Planting Weekend

In this house, it is the unofficial start of summer

The bed of impatiens is the foreground of our kitchen window view. Here in full summer bloom.

Summer can now begin. On the weekend before Memorial Day we performed the annual ritual. It was a cold spring and here in Western New York most folks wait until the end of May to avoid the risk of frost, but we try it as early as possible. It is a full weekend of putting flowers in dozens of pots and in the ground, adding the color that will be with us all summer. Planting involves multi-day sessions of hands in the dirt. This is one of those times of the year when you really feel the rhythm of the seasons—feel it our aching muscles and smell it in our filthy clothes.

We have created a beautiful monster. Now, at least a half hour of watering will start each morning for the next three to four months. A rainy day will give periodic relief, but I must be sure to protect our investment. I will have the little boys we take care of three days a week help with the process, but their contributions are superficial and they end up getting soaked. Sitting back in my Adirondack chair on a mid-summer day, with a cool drink, listening to a baseball game and tracking the birds, it will all be worth it.

If we plan well, days before the third Friday in May, we will divide and conquer. My wife will go to multiple nurseries for the first round of floral purchases and I will head to Home Depot for the first truckload of dirt. We have a large yard, so we do it up big. Otherwise, a flower pot will look like a postage stamp in our large yard. Hundreds of dollars in seedlings, hanging pots, truckloads of dirt, potting soil, and mulch will set us up for the weekend. I never properly estimate how much potting soil I need. I actually doubled my estimate this year and still ran short. My truck bed was overflowing with over fifty bags of soil and mulch for the first run. This is one of the key times of the year that justify my truck’s existence by having it do truck things.

Dirt ready to go. No way I have enough.

Memorial Day weekend may be the biggest time of the year for nurseries, yet we are always planting a week earlier than that because it takes time to get plants established. We want the beds to look full by the Fourth of July. Experience shows that nurseries are mob scenes on Memorial Day weekend. The best that the garden centers have to offer are picked over if you wait until the end of May. Lines at Home Depot to get soil can be an hour long on any Saturday in May. It was good to know that the benefits of retirement allow me to show up on a weekday morning with nary a cue.

All of this still happens now even in the time since I abandoned the vegetable garden that I had for years. The wildlife has destroyed my attempts to grow food, yet they have largely left our flower gardens alone. So our gardening energies are spent entirely on the floral, with hope that the fauna will stay away. Some areas will be sprayed with deer repellent that is made with rotted eggs and capsaicin. That works—most of the time.

Impatiens in mid summer under the big tree. The deer tend to leave them alone if we apply hot pepper spray.

My wife is the master planter with the artistic eye. She designs the displays. My job is to carry out the empty pots, lift bags of dirt, fill the pots with soil, put the heavy pots where they need to go, clean up the mess, and water, water, water. On the day after I unloaded the truck from all those bags of dirt, I was wondering why I was so sore. The answer is clear. I am not in gardening shape.

My wife has the artistic eye to curate all the porch pots. I am just the grunt labor and pot hauler.

Choosing the porch hanging pots is a very deliberate process for my planting partner. We finally got the senior citizen discount this year.

It takes multiple trips to nurseries to find what we need to fill dozens of pots and flower beds. Then it will be back again to “fill in the holes.” There is much to do to add color to our large yard and old Queen Anne farmhouse. We know now with experience what we want where. The troughs of pansies by the garage. The pots with certain flowers that have an annual home on each porch. The urns that guard the garage. The massive tubs of coleus that mark our sidewalk entrance. The multiple pots that welcome visitors at each of our entryways. The railroad tie bed of sun impatiens that frame our kitchen window view of the creek. The bed of perennial black-eyed susans that line our garage and need weeding each year. The pot with the citronella plant to ward off mosquitos from our side deck. The pots that decorate the base of the large maple tree near our Adirondack chairs. The giant painted pot that my adult children gave me for Christmas last year, imprinted by their stained hands like they did when they were kids playing with finger paints. All of this will look like specks in the large yard as we wait for everything to grow and fill in. That is why we start so early.

The black-eyed susans by the barn will be in full bloom by August

The garage urns and pansy troths are usually in full bloom by July

This pot was a Christmas present last year from my adult children and their significant others. All six got together at Thanksgiving to be kids with finger paints. The caption says, “We have green thumbs. Grind out some wicked gardening.” We filled it with herbs and a lone geranium.

In reality, the work will never be done. There is always watering, weeding, beds to repair, dead-heading, reapplying deer repellent, and watering. Don’t worry though, there will be plenty of lounging. Actually out of necessity. The old knees only let me crisscross the yard so many times before I am forced to rest. I’ll have an iced tea if I am going back to work, but if I have a beer I will be done for the day. We will be able to enjoy the fruits of our labors for months, though. Lots of leisure will follow planting weekend.