When we were looking for our home years back, my husband walked in from work and told me about a house in a subdivision around the corner. We had not even looked in this area because the houses came at a high price. But he explained that this was an older home that would need to be remodeled, but he thought I would fall in love with the yard. Had it been anyone else the thought that a person would like this mess would have been comical.
The elderly couple who had built the home were going into assisted living because they could no longer keep up the massive yard with fruit trees, oak trees, garden rows, and flower beds. Because of this, two or three years of leaves coated the grounds. The clean up was almost as massive as remodeling the house. And he was absolutely correct. I fell in love with the property. Since then, taming this untamable yard has been both a challenge and a delight.
In the undertaking of reshaping and maintaining this yard, I have developed a love hate relationship with multiple vines. Nothing is ever going to look crisp and cut as long as vines wrap around shrubs, tree trunks and bird baths. And these seem to grow overnight. At the same time, nothing gives a lusher and more whimsical accent than Smilax or Honeysuckle weaving itself among the azalea blooms and camellia bushes.
The problem is, as beautiful as these vines may be, you cannot trim them back and put them in nice formation like boxwood or gardenias. And one quick yanking session will only seem to trigger their growth. I am certain vines grow like children in mad bursts as we sleep. One can pull and tug at this invasive greenery only for it to shoot out in another direction or come back two-fold.
I read an article on gardening with medicinal herbs and the lady wrote an old wives tale that claims what our bodies need to ingest grow closest to our home. She was talking about this strange cleaver vine that comes to life in early spring and loves living among the knock out roses and hydrangeas. She writes this makes a wonderful tea that can cure most ailments. As much as I love gardening, I still feel much safer sticking to my medicine cabinet.
So, in order to continue to work in my yard planting and weeding and designing, I have had to develop a keen eye to what vines may lurk beneath the lush greenery. My nemesis, the evil poison ivy, loves to camouflage herself with the Virginia creeper. For every ten leaf clusters of five there will pop out those three horns and one touch will cause a horrible rash that can last for weeks.
And once again I find the beauty in gardening with all the lessons Mother Nature brings our way. Like: We cannot tame the untamable. We can bend it, pull it, shape it to hold an elegance that maintains a firm stance of having a mind of its own. We can work the soil, plant fellow friends next to one another to attract a habitat to welcome wildlife. But the squirrels will still invade the birds, and the snakes will seek shelter along with the bright green frogs.
And among the beauty of blooming vines will creep the poisonous invaders. Ah, that Garden of Eden. She still whispers to us among the trimmed hedges.
