Gardening Like a Demon

Last night I came in from the garden and said to Jeff, "I'm done weeding. It's starting to get dark."

He glanced at the window. "STARTING to get dark?", he said skeptically.

I looked and it was true. I had been gardening by streetlamp; it was close to ten o'clock. I guess the weeds were big enough that I could still see them.

I am working to get my garden in order before I leave it behind to fend for itself for almost a month. My friend Sherry will water it but I don't expect her to weed. Somebody once said: "Last year my garden was lush. This year I need a flame-thrower."
I feel a little bit like that right now.

Although the grass is starting to go crispy and a few of the more delicate things look heat-stressed, a lot of my plants are taking this hot weather as a cue to explode with jungle-like ferocity, leaping out into the pathways and strangling their neighbours with winding vines. Gone are the days when I beg friends and relatives for any plant they can spare. Now I must pick and choose carefully.

Nay, now must I hack away and pull up with both hands several types of overenthusiastic perennials which have been loosed in my garden! Wild geranium, pink mallow, lady's mantle, and foxglove must now be tamed somehow. I need to go medieval on them or they'll take over completely.

I think next spring I am going to have a big plant sale and with the proceeds I'm going to buy some colourful annuals or some late-summer perennials so that the garden has a little more zing to it. I have too many shades of green right now and not enough colour. And the colours there now are white and pale blues and pinks.(Not to mention all the brown gone-to-seed stalks of the foxgloves). I need some more yellows and oranges and reds.

I'm not planning any big trips next year(at least that's what I'm telling myself) so I'll have more time and money to devote to my garden.

Oh, and I've decided to give a name to the shady path down the side of the house where my honeysuckle and windflowers grow: it will be the Haunted Garden. It may not be strictly accurate anymore, but it earned the name June before last well enough and I think it might be nice to name parts of my yard and think of them as "garden rooms" as some say you should.

Any ideas for naming my property as a whole? I'd love to have a name for my house. Heh, you know, like "Tara" in 'Gone With the Wind' or the "Villa Villekulla" in the Pippi Longstocking books.