Lessons from a neglected garden

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Lessons from a neglected garden

I haven't tended my garden this year. Spring came and went and because it was always raining, I didn't prune or weed or mulch. Summer followed spring, and the rain stopped, but still I didn't go in search of my gardening gloves.

A few weeks ago, only because we were having house guests, I grabbed my favorite spade, my trusty hoe, and some well-worn clippers and went to work hacking away at overgrown bushes and at a weed/vine tenacious thing that every year tries to strangle whatever else is in bloom. I yanked and pulled and…

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No point in wishing life away

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No point in wishing life away

Where did June go? And May? And why does February plod and March stall, while spring and summer fly by? It's July Fourth - the quintessential summer holiday - and I still have winter coats hanging in the front hall closet. I haven't planted any annuals yet. Or weeded my garden. My window boxes are empty. There's not a single flower on my deck. My marigolds are seeds in packages. The lawn furniture remains in the shed. And I haven't even begun to make a summer reading list.

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After other flowers fade, marigolds seen in a new light

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After other flowers fade, marigolds seen in a new light

They're intrepid little flowers, dancing in the snow, lovely things - these orange and yellow marigolds that I have disparaged my whole life. They are the last to leave the party, a sudden standout because they stand alone.

The violet charm clematis that grew tall and leggy behind them; the blood red dahlias that dazzled beside them; the pinks and the plums and the purples that swayed and sashayed their way through June, July, and August, outshining them every day - did not outlast them. They have all vanished now like Cinderella's coach and gown. The clock struck, and they withered…

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School shopping never grows old

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Chicago in 1830 was a military post and fur station where wolves prowled the streets at night and only 12 families lived. Just 30 years later, it had grown to a city of 100,000 and hosted the Republican National Convention.

I learned this the other day while listening to a book on tape, ``Team of Rivals'' by Doris Kearns Goodwin, which is really all about Abraham Lincoln, but became for me just one more affirmation that change is not endemic to now. Cities grow. Businesses fail. The sand we build our lives on is always shifting. That's life. Nothing stays the same and the world in which we grow up, the world we know, is never the world in which we grow old.

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Finding faith in the garden

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Finding faith in the garden

I am putting the garden to bed. Raking leaves. Cutting back shrubs. Pulling out yellow loosestrife. Trimming. Thinning. Transplanting. Digging up dahlias and drying them off and storing them in the cellar in paper bags. Emptying ceramic pots and lugging them to the cellar, too, so they don't crack in the cold. I am puttering and pruning and planting. Katherine, my friend across the street, finished all these things weeks ago. She has already planted red and yellow tulips for next spring. She has already fertilized her grass. She has even grown new grass…

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Hippity hoppity, feaster's on its way!

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Hippity hoppity, feaster's on its way!

I planted 200 tulips last Nov 14. I know this because I wrote it down in my gardening journal, a little book my family contends is proof that I am clearly obsessed. Who, over the age of 6, they ask, cuts out pictures of morning glory and columbine and saves the little stick-in-the ground plastic identifiers that come with potted plants? I try to explain, as I search for my glue stick and scissors, that at least what I cut and paste in my journal stays put. Look. See? Orange tulips tinged with yellow. Purple anemones. Baby coreopsis. Sapphire blue delphinium. This is what is supposed to be growing in my garden right now…

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How wistful our autumn years

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How wistful our autumn years

There's something about growing older that makes a person a little nutty about the seasons. It makes a person behave as if she's never before seen a tree turned all orange, or a pumpkin, or a garden transformed by mums. ``Hey, what do you know? It's fall, already. Hard to believe that summer is over. Where did it go?'' What child says these things? Or adolescent walking to school? ``Look at the way the sun lights up that yard. And the berries on that mountain ash. Wow.'' This does not happen. But adults? We're consumed by the changes a season brings…

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Lazy August days lie at heart of summer

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Lazy August days lie at heart of summer

Natalie Babbitt created this day. Not intentionally. And not really. She simply pointed out in her wonderful children's book ``Tuck Everlasting'' that ``the first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless and hot.''

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October's song needs composing

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October's song needs composing

We look too much to museums. The sun coming up in the morning is enough. - Ralph Ellison

Especially these mornings. You wonder why anyone hasn't written a song about them. October deserves music and lyrics, long sighs, and an emcee's "Ta da!" Pink dawns that bloom into sparkling white days. Clean, clear air with a chill that somehow warms. Deep shadows. Green lawns. Roses AND mums. It doesn't get any better.

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Spring replaces a winter rife with discontent

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Spring replaces a winter rife with discontent

The national threat level: from orange to yellow and back again. Twenty degrees one day, zero the next. Snow everywhere. And bad news. Month after month of it. Except for the miracle of Elizabeth Smart, it was all bad news. The winter was miserable. It was long and dark and hard and scary. And it refused to leave. But here we are on the other side of it. Most of us anyway. Those of us who didn't lose anyone to the winter or the war. For us, finally, the bad time is over. It's May and if it's a little cloudy and rainy, who cares?

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Bright side won't arrive until March marches on

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Bright side won't arrive until March marches on

I am trying to look at the bright side of things. Count my blessings. Give thanks for the moment and not wish the moment away. The bright side: This isn't the Yukon. The ice on the front walk has finally melted, making both the mailman and me happy. The days are getting longer, never mind that they're cold and gray and cheerless. And we are on the right side of the year. This is not, thank God, November…

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Just a Walk in the Woods

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I had no intention of walking her Tuesday. It was cold. It was snowing. And I hadn't walked her for months. My fault for not making time for her. "Not now, Molly. Not now," I said so often that Molly the Lab gave up on me. We walked every day at noon for so many years that I thought we would always walk. The clock in the front hall would chime and Molly would…

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Fun of August wanes as Ferris wheel ceases

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Fun of August wanes as Ferris wheel ceases

Every year, for many years, since I first read Natalie Babbitt's wonderful children's book "Tuck Everlasting" to my children who are now grown, I have celebrated Top of the Ferris Wheel Day. "The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning," Babbitt wrote. "The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn." The first week of August, she believed was magical.

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Baseball, robins, neighbors announce arrival of spring

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Baseball, robins, neighbors announce arrival of spring

It snowed Friday, horrid stuff, and it's a bit chilly today but tomorrow is the first day of spring. And I know it's on its way because Wednesday I saw my first sign: neighbor Al outside with his wheelbarrow, working away. Forget crocuses and robins. There he was, my very own harbinger, across the street in his bright yellow hat (a hard plastic thing he's had since he lived in Quincy, he once explained), light aqua jacket with a little pink trim, (very colorful), blue jeans and sneakers and work gloves, rake in one hand, shovel in the other, scooping up a winter's worth of dead leaves…

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Christmastide's yet to ebb

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Christmastide's yet to ebb

Two weeks until Valentine's Day and I still have my Christmas decorations up. We're not talking a few decorations, a snowman here and a poinsettia there. We are talking Christmas from head to toe, the creche, the garland, holly, wreaths, the lighted Christmas scene, the collection of Santas. We are talking cards still taped to the walls. Only the fa-la-las are missing.

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A light dusting of snow seems to bring out quite a few flakes

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A light dusting of snow seems to bring out quite a few flakes

God forbid that Conolrad alert is ever for real. Barely a dusting of snow, and civilization as we know it caved Thursday morning. The ground was hardly wet when traffic skidded to a stop. I think we've all gone soft. I counted four abandoned cars on a four-mile stretch of Interstate 95 before 9 a.m. You could see the white lines on the road, there was that little snow. And you could see for a mile. This was not a whiteout. This was snow, pretty white crystals falling from the sky, not fallout from a nuclear bomb.

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Last summer of the century is one for the record books

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Last summer of the century is one for the record books

I didn't hear the song a single time this summer, but it played in my head anyway, buzzing around like a pesky bee: "Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer." Nat King Cole's smooth-as-honey voice trailing me all the way through June, July and August. Most years summer never lives up to this song. This year the song didn't have a prayer of living up to summer.

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