Spring

This weekend, I hosted a reunion of sorts — removing tender bulbs out of storage and reintroducing them to the garden.

Newly planted elephant ears. They started to sprout while in storage.

Each fall, right before the first frost, I cut back my tender plants, dig them up, cure them, and place them in paper bags along with peat moss to cover. It’s actually a tough thing to do. The plants are still full of life. We’ve spent so much time together. And then I have to be the mean girl, decimating the friendship just when they thought they could trust me. Cold and heartless doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface.

Once hacked and packed, I carry them into the bomb shelter. My house was built in the ’60s, and behind a closet and under the front steps, there is a cement crawlspace, a bunker which we refer to as the bomb shelter. It’s cool and dry all winter, conditions that allow the tenders to go dormant.

My effort to trick nature and turn Long Island into a summer tropical paradise began several years ago when a friend gave me a brown paper bag with canna rhizomes. She said just keep them in the garage and plant them in the spring. That didn’t work. The garage was too cold and too damp, and when spring arrived, I had a bag of smelly and shriveled canna. Continue reading →

Now that we know each other, I feel it’s time for me to make a confession. I . . . Well, I did something I never did before. I contracted with a landscaper to do my spring clean up. Please, don’t judge me. I have my reasons.

I don’t have a large yard, but what I do have are lots of trees. And the property behind my house is not developed, so that means more trees. And the street where I live is actually a “T,” which means when the wind blows, all of the leaves from the intersecting block are deposited on my lawn. So my fall weekends are spent raking and bagging.

At this stage, I have a pretty good system. I use an old garbage can, put in a recyclable plastic bag, rake everything into a pile, knock the can onto its side, shove in the leaves, tie off the bag, carry it to the curb, and start all over again. I can do that 40 times each weekend.

Then, spring arrives, and it’s a cruel joke. After the snow melts, there are still more leaves to be raked. They blew into my yard all winter long when I wasn’t looking. My partner, Joe, is always after me to hire someone to rake up the yard. But I take my stand. I convince him, as well as myself, that I love to rake and clean the yard. Continue reading →