Frustrations

May 25, 2026

Frustrations

It’s time to talk about frustration.

On Friday, Kevin and I worked on the front gardens. At the end of the morning we went down to the back gardens to check on the work we had done three weeks ago and to map out our next Friday’s work.

Shock! The garden we had worked on so many weeks ago was a wilderness of weeds. Unsightly, overwhelming, even Kevin was taken aback.

“It was a good thing I listened to Sara and did not agree to put my garden on this year’s Bethlehem Garden Tour,” I said to Kevin. “If I had, the only salvation would have been to put up a sign saying this is what happens when an old gardener is left to maintain a garden her much younger self built.”

“That could have been quite educational,” Kevin replied in his always kind way.

Never mind, I thought. I will have all day Sunday to work on getting this sea of weeds under control. And I will have Monday morning as well. I had deliberately kept these times free of other invitations and obligations. So imagine my frustration when I learned that it would rain all day Sunday and most of Monday, wiping out entirely my opportunity to get on top of things. I must admit I burst into tears upon being told this fact.

The weather this spring has been incredibly frustrating. I can no longer dig because it will further damage my already much compromised back. This means that, unlike previous seasons, when I know rain is coming I am unable to take advantage of that knowledge to transplant. I have to wait for my Friday mornings with Kevin to do that work. On a recent Friday morning, we engaged in a major session of transplanting. We did not water the transplants because we expected rain in the afternoon. The rain never came and the next day the weather turned brutally hot, the kind of hot that withers transplants that have not been watered in and even those that have.

I needed to water. I am not allowed to carry buckets of water. Carrying buckets of water during previous droughts damaged my back and landed me in my current compromised state. I had to ask Sara to water. I had to ask Emma, the lovely young woman in my neighborhood who occasionally is free to help me, to water. I could not use her time as planned to tackle the weeds because the transplants were frying.

This year requires a considerable amount of transplanting. Last year I had to have my beautiful Heptacodium taken down -- it had a terrible case of canker and was half dead. In its place I planted a young Cornus mas. This tree has nothing like the leaf cover that the Heptacodium had. Not only are there far fewer leaves; the leaves are neither large or thick. Given this sparse covering, a beautiful shade garden has turned into a sun garden.

Meanwhile, in a different part of the garden a wee specimen cherry tree intended to remain wee has become quite large, turning a sun garden into a shade garden. Obviously, the sun plants should be transferred to the new sun garden, and the shade plants should be transferred to the new shade garden. Kevin and I have not attempted to address this issue, nor have we attempted to supply to the weedy garden the plants that would cover the ground there. There have other tasks that have required our attention.

One of these tasks has been trying to control the spreading strawberry (Fragaria virginiana) I put in to create a weed proof ground cover in the area underneath the crabapple. It has answered the call in spades. It has answered the call to the extent that it has become a thug, overwhelming anything near it. It has had to be controlled. Kevin and I have spent considerable time getting it out of its neighbors. We are currently in the process of deciding whether to remove it entirely or seek to set boundaries that we will need to regularly patrol

My situation with the spreading strawberry reminds me of a relationship gone bad. When I first met this plant, I was in love. Here was a plant guaranteed to spread, guaranteed to form an impenetrable weed proof mass, and guaranteed to be great for pollinators. One podcast I listened to told me that if I wanted to do just one thing to help restore the native habitat I should plant this strawberry. I thought I had found a winner. Now I must either break up completely or set rigorous boundaries that will need to be constantly policed.

Perhaps one of my greatest frustrations lies in the fact that with such a large garden to manage I do not have much time for anything else. I spent this past rainy Sunday just catching up on the mountain of paperwork that I have been unable to attend to because of my need to weed. I think of myself now as a professional weeder. It is the one garden chore I can still do without danger to my back, and so I do this work at home and in the gardens maintained by the Master Gardeners.

I know I need more help. Emma is a delight and I love teaching her about how to garden – for example, how to recognize the difference between the useful clumping strawberry and the problematic spreading strawberry – but Emma is busy starting her own life as a young entrepreneur and has only limited time available. I have a lead on a person who might be able to give me more time on a more consistent basis and I will definitely check in with her. But what I most need is a seasoned gardener to whom I can give instructions without the need to demonstrate and supervise. Until I find such a person I will probably remain frustrated.

Let me conclude, however, on a more positive note. Though I have made a couple of bad decisions this season, due to too much to think about and the need to work fast, I have not been disappointed in my capacity to continue to design my gardens. I do this, of course, by removals and additions. Two of the gardens in front of the house are close to reaching that state of fullness and stasis that is my goal. No bare ground can be seen; the plants have equal vigor so no one plant is taking over; and the colors, textures, and habits of the different plants work well together to provide a pleasing effect.

I pass by one of these gardens every day as I go in and out of the house. It calms me down.