One of the fundamental joys of gardening is to build a new bed. Sometimes its creation is part of a long thought out process, often started in the depths of winter, other times an opportunity or inspiration that presents itself in a serendipitous manner. In either case the new bed becomes a joy to start and satisfaction to care for as shrubs grow, bulbs naturalize and ground covers spread. The child eventually becomes an adult and the level of care and satisfaction changes as it becomes a reliable old friend.
But sometimes old friends need to move on or at least take a vacation. As I mentioned in a prior post, some of our old friends are being pushed around and relocated to temporary housing because we are having a new septic system installed. We and our contractor had hoped that there would be minimal effect on our current gardens, but that was merely wishful thinking as once large machines enter your garden, they cannot but help trample on innocent hostas, bulbs and other plants that you have so carefully selected and put into place.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand why they have to make a mess. For instance, we needed to have two holding tanks installed that required a hole that was over 10 feet deep 6 foot wide and 27 feet in total length. That hole holds over 55 cubic yards of soil, which had to be placed somewhere (by the way I found out that our water table starts at 9 feet below the surface, which along with our clay-encrusted soil is why our gardens never dry out.) And because of where our septic lines and fields needed to go along with the nature of our soil, we will have over 250 yards of fill brought in to “even” things out and enhance our drainage. Just to give you an idea of how much soil 250 yards represents, think of a small house that measures 30-by-15-by-15 feet. That is the amount of soil, sand and fill that has been brought in.
Needless to say that fill needs to be placed somewhere and that somewhere has been on existing gardens that we thought would be untouched. There is just no room anywhere else. And as it turns out there is little that has been untouched in the areas adjacent to construction. So in last-minute flourishes we dig up hostas, move rocks, sort bulbs, remove fence posts and anything else that we can do to save what we have before a pile of dirt is dropped on top of it.
The physical nature of the work dampens some of the emotional impact of taking apart beds within hours that took years to cultivate. The stacking of rocks into a wheelbarrow to transport them to another location. The digging of soils to expose bulbs that are intertwined with roots of other plants. The transplanting of shrubs and perennials into shady, temporary spots. There is a slight solace from these activities as they force me now to divide plants and bulbs that should have been divided years ago.
But if I can get beyond the destruction there will be a good side when we approach the reconstruction. My wife reminded me that our circle garden was initially set up as a medicinal garden and as we were taking it apart we noticed many interlopers. We’ll fix that. And all the rocks (or Connecticut potatoes as my wife calls them) that have been dug up as part of the project will make fine additions to the rock walls we have been building. We can add and expand the garden bed in the front as the property will be better sloped and old run offs eliminated. I better order some more bulbs and a few shrubs. We could be running short.
