardening activites at least it keep you fit ....(looking at the bright side)
RIZAL
Hi Rizal,
Thanks for your comment.
The culprit here was really me: my lack of basic gardening knowledge and putting off the pruning that would have resulted in lilacs this Spring.
In this climate Nature is less forgiving than in the Tropics. There are certain tasks in the garden that have to be done seasonally or else plants don't flower or produce fruit as they should. In the Tropics Nature doesn't seem to make such inflexible demands.
I'm sorry but I couldn't help laughing at your dandelion farm, Louis! Now that it is the rainy season again, I am cultivating a very healthy snail farm over here. And my dogs live with my parents, so they have a Hole Garden!
What a pity we won't be able to see your lilacs this year, Louis. I don't like to see bare stubby branches either but I guess they are the price we have to pay for the blooms.
Hello CO'78,
I hope that by this time all or most of your post-dental surgery discomfort will have disappeared.
After I had eliminated my dandelion "farm", I discovered that dandelion greens, raw, provide more Vitamin K per cup than cooked broccoli or Brussels sprouts or cabbage or lettuce. Seems i missed out on a good opportunity to harvest them for cash. Until then all I knew about dandelions as a food was dandelion wine, which gave me one of my worst hangovers ever, a long time ago.
After trying most remedies in vain on hordes of snails in our California yard, I found that feeding them beer is more effective than any other form of attack. It was painful to share some of mine with them but it worked fine. Incidentally, how's the market for escargots in KL's gourmet scene?
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