Busy. And mad?

May 6, 2026

Busy. And mad?

I’ve been busy, very busy, very very very busy.

I’ve been busy pruning. I know it sounds arrogant, but I am very grateful for my ability to prune. I consider it an art form, equivalent to sculpting. I can see the “angel” in the shrub just as Michaelangelo saw the angel in the marble, and I am capable of removing material until that angel is released. I look at my red-twigged dogwoods, Cornus alba, the Tartarian Asian dogwood, and I see such beauty in their color and shape, now cleaned of dead wood and reduced to a reasonable and regular size. However, it took over two hours to achieve this beauty, and that is about the amount of time I allow myself each day in the garden. Is this then the best use of my time?

Ahead of me and still to do are the native dogwoods, the Physocarpus shrubs, and the golden Cotinus which has suddenly turned huge and ugly and will require a major reduction. This year all the shrubs seem to have leapt out of control and all need major reductions and shaping. Is this just because I have so little time to attend to them, or has the garden reached a certain age which could be called the out-of-control age? Luckily, I hired Ben to trim the Harry Lauder “Walking Stick” (Corylus avellana ‘Contorta’) because my skill was not up to the task of taking out a third of that shrub in a way that would not distort its amazing shape and habit.

I have been busy weeding. In my last letter I mentioned the despised bitter cress. It is still here and in abundance and requires removal before it goes to seed. While removing this weed in the garden underneath the bald cypress (Taxodium distichum), I discovered that the Cinquefoil, a form of Potentilla and so called because it has five leaves which distinguishes it from the alpine clumping three-leaved strawberry plant which I love, had taken over the area and to my eye had turned distinctly ugly. I began removing it. Am I mad? I have been trying to create green mulch, i.e. ground cover, in all my gardens. Here was a success but my designing eye could not abide it.

The spreading strawberry is also out of control. Last week Kevin and I spent a good part of our morning together getting the strawberry out of its neighbor, the Filipendula ulmaria ‘Aurea,’ a beautiful golden-foliaged ground cover that sets off the purple foliage of the dwarf Physocarpus behind it. We have severely reduced the strawberry’s territory and of course have committed ourselves to a regime of management. Do I really have the time and energy to devote to managing the spreading strawberry? It is also out of control in the front garden and will need management there. Am I mad? Should I not just leave and say I have been successful in creating a green mulch?

I can’t. In fact, it is my designing eye that is truly wearing me out. I can’t stop designing and re-designing my gardens. With a garden this old one would think I could just manage it by weeding and pruning. I, however, begin to manage any one of the numerous small gardens that make up my large garden and all I see is how it could be made better – by adding more plants, by moving plants around, and, yes, by buying new plants. I have made one trip to Gades and quickly spent my $100 gift certificate on two shrubs. The price of shrubs has skyrocketed this year for reasons that are not entirely clear to me, but I have committed to keeping myself on a tight leash as far as visiting nurseries. It is impossible for me to go to a nursery without buying plants. I simply cannot resist either the old and familiar or the new and special. And despite the fact that my garden is well-established it could always use more plants.

At Gades, I also bought some annuals, the tough kind like pansies and Coleus that can withstand the wild changes in temperature that we are experiencing this spring. I have a wee area outside the kitchen door that contains the Heuchera ‘Palace Purple,’ the bronze-leaved Carex and the flat green-leaved Carex, and some beautiful spring ephemerals. In this area I have planted 6 Coleus that play off the colors of the perennials. It is beautiful and pleases me every time I come in and out of the house. It is, however, not finished; it requires more plants and more re-arranging of plants already there in order for it to reach perfection. I am spending a great deal of time on this one little garden, a disproportionate amount of time considering the size of the garden I am responsible for. Is this also a form of madness – the devotion to getting one tiny area perfect while the rest of the garden drowns in weeds?

I am not completely mad, however. In anticipation of rain today, I wanted to transplant several plants to the patio garden to fill up various holes. I tried digging up one plant and quickly decided that I could not safely do that without injuring my back. I have outsourced several jobs this year – the pruning of the Harry Lauder, the edging of all my gardens, getting and placing stones and woodchips to cover paths. I rake almost entirely with the little hand rake sitting on the ground and getting in under the shrubs to clean out leaves that might keep the plant wet and thus susceptible to disease. I do not bend over. I do not carry water. If I need water, I move it on the dolly. In this respect I am being sane.

In other respects, however, I feel that I am busy being mad.