last gardening

It looks like today might be the day – the day I tackle my garden one last time. How does it happen, that I always find myself with this job still to do as late as mid-November?

I started it weeks ago, when I clipped the dried stems of astilbe, chopped off the limp variegated hosta, trimmed back the oregano and thyme, and hack-hoed the weeds that had grown up behind the summer-mature perennials. But I decided I couldn’t finish the job that day, because the impatiens was still blooming, my blue-green hosta looked like it was enjoying the cooler weather and it’s always nice to find rosebuds into late October, even if those buds are mottled from weather and insects. Instead, I ended that day by extending the life of this year’s dahlias and roses in exchange for a late bouquet, yet imposing tidiness by raking the droppings from the park poplar that leans possessively over our fence.

However, I should have finished the job then. For in the interim, each time I look out the kitchen window, the pot of impatiens has grown more pathetic, the dahlias paler and scarcer, and the rose ridiculous, with those pink buds, blushing on top of leafless branches.

So today, because the sun is threatening to shine, and I can’t use the excuse everything is mud for it hasn’t rained in several days, and my former beauties are begging to be put out of their misery, I will get to work in the soggy garden one last time. I’ll chop down the dahlias – by now tree-sized (though I refuse to take the corms out of the ground and store them in the basement. I figure if they survive the winter, as they have three or four now, they deserve to live; if not, let them die - it’s called passive plant euthanasia), drastically prune the roses, machete the remaining hostas and impose order for the duration.... or will I? For I see the mums have grown brilliant - opening into clumps of wine, white and rusty peach. Yikes, does this mean I could be gardening into December?