Fragrance in the Air

Stepping out the door this morning, I was immersed in the fragrance of spring.  Years ago I read the classic book The Fragrant Year, by Helen Van Pelt Wilson and Leonie Bell, and I've planted my gardens for fragrance ever since.  This is a lovely book, available at Amazon for very little, with line drawings by Leonie Bell that are exquisite. I take it down to reread with pleasure every so often, but today I find I don't need to actually see it to remember it, for in front of me are the Clematis armandii, the little daphne, the narcissus and daffodils, and the old purple flags of which Leonie Bell and Helen Van Pelt Wilson speak.

Kali and I head for the meadow, where my husband is burning the brush from the trees he has felled this winter.

First we admire the daffodils and narcissus, which grow in the grasses... (Last year I did not plant them in time, so just threw them out, with glorious results.)

They grow in our Mediterranean climate with little care, and seem to return faithfully.  A boon for a careless gardener like me.

The daffodil Sweetness just blooms and blooms, a sheet of deep yellow across from the planter box under the redwood, where Daphne collina has struggled on for 15 years or so, blooming each March and April.

The last plants Kali and I visit are in Peter Rabbit's garden, as yet to have its spring clean-up.  There we see  the old purple flags that continue to survive, and the Clematis armandii, almost past, which pumps out its delicious scent on the ambient air.

Blue and Gold

Euphorbia characius and rosemary

The weather has turned very warm all of a sudden, and things are coming into bloom at an amazing rate.  Early this morning I noticed a blue and gold combination, silhouetted against the Douglas firs and the redwoods of the forest.
Then, later, another blue and gold combination of a different scale caught my eye.  These little bulbs planted under our Meyer lemon tree bloom briefly but gloriously.

Iris bucharica, muscari

Little Bulbs

Plant what wants to grow...

My guess is that every gardener goes through developmental stages. First - the passion and wonder of every new plant discovery, and the absolute delight at the first bud. Planting everything in sight, in an orgy of enthusiasm. Later, the challenge of what to do with all that growth, inevitably more than you expected, and also what to do with all that decay, which follows as the night the day. Next perhaps is the question of where to put the things you've managed to bring along, and how to take care of them. Do you want disciplined order or flowery chaos? Once you get that more or less settled, a process which takes years, comes the challenge of how to shrink it all, as you realize you can't do everything you did before, say, 60. You are left wondering what a garden for your old age might be, and how to get there from here.

I've discovered at least a partial answer in Peter Thompson's book the self-sustaining garden. He writes about what he calls matrix planting, and says,

'The twin aims of matrix planting appear to be so simple I hesitate to write them down:

Encourage the plants you do want

Discourage the plants you do not want'

I've simplified this into my new personal mantra, 'Plant what wants to grow.' Of course some things want to grow TOO MUCH, and you have to restrain them, but overall if things want to grow you can put them with others that also want to grow, and have a relatively easy-care garden. In this Mediterranean climate that means mostly without much water in the summer. The plant order I just sent off to Big Dipper Farm includes oenothera, lavender, kniphofia, and an achillea (Paprika) which is a cultivar of our native achillea, which I hope will like it here. All of these things are supposed to be relatively drought-tolerant and rabbit-proof, although I suppose nothing is really completely out of the rabbit diet. These things are not for my (relatively) formal garden, Pan's Garden, but rather for banks and beds in the various lower gardens (Peter's Garden, the Path Garden.)

In the fall, this combination of euphorbia, rosemary, and pear tree blazes by the path to the pool, having had no water or care whatsoever.

My Rabbit Garden

I’ve spent the last three years in a state of ambivalence about rabbits. I started out loving them – something that perhaps could be called the Peter Rabbit syndrome. I even named one of my gardens Peter’s Garden, after Beatrix Potter’s bunny hero, and commissioned a wall sculpture of Peter in his little blue coat to hang by the gate. Stoneware rabbits graced the steps to the pool, the entrance to Peter’s Garden, and the deck. How cute!

Then, apparently invited by me, the real rabbits moved in. They ate everything they could reach, and standing on their hind legs they could reach a lot. Daylily leaves – down to the ground. Dahlias – forget it. Tomatoes, petunias, bergenias, all had their leaves not only nibbled but devoured. We sprang to alert and entered the rabbit wars. A new fence was put up, with a sklrt extending out on the ground so that the rabbits couldn’t burrow. Against all expert advice, they found a way to climb over. We sprayed noxious mixtures of all kinds. Hot pepper sprays, garlic infusions, and human as well as coyote urine apparently only added extra appeal. The dog took to a certain frenzied bark whenever she viewed one of the little dears through the glass, and we let her out in the garden to attack. She was too old and too slow to succeed, but she did manage to momentarily chase the invaders over the fence and out of the garden to their home under the water tank. I considered fencing in the space under the tank, but found I couldn’t face the idea of any creature dying of hunger and thirst by my hand, even though I felt no such qualms over a quick death by shotgun. Andy was a terrible shot, alas, and I’ve never shot a gun in my life.

So, what to do? Gradually the lower level of leaves in much of the garden disappeared. I did notice however that some plants were not affected. Clever rabbits apparently have learned over the centuries what plants are poisonous, so they do not eat hellebores and euphorbias, for example. They also don’t like very strongly scented herbs. Lavenders and rosemaries are safe. I’ve planted more and more safe plants. This has led to a certain sameness, which I prefer to call serenity, in the garden.

I’ve also discovered that if I can get young plants established and grown to a certain size, they are less appealing to rabbits. A biologist told me that the various chemicals and other esoteric substances in the stems and leaves develop as the plants mature, so rabbits like them less. I now have various strips of wire with which to surround my most prized young plants, hoping that within this armour they will grow so large that Peter won’t enjoy them.

Clearly I have lost the rabbit wars. To my surprise, I don’t seem to mind. The garden looks somewhat different, but not worse. Maybe it’s even better. I find the sight of the rabbits munching on the grass in early morning sort of engaging. And one event, glimpsed in May, actually makes me smile whenever I remember it. On my morning trek to let the dog out of the yard I looked over and saw two rabbits, right there in the middle of the lawn, going at it with enthusiasm. They were oblivious to me and the rest of the outside world, celebrating the joy of life and creation in the most fundamental way. My garden is the site of a rabbit honeymoon, I thought! How wonderful, the honeymoon garden! And ever since, I imagine swags of roses, Fragonard-like, and an aroma of love and laughter emanating from the space outside my door. First I loved the idea of rabbits, and then I hated the reality of them. Now I love them again. It’s true that rabbits can destroy in a minute, but I can prepare for that. It’s worth it for the delight that bubbles up in me, that gives me a warm glow whenever I think of the rabbits in my honeymoon garden.