Elimination

Sometimes too much is, well, too much.

Louise and her friend Lori came over to my garden expressly to rape and pillage, but only in the friendliest of ways. Lori recently lost her garden to a divorce and I am all about helping women to get their gardening mojo back after something as undesirable as a divorce and all of the financial set backs that go with them.

So I let go of a lot of day lilies, silver king artemesia, catmint, campmanula glomerata (clustered bell flower to those who flunked Latin), Egyptian onion, echinacea, my beloved Coronation Gold yarrow and on and on. Although Lori drew the line at hosta.... "I like everything but hosta" which sounded suspiciously like Tigger announcing that Tiggers like everything but thistle.

Where I am going with this is that I am always so selfish about my plants. I have a hard time digging, dividing and then giving away. Just ask my boyfriend. I won't even let him cut flowers from the garden. But after letting go of some of my plants I was surprised that my garden didn't look denuded. As a matter of fact, It looked refreshed and even under control.

I took the hint so the next day I moved a few ladies mantle and hostas from the front of the house to a new garden, ripped out some egyptian onions that were in the wrong place. It felt less packed in and the individual plants were allowed to shine.

So many gardeners fall in love with this plant and that plant and cease to see how they work together. Plants are stuffed in where ever the fit. I am slowly creating swathes of certain plants to make a larger visual display- meant to be seen from the distances that my yard offers. It means eliminating things that don't live up to their promise or don't look good or just look too meager. It is a lesson I occasionally brush up against in the rest of my life too.

In the words of a Scottish museum guard to me after I elbowed my way to front of a line (unknowingly)- "Bash on, lassie. Bash on." And don't forget to let go.