January 7
I made a big mistake. Those Christmas trees have to go! They may look lovely, but they are acting like a snow fence, a snow fence that is perfectly positioned to ensure my driveway is filled with snow every time the wind is from the west, and when the wind is from the east, it fills my neighbour’s. It must have been switching overnight because they’re both filled in this morning. I’ve had to spend all day clearing them and now I’m exhausted. 

I tried to pull out the trees but they’re frozen solid, so there’s only one thing for it—the chainsaw. Except chainsaws frighten me. Last time I used a chainsaw was when I cut a new window into the shed and shortened the handle on my rake. I didn’t mean to shorten the handle. I didn’t mean to make the new window, either. I was cutting down an old lilac at the time and, well, one thing led to another. 

January 8
I don’t think I’ll be cutting down any trees for a while. After yesterday’s big snowstorm, I can’t see them anymore, and I’m not in the mood to go looking for them, either. It’s wild out there. However, I did nip out this morning to pick up more potting soil, although I wish I hadn’t. My local garden centre had closed early, and I made the mistake of driving out to Bert’s Shrub n Grub (he sells burgers and fries at his nursery).

I bought six bags of potting soil from Bert, but when I tried to drive away the car lost traction on a patch of ice and I had to empty two of them under the wheels to get me moving again. Seeing as it was Bert’s parking lot I was stuck in, I naturally went back in the store and asked for a refund. He not only refused; he realized what was happening outside and doubled the price, and what with so many cars spinning their wheels he was soon raking in the cash. Come spring he’ll be raking in the potting soil, re-bagging it, and selling it back to his customers as planter mix.

I wasn’t going to pay his inflated prices, so I left, but before I made it across the parking lot the car got stuck again and I had to empty another bag. It took me another to get out onto the street, and then on the way home I got stuck once more and had to use up the rest. I finally slid into my driveway with enough potting soil left to start a pair of petunias. Dirt-cheap—Huh!

January 13
I feel I’m in need of some kind of winter distraction, so today I’m planning to buy more seeds. However, before I go to the store, I must prepare carefully and make up a list of all the plants I’ve been lusting after. I also have to settle on a fixed amount to spend, although I know from experience it will be only a small percentage of what I actually spend.

I go through this every year and, as usual, when I get to the store the seeds I want aren’t on the shelf, and instead I come home laden with stuff that will germinate prolifically and put a strain on my plant room’s resources.

And of course, I will discover an overpriced packet of something rare and exotic that I can’t resist buying, a packet that contains just one viable seed in a thousand that I’ll have to pamper like the last emperor until the end of summer. That happened last year, and on the day when it finally bloomed the neighbour’s cat showed up to anoint it.

January 14
As the tattered remnants of three seasons are calmed by the first snowfall, stillness comes to the garden. No shocks of colour craving attention, no heroic blossoms competing for glory. The battle is over. The veil of green is now a shroud of white as shrubs and trees are gently sculpted into ghostly memories. Peace falls silently as the garden rests.

And the mad gardener rests too—at least until the snowplough returns. It’s snowed so much that all I can see in the backyard is the top of the rusty swing-set and the big hump of the compost pile. I hope Shirl calls soon.

January 22
Meanwhile, back in my plant room, I’ve been having a little problem with fungus gnats. I don’t know how they got past security but they’re here. They’re those little critters that look like fruit flies. They hang around houseplants, fly around a bit, then lay eggs in the soil. They enjoy a simple life, but I find the flying around bit most annoying, and the larvae can damage the roots of plants. Everyone complains about fungus gnats, but nothing seems to kill them—nothing but highly toxic petro-chemical industry by-products.

In the past I’ve tried everything, including the microwave, to get rid of them, (worked, but it made the leaves crisp). This time I’m going to try my old pal Henry’s sure-fire method to zap the larvae—and I do mean zap! You take a battery—a car battery if you like to be extreme—a set of jumper cables, and a pair of steel meat probes. You attach the cables to the battery terminals, the other ends to the probes, yell “CLEAR” (just like on E.R.), and then plunge the probes into the soil.

Apparently, this is supposed to fry the larvae nicely. I haven’t tried it yet, although Henry swears it works. But since he says it’s a sure-fire method, I think I’ll have an extinguisher handy. I don’t want any emergencies causing panic among my crops.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Don’t use anything that plugs into the wall, or anything connected to a generator. In fact, don’t even try this or you may wind up in an emergency room. But if you see this in the classifieds of your favourite garden magazine, or on a late night infommercial, remember, you saw it here first.

January 25
Last night I had a dream. No, not a dream about spring (I’m always dreaming of spring; day and night I dream of spring), I dreamed about compost. It doesn’t surprise me since I frequently think about compost—even in winter. This should indicate that I am truly a committed (as in dedicated) gardener. Who else would dream of compost? Okay, worms might.

Freud would most likely have interpreted my compost dream as an archetypal death symbol—wooooh, and he may have been right, knowing that everything becomes compost eventually—except for the spirit bits. 

Compost is a natural process. Sure, it is a repository of death, and yet it is the source of all life. It is a point on the eternal wheel. It is the place of transition where the cycle begins. In the beginning there was compost. Then there was life. Then there were gardeners (you know the story). Then there was a compost pail . . . a full compost pail . . . a pail that dear Mrs. Dibble has been quietly reminding me, for the past three days, to empty on the compost heap. Now I know why I dreamed of compost. Excuse me . . .

January 26
I timed that pail perfectly. I dumped it on the compost heap and it snowed immediately, which is just as well. There’s nothing wrong with orange peel, red cabbage, limp lettuce, and a ton of coffee grounds exposed on a snowy white background. It could be considered artsy in some circles—it has a sort of Jackson Pollock look to it—but it can disturb the neighbours enough that they’ll call the bylaw enforcement hotline (philistines!).

I do prefer to bury kitchen scraps, but at this time of year it’s kinda hard getting through the permafrost. Composting by burial is wonderful. I call it worm fodder; worms love it. It vanishes so quickly they must go at it like starving pigs. Of course, my worms are likely on the hyper side due to all the coffee grounds. I wonder if they developed headaches like I did when I tried to quit.

January 27
I guess it didn’t snow fast enough. An attractive woman in uniform dropped by yesterday afternoon—Ms. Kimble, the bylaw enforcement officer. She wanted to discuss my compost heap with me. She was very nice. I could see she was new at the job (compost control) because she seemed a little agitated. I asked her in and offered her a cup of herbal tea—the calming one. I drink a lot of it when I can’t get out in the garden.

As we sipped away we chatted about my compost problem. She gave me some leaflets and suggested I might try Vermi-composting during the winter (I still don’t understand why it isn’t called wormi). That way, she said, I won’t disturb the neighbours. I told her they were already disturbed. She agreed, and added that enforcing by-laws means she only gets to meet disagreeable people. She said she much preferred her previous job as a greeter at the municipal cemetery. She said people there were far more sensitive, and the flowers were lovely, of course.

I sympathised, and after a few cups of tea (it is a good tea) Ms. Kimble and I were getting along just fine. When she left she was amazingly relaxed and promised to drop by next week with a bag of worms. I can hardly wait.

January 28
Freezing rain is in the forecast for today. Freezing rain, if it isn’t excessive, is my favourite winter garden effect; too much and it’s a disaster. It can bring down power lines, destroy whole forests, and put half the posties in town in hospital.

But just a little coating on trees and shrubs—magic. I can stare at it for hours. I actually did that one morning when I went out to take a closer look at a tree after waking to a particularly impressive display.

I set one foot on the sidewalk, then with a whoosh and an aaaaaaaaarrrg, I made it down the front yard to my tree in .003 seconds. There I lay, gazing up at the glorious effect created by the ice that clung to the twigs and branches above me.

I was still lying there when I heard another whoosh and another aaaaaaarg and the postie joined me. “See that one small branch on the left,” I said. “It looks like an angel in ice.” 
“Yes,” she replied, “it’s lovely, but you really should spread a little sand on your sidewalk, you know—here’s your mail.”

January 30
Although it’s snowing again, the days are lengthening and the average mean temperature is beginning to rise. I find these mundane statistics comforting. Soon, spring will come slowly into focus, sharpened by green life full of latent glory and promise of that day in summer when I’ll pause in wonder and reflect on the beauty that now lies dormant.

I’m trying, I’m trying, but that date still reads JANUARY, and despite what the groundhog predicts I still have ten more weeks ahead of me. I’m tired of reading garden magazines and highlighting items for potential purchase as though I were stinking rich. I have nearly seventy thousand dollars worth marked so far. 

It wouldn’t be so bad if there weren’t so much stuff advertised; it sure outweighs the actual gardening content, and a lot of it is only vaguely horticultural. It’s either no real use to me or far too large for my yard—like the cedar tool shed with the built in hot tub and optional bar. I guess I’ll have to go through again using a different coloured marker—and stay clear of the classifieds.

January 31
With a burst of enthusiasm, I shovelled my way into the shed this afternoon to do an inventory of my tools in preparation for the big day, whenever it arrives. I don’t own many garden tools—not ones in working order, that is. I do have a large assortment of bent trowels, short shovels, and toothless rakes, but my list of what I consider essential garden equipment is quite small, and if someone were to take this list down to their local hardware store and ask that it be filled, they’d be outfitted for life. I call it the Dibble package:

• One short pointy thing for poking out weeds.
• One long pointy thing for poking out weeds when your back is sore.
• One rake—if you really must. 
• A set of clipping and pruning tools—a pair of old scissors and chainsaw are adequate for most jobs. 
• A trowel for planting—only one, because if you own two you’re bound to lose them both. 
• Something to throw at critters, although any of the above will do in a pinch.

And that’s about it except I seem to be missing my short pointy thing. I probably threw it at a critter and now it’s lost under the snow, but I’m not about to go looking for it. I’m not that enthusiastic.

February 1
I confess, I do have a few more garden tools than I need, but it’s only because I prefer to wear them out before throwing them out. I’ve had some tools so long they’ve become old friends—except for the grass rake. It has a real mean streak and we don’t get along, which is why I use it as little as possible.

But, judging from garage sales and what’s thrown in the garbage the day after, I can see many people prefer to replace tools before wearing them out. I’ve never seen so many good shovels tossed away simply because the handles have broken (it’s an unwritten rule of gardening that any self-respecting rock will break at least one shovel before accepting its new home).

The interesting thing is, it’s the opposite with snow shovels. The handles never break; it’s the blades that go first. They get all bent and twisted from hammering at ice and then they are junked too. What I do is, I go around in spring collecting discarded old snow shovels with good handles, and in fall I scoop the garden shovels with broken handles, then match them up. This is why all my garden shovels have snow shovel handles. They work just as well as the originals, and what’s more, they accept the same size batteries.

February 6
Faded quote pinned to the wall in my plant room:

There! I knew there was a good excuse not to learn Latin.

February 7
Big winter storm today, and feeling so impressed with Sally Carrighar I stayed in bed writing my own garden poetry. Sally and I could sure run a great nursery. We’d organize all the plants by colour:

There’s a legend buried somewhere in the pages of my seed catalogue, but I can’t seem to find it, and I swear they’ve changed some of the symbols since last year. I think I have most of them figured out—the watering can is obvious—but I’m not sure if the happy face with the big nose means the plant is fragrant 
or it causes hay fever.

February 11
I’ve actually started seeds for Passion Flower (Passiflora caerulea)—must be something to do with Valentine’s Day approaching.

I’m passionate about Passion Flower, but so far my feelings haven’t been reciprocated. Every year I grow it and every year it fails to bloom. Even with last year’s early spring and late fall it failed to flower, yet I’m trying again.

Why? I don’t know. I do everything I can for it. I feed it and water it and give it constant attention. I’ve tried every microclimate in the garden and still she refuses to produce so much as a single bud.

Oh, she grows all right—grows up the portable pergola like a runner bean, taunting me in her lushness. All through summer, as she grows higher and higher, I’m filled with anticipation of her gorgeous blossom, only to be plunged into a deep depression when fall arrives and I have to face the cruel disappointment of an unrequited love.

I don’t know why I bother, except I can’t seem to help it. My friends say I’m wasting my time and should stick to morning glories, but what do they know? They don’t understand. I know that one day, one day my Passion Flower will bloom, one day she’ll show she cares. It may take global warming, but I can wait. 

February 17
A February thaw is underway and my first snowdrop has poked its way up. Normally I dread this because I know I’ll be getting a phone call from Shirl, telling me she has three up. This will go on for a week, and every day she’ll ask me how many I have, and no matter how many, for every one of mine that pops up she’ll have three. And she’ll call everyday to tell me the score.

I don’t know why, but snowdrops are just one of those things that grow well for Shirl and not for me. I try to tell her that I’m happy to see this little herald of spring and that I’m not interested in competing, but it doesn’t stop her bragging.

This year Shirl is going to be outgrown, even though I don’t really care that much for snowdrops. I mean, it’s nice to see them appear as the snow melts, except they look a bit out of place when the rest of the garden looks like the bottom of a wet ashtray at closing time. The postie thinks so too. When she brought the mail yesterday, I pointed them out to her and she said, why bother, they look just like the plastic ones in the craft store downtown. That’s when I decided it was time for a new winner in the snowdrop championships.

February 20
Things are growing very nicely in the plant room these days. The lisianthus I started in November are huge—almost half an inch high. My blue brugmansia cuttings are getting large, and my geranium cuttings are also doing well. 

This isn’t surprising. My plant room has such a perfect climate I could grow bananas in there. In fact I did once. I picked up a small plant at the grocery store one time and kept it in there over winter. When I moved it outside in spring it took off, but by fall, when it came time to move it back inside, it had grown so big that I couldn’t fit it through the door and I had to give it to the biology teacher at the local high school to place in the greenhouse there. 

Sadly, it didn’t last long. One of those rumours got started, and before you knew it a fringe group of spaced out snow boarders began pulling the leaves off it.

February 26
The phone calls are coming in now, always at suppertime, always when my mouth is full. It’s a sure sign that spring is approaching, but not a welcome one—strangers from all over the city begging to take care of my lawn. I resent this. I kinda like taking care of my little bit of lawn by myself—that’s why I’m a gardener. 

I tell the callers this very politely, but they don’t seem to understand. Sometimes I say what I say to all the other telephone solicitors: “How dare you suggest my carpets need cleaning?” This usually throws them off, giving me the chance to hang up. I could just hang up anyway, I suppose, but given the number of calls I get it could easily become a habit, then I might find myself hanging up on the important ones—like Publishers warehouse phoning about a huge amount of prize money that I’d won; I’d hate to hang up on that call.

Lawn care is obviously big business. I suppose this indicates there are an awful lot of non-gardeners around that are willing to allow their properties to be used as waste disposal sites for the toxic chemical by-products industry. Frankly, I’m not sure who should be paying whom.

I have a much better idea for lawn care that would be environmentally friendly—old goats (I don’t mean retirees, although it would be a safer way for them to get exercise than hanging out at the mall upsetting security guards). No, my friendly lawn care company would use trained goats to crop and fertilize the grass. They wouldn’t need much training, either. I’d simply drop one off for a couple of days, then pick it up again after the grass has been cut and fertilized—perfect. 

For a little extra the goats could wear spiky hoof adapters and aerate too. Of course, then I’d be the one making the pesky phone calls, but at least I’d be honest . . . “Hi, this is the Get Your Goat Lawn Care Company.” Sounds familiar.

February 27
I read the other day of people claiming to have seen the first robin. I consider this shameless boasting. I mean, come on, how hard can it be to see a robin in Amarillo or Escondido? Not only is this pathetic bragging, it’s no better than nah nah na na nah nah; it’s unfair. It just makes folks up here in the frozen north miserable, and no telling what it might do to the poor souls in Nunavut.

The problem with robin spotting is, how can it be verified? Anyone can say they’ve seen a robin. Is there some unwritten rule that robin spotters are more truthful than the average politician? 

Far as I’m concerned, no robins have returned until I see one, which is usually around the time of the return of the cats, another herald of spring. Except when I do see a robin, I can guarantee it will be at least an hour after Shirl sees one. I can hear it now: 
 “I’ve seen my first robin, Shirl.”
 “Really? Me too.”
 “It was yesterday morning.”
 “Yesterday morning? What time?”

March 9
With such a vicious blast of winter this week the robin spotters will be silenced for a while. I’m afraid that if any of those early robins are still sitting around the poor things will be frozen harder than a Christmas turkey. They were sure fooled this year. I just hope they were smart enough to have made the return trip south in time. At least they’ll be collecting extra air miles.

Now I’m curious. If the robin is the harbinger of spring at forty-three point something degrees north of the equator, what bird is the harbinger of spring at forty-three point something degrees south?—Probably an emu or something. That would simplify things. 

An emu suddenly leaping into your backyard would be a clear indication that spring had arrived. Get it cornered and tie it to the fence and no one could argue about who was first to spot it. It would also provide a valid excuse when summer visitors make snide comments like: “Call this a garden! It looks more like an emu pasture.” With an apologetic look, I’d reply:
“Yes, but spring did arrive first in my garden this year.”

March 15
The weather has finally warmed up and the snow is disappearing fast. I can see parts of my garden again, and it’s surprisingly colourful. I spent an hour last night picking up garbage from the front yard: the detritus of winter—candy wrappers, bits of old newspaper, and the worst offender—flyers. 

I swear the Popsicle-sucking kid that delivers them stands at the windward end of the street and dumps the whole pile. I think he does it to spite me because of the big sign I have on my mailbox that says, Thank you for not delivering junk mail. Of course, he ignored it until I added the fine print on the bottom, which 
is a little more specific as to what he should do with the stuff.

March 16
My spirits soared for a moment this morning, then suddenly plunged to earth, landing in the mud of the flowerbed. I was out poking around, picking up the last few bits of litter, when I spotted a little yellowy thingy sticking up out of the soil. “A bulb!” I screamed. A passing couple came over to see what the excitement was all about. “A bulb! My first bulb is up already.” I fell to my knees for a closer look—then felt a little silly—it wasn’t a bulb shooting up after all; it was a Popsicle stick.

Sure, I’m disappointed, but I can handle it. It isn’t quite warm enough yet for bulbs to be sticking their necks out, so I’m kinda glad it was a Popsicle stick after all. I can wait. It’s coming. I know it’s coming.

March 28
Spring? It feels like summer! The very first thing I did yesterday was to rip the cover off the pond before it turned it into a hot tub and upset the fish. I ripped the cover away real fast to try and catch whatever has been lurking under it, but whatever it was had left. I have my suspicions. I discovered two abandoned latrines beside a ragged looking clump of astilbe.

I felt like Sherlock what’s his name as I did a quick excremental calculation and concluded it was only mice—nothing bigger.

At least the little creeps left something useful behind, except it hardly makes up for finishing off half the roots of my astilbe. They left mouse manure, another all-natural fertilizer, and one of the sacred fundamentals of life in my garden. It’s what it takes to grow healthy plants, unlike the bottom line on a credit card statement after a trip to the garden centre for a bag of 20-20-20, even if it does make you say “Holy crap, I spent that much?” 

Here I go again, promoting organic. I can’t help it; I’m in my back to nature Walden Pond mode (simplify, simplify). It always surfaces when I work around my pond.

Speaking of surfacing, I’m sad to report that, although most of my fish survived the winter, I did find a couple of floaters. It’s too bad about the loss, although I prefer to think of the unfortunate event as a suicide pact, rather than any lack of care on my part. 

I can understand their despair as I imagine it gets a bit depressing swimming around in the dark for five months. I buried them beside the astilbe, along with the mouse manure. It was a lovely service. When the astible blooms I’ll remember them fondly.

March 31
"Sorry I’m late, but I ran over the neighbour’s cat! I would have made it on time but I missed on the first three attempts." 

This is not true, but it sums up the attitude of many gardeners toward cats, which is why there are moves to outlaw them (cats). I’ll admit to having the same feelings myself, on occasion, especially after too many visits by the same cat to the same flowerbed. But on balance, I don’t mind cats. I actually owned one once—if you can own a cat.

The cats that drop by my yard seem particularly free spirited, especially Darth, and I’ve concluded, after years of observation, that they come to my place for one or both of two reasons: to find something to eat or to find a comfortable place to relieve themselves (I do worry when they show up with a magazine).

No, there are worse things than cats in the garden, and I’ve had them all—rats, mice, groundhogs, racoons, rabbits, squirrels—everything but rogue elephants, which are a nasty little problem for gardeners in Africa. Elephants there have been known to clean out the cabbage crop and drain the pond at one sitting, and they make an awful mess of patio furniture. I count my blessings that I live in a neighbourhood that has an effective elephant control by-law. The irony of it is, although cats can be a nuisance, they do a darn good job of keeping down vermin. 

I recently read somewhere that the majority of people on earth are never more than ten feet from a rat—scary thought (who makes up all these statistics?). So, I’m all for a few cats running wild if they can increase that distance by a foot or two. We do need a few predators around to keep the neighbourhood in a state of ecological balance.

May 16
This is a sad day. I hate to go on about it, but it’s my wisteria. Today is the actual anniversary of its passing. I still don’t understand why it had to die. It was so alive, so vibrant, so . . . Oh dear . . . I’m sorry, but all those things I wrote the other day; I was only joking. I’ve never sworn at my wisteria, nor ill-treated it. The worst I ever did was to plant morning glories beside it to show it how it was supposed to grow; it never did take the hint.

At least the silver lace vine I planted in the wisteria’s place is growing well. It won’t be quite the same, but anything is better than the sight of the wisteria’s twisted remains clinging desperately to the pergola like a fossilized octopus. What’s more, those irreverent morning glories seeded profusely, and now I have about a zillion of them to weed out before they choke the life out of the newcomer.

It never ends. All I ever wanted was a bit of shade for the side patio. Is that too much to ask?

May 25
My beans are up and running, and so am I. I should be wearing running shoes instead of garden boots because it really is like a race. This has been an amazing spring so far. The early bloomers are flowering so fast I barely have time to admire them before they’re done and drooping. All day long, I’m pushing plants in with one hand and pulling weeds out with the other. It’s plant, plant, plant, and weed, weed, weed. 

May 26  I knew it! I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. I’m three-quarters finished planting (first phase) and they’re forecasting a low of three for tonight, which is too close to frost for my liking. I can either cover things up or risk disaster.

I go through this every year and it is so tedious. It always happens after I’ve planted so much stuff that I don’t have enough pots and pails to protect everything, so I have to use what I can find—tarps, burlap, sheets, and blankets. 

Of course, then the diblets complain because they’re cold in bed. It is such a hassle, especially since I don’t recall a late May frost ever being severe enough to cause much harm.

The twenty-fourth is supposed to be my frost-free date, yet the last three years have seen frost warnings in June. Does this mean I should wait until July to be safe? I’m beginning to wonder if my calendar is off because fall seems to arrive later too. It’s as though all the seasons are sliding forward, except for Christmas, which is sliding backwards into Halloween.

I think this all started when people began putting up their Christmas lights in August. They’ve messed up the sequence, and now Mother Nature is looking at her watch and giving it a good shake. I just hope she doesn’t shake it too hard.

June 5
My peonies are about to pop their buds, and if everything follows the usual course of events, it will pour with rain the moment they open and turn the blooms into big blobs of melting ice cream (raspberry). 

It is so disappointing, but then my peonies have always disappointed me. I only have two—a pink one and a pink one that was supposed to be a white one. I planted the pink one that was supposed to be a white one in my “white” bed two years ago. 

It flowered beautifully, except it wasn’t white; not that it made much difference. Everything in my “white” bed is supposed to be white, but so far every “white” plant I’ve put in there has decided to be any colour it feels like. I have white campion (rose), white lupines (yellow), white geraniums (pink), white balloon flower (blue), white phlox (pinkish), and white yucca, which is guaranteed to be white, but it hasn’t flowered yet. I do have a lovely white delphinium, but I planted it on the other side of the yard.

So many times I’ve ended up with such a completely different coloured plant from what I thought I’d planted that I’m beginning to wonder if someone walks ahead of me at the garden centre, changing all the tags. Still, I’m not going to change the “white” bed because, surprisingly, this is the first time in my life I’ve managed to create something that looks perfect—until the rain bashes down the peony.

July 7
I’ve been having a little problem with spider mites. Actually, it’s a big problem. It’s only the mites that are small. The damage they do is way out of proportion to their size. Like most insects, if they were any bigger they’d rule the world, and then we’d be the ones getting sprayed with pesticides (homicides?). Fortunately, my size and superior technology has overwhelmed them.

What happened was one of my brugmansia developed yellow splotches on its leaves—spreading splotches. Since yellow splotches are typical of what happens when any plant gets sick, diagnosis is difficult. I’m no expert, and by the time I figure out what’s causing the problem, there’s a good chance the plant will be a stick.

Nevertheless, I went through the whole list of possible nutritional causes, which can easily be summed up as too much or too little of this, or too much or too little of that. I decided it couldn’t be a nutritional problem because my plants are fed a well balanced diet of compost tea, so it had to be a disease — which I doubted — or a pest.

I checked the plant day and night to see if an insect might be chomping at it, except it didn’t look chomped, it looked . . . yellow. I could see nothing. Finally, I flipped through my illustrated book of insect pests and right at the bottom of page eighty-three I found it, a picture of a spider mite. I would have found it sooner but the insect pests in my book are all life-size illustrations, and the spider mite looked like a tiny.. Here is it is enlarged  *.

August 3
Aspirin helps ease the aches and pains suffered by plants much in the way it helps people and animals, researchers say. 

I came across this in the newspaper (if it’s in the paper it must be true) as I was preparing a backup fuel supply for the barbecue. It says that aspirin blocks the chemical signals plants send out to alert their neighbours of injury. I can relate to that. Just yesterday I went to pinch off a dead rose bloom and pinched one of the thorns at the same time. I hollered louder than Pavarotti and alerted everyone in my neighbourhood, including the driver of the industrial stereo system that happened to be passing.

Of course, this vital information now raises a moral dilemma that will make life yet more difficult for a caring gardener like me. It took me long enough to adjust to the concept that plants can actually feel pain; in fact I was wracked with guilt and had a few sleepless nights when I first learned of that little piece of research.

Pruning became a moral dilemma until I came to grips with it. Nowadays, before I begin snipping, I speak to my shrubs in a soothing voice and tell them that without my care they’d be ravaged by all kinds of pests and diseases. Mind you, I don’t bother when I’m pruning roses—I swear at them before I even begin.

So, now it looks as though I’m supposed to hand out aspirin whenever I do a little deadheading—junior aspirin for the seedlings and transplants? Then again, this could be another plot by the pharmaceutical industry to make me even more paranoid. What’s next? Gravol for glads on windy days? Prozac for those aggressive creepers? I think I should maybe barbecue my newspapers before I read them.

September 20
Brrr! Frost last night, which is appropriate as the first day of fall arrives tomorrow. I was hoping we’d get a good one since everything is dying of thirst anyhow—put things out of their misery, kind of.

Fall has that effect on me; it’s been a long summer and I’m ready for a change. Besides, I’m tired of eating tomatoes. Hard to believe that only a few months ago I couldn’t wait for the first one to ripen. Now, even though the leaves are drying up and falling off, the fruit are hanging on, mocking me. The plants look like pathetic little Christmas trees, something I don’t want to think about, at least until the pumpkins are piled on the compost heap. 

This is the time every year when I wish I had a shredder to mulch all the garden waste. I’ve tried to build my own in the past, so far without much success. Maybe I’ll pull out the plans and try again.

October 14
Mid October and no hard frost. The garden looks marvellous in its range of fall colours, although red is dominating because the Boston ivy and the Virginia Creeper have been busy over the summer. They’ve been sneaky, creeping along, camouflaged in their greenness, but they can’t hide now; they’ve been betrayed in their moment of glory.

They are attractive, but I may have to rein them in before they take over the whole yard. The VC already has the fence at the end covered and is making a move on the two sides, and the BI has not only staked a claim on the deck and begun invading the cedar, but it’s racing back along the fence to meet the VC. I’m curious to see what will happen when they face off. Will they spar for a while or go right at it? This could be quite exciting, like the W.W.F in slow motion . . . “And in the red corner." . . . Wait a minute, they’re both in the red corner.

November 5
Brrrr. Ice on the pond yesterday morning. It’s not that I didn’t know it was coming, or that it happens every year around the same time—sometimes sooner—and I know there are colder places, but it’s the shock, the sudden harshness of the stark reality that this is IT.

All life in the garden has been snuffed out, including the nasturtium, which truly redeemed itself by clinging on to the bitter end. Apart from a couple of roses and my one aster, it was the only thing left in the garden with a bloom on it. Now it hangs limply from the pergola, the pallor of death in its foliage.

After all the horrible things I said about it during the summer, I feel its loss most poignantly. Today, I shall tenderly unfurl its winding stems, and gently unearth its roots, before carrying it reverently to the end of the yard, where I shall lay it to rest on the compost heap. Yup, summer is definitely over.

November 11
Before I totally close things up for winter I must do a quick inventory of all the objet trouvé and random bits of junk that I’ve picked up over the years. This is the stuff that makes my garden my garden. I keep most of it on display, although some things are placed in such a manner as to appear unobtrusive. There are one or two items I should throw out but I haven’t the heart, so they get shoved out of the way behind a shrub for me to discover serendipitously when I’m crawling about weeding.

This is only a partial list:

• Two plastic bunnies purchased as gifts by two small boys. 
• A huge chunk of root from an ancient cedar tree, a remnant of the giants that once grew around here.
• Three nifty glass insulators from an old telephone post on my late Grandfather-in-law’s farm. I thought they might be useful in case he tries to reach us. 
• A collection of old galvanized pails that I found in the bush and use as planters. Someone said they were maple syrup pails. 
• One concrete garden gnome that stands beneath the crab apple, a gift from someone special who believes no garden is complete without one. 
• A handful of railroad nails with dates on the heads. I found them along a stretch of disused track where I used to walk a dog I knew, many years ago. 
• A chunk of rock that reveals a face when viewed from a certain angle. I call him 
• Albert, the garden guide, after my old dad.
• And Boris of course. 

  And that’s about it. Oh, there are lots of other bits and pieces, but these are the ones that bring back memories, and always will. There is much we should never forget . . . In Flanders fields the poppies blow . . .