Once upon a time, when the gardening season was just beginnning, many garden bloggers converged upon the city of Chicago to visit gardens and meet one another in person.
My reputation for hoeing being well established by then, several gardeners were excited to tell me about this sculpture of a boy hoeing in a garden at the Chicago Botanic Garden.
Today, I found this draft post on my blog with this picture and wondered whatever was I going to write about it?
Also included in this draft post was this picture of the famous sculpture of the Swedish botanist, Carolus Linneaus.
Wouldn’t it have been an interesting story if my mom and dad had named me “Carol Lynn” after “Carolus Linneaus”?
They didn’t, of course. Lynn is not even my middle name. But it would have been an interesting story.
Finding this long forgotten draft post buried in my list of posts is like discovering work undone in the fall garden. With leaves fallen from the trees and perennials standing as mere skeletons of what they were, we all discover amid the new bareness of the garden the remnants of plans and ideas that we didn’t actually carry out like we had hoped to.
Perhaps hidden behind a shrub there is an unplanted half flat of annuals that just didn’t make it into the ground? Maybe we finally found that bag of canna roots from two seasons ago that we meant to plant in the spring? Or we stumbled upon some stakes marking the corners of a new bed we had hoped to dig when the ground finally dried out in a season that turned out to be very rainy.
Regardless of what we find undone in the fall, the good news is that winter is coming, the garden slate will soon be wiped clean by snow and ice, and we can start anew in the spring. We can make plans to tie up those loose ends in the garden, to do better next year.
As Anne Shirley (Anne of Green Gables) once said, "Tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it." I think you have the right idea, Carol: let's extend that to each new season.
If I can add to that: the past is made to be rewritten. Carol Lynn was clearly inspired by the great taxonomist.
Carol Lynn would have been nice, but the work in the garden, whether hard or soft, is nearly always pleasurable I think. Sort of like finding a post unpublished which wants to be read.~~Dee
There's a kids' character named Linnea and she's interested in gardens, so if you're going to change your name, might I respectfully suggest Carol Linnea? I'm afraid to go looking through my old draft posts to see what I started but failed to finish, but thanks for the trip down memory lane. I watched you take both those photos.
I won't even tell you how many draft posts I have. And there's more that are still in my head.
I so agree with what you say about the slate being wiped clean. Mostly by deer and elk. Ha! No really, I love the thought of browsing the catalogs and dreaming of new blooms and trying new stuff. It's nice to start new. Even though sometimes I get a bit too ambitious!
I love the idea of a clean slate in the garden. I can't hardly wait until the first of the year when I get out my new garden journal and begin putting ideas, tags, quotes etc into it. Yes, I like the clean slate idea Carol Lynn. Carol Lynn does sound good. I guess because my Sister's name is Carolyn.
Great sculptures! Now we just need one of a lady with a lawnmower in a long white dress…
I often find files in my computer with an interesting title – but when I open them they are empty. I never got further than the title. This problem usually arises because I get what I think is a good idea for a post in a different season, but like the flat behind a shrub, it is forgotten and never planted.
Loved your post today. Clean slate. I continue to deadhead the roses, and I was thinking this morning that it's very late. Temperate Mediterranean climate.. had some rain already.. and that just made everything burst into bloom. When the real rains come.. and we're hoping for them.. this season will finally be at an end.
Thank you, Carol; I needed this! Though the weather is beautiful and I have been working a little each day in the garden, there is still much to be done. But there's also Thanksgiving coming up and cleaning to be done. So it's comforting to know that I can start from a clean slate in the spring.
By the way, I just read that former Illini Luther Head is now playing for the Pacers. I may just become a Pacers' fan as well:)
I almost named my daughter Linnea, but that name got the axe as we narrowed down our long list of potential names. I still like it, and I'm glad others appreciate it!