The garden will keep, summer will not

We had our annual master gardener picnic last week in which we visit members’ gardens and then eat a lot of food. I arrived early at the main garden to help set up the food and got a good look at the garden and property and realized that its owners had been putting in a lot of time getting it spiffed up for this event. And that’s why I don’t think I could ever have this group at my house.

If you look around my yard you will see there is plenty of gardening to be done. There are weeds. Endless weeds. In the garden and now, especially, on the edges of the garden. There is deadheading to be done, pruning to contain some overzealous plants, edging, watering, you name it. Suffice to say there is no dearth of gardening that needs to be done at my house.

Last weekend was about as perfect as summer weather gets in these parts. Sunny, mid-70s, a light, warm breeze and basically just beautiful. It was certainly as good as weather gets for gardening.

But good gardening weather is good everything-else weather (except some type of house cleaning).

So I should have been planting these perennials waiting for permanent homes (my goal is to go into winter with nothing in pots this year)…

Or pulling out the oxalis that is particularly aggressive this summer …

Or disposing of the piles of weeds stacked up around the garden …

Or cutting back the floppy Russian sage …

But I didn’t do any of those things. In fact, I’m not sure I so much as picked up the hose to water the containers.

Instead I paddleboarded (lots), went for a sail, sat on the beach looking out over Lake Michigan, swam in the lake, swam in the pool (my first swims of the year, sadly), cooked lots of yummy food on the grill, celebrated my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary and sat outside just enjoying the summer night until well past 10 p.m.

Monday morning I went outside to water my neglected containers and looked at what a mess the garden was. I saw the wilted container plantings, the piles of weeds laying a foot from where they had been pulled, the weeds that enjoyed a few more days in the ground and the spent blossoms hanging from stems waiting to be deadheaded.

And I didn’t regret not doing any of that all weekend.

Summer is short. You have to savor every bit of it while you can. Even if that means letting the gardening chores go undone for yet another day.