The Garden That I Forgot.

By this January, the garden had overgrown so badly that the statuary was hidden by groundcover and the cassia tree overtaken by pipevine. The maypop was nearly dead, one scraggly bit of it hiding under the sprawling dill. It was overwhelming to go out there again. I couldn't fathom where to begin, so I began where someone else might benefit most from a neglected bfly garden clean-up.

That someone was the lawn guy. He surely had to work his way round the gone-to-seed, skeleton of the cassia tree that poked far out over the brick surround. All of it had to come out. It was brittle and leafless, the seed pods like withered alien fingers. One of my favorite photographs for the blog came from that tree. It was like breaking up a... , well, it was like breaking up. I loved it, then I neglected it, then it died, and now I'm cleaning it out. Sometimes it's worth saving, but not in this case. And once it was gone, everything around it could breathe again. Cuz it was a big tree (I am talking about the tree, really.) A tree truly too big for the garden.

Once it was gone, the swamp redbay fluffed up with the fresh air and the angel statue had room to stand again. The pipevine might feel disappointment - it lost a few of its massive tendrils twirled all up and in the cassia. But apparently it thrives on overtaking another life and survived beautifully through all my neglect of the garden.

Next to go, the groundcover. Healthy, blooming, choking, had to go. It was supposed to grow around the bare patches of the garden, filling in the voids between other bloom-ers. It would have worked, too, if I'd kept it in check. But in the months I let it go, it devoured the gargoyles, the solar lighting and my welcome-to-the garden stone. It filled in my spot for milkweed, so I completely missed out on this past fall's monarch migration. By that October, I was completely disassociated from the garden, my camera, and my blog. Butterflies held little meaning anymore, and life went on. Without them. And they went on without me, too. At some point, I'm not sure when, butterflies quit visiting the garden. I figured whenever I got out there again, maybe I'd plant something else, herbs or a simple flower bed, or just let the lawn grow back in again.

Nine years. Nine years I've had a bfly garden in my backyard, and somehow, someway, I was seriously thinking about giving it up. Easy to think that way when I wasn't out there tending it. Then, I went out there. No, not just like that, though the explanation is rather simple. A friend of mine turned me on to what equalled HOURS of new music, and I piled every last ounce of it onto my iPod. Well, I needed something to do while I listened to it, something more than the usual walk or work-out whenever I got new tunes. So, I figured I'd  listen to my new music stash and take on the garden.

Four hours I was out there. Four hours of clipping, digging, trimming, breaking limbs and wondering what song was coming up next. It's like the garden has its own soundtrack now. Then, lo and behold, I dusted off my camera and set up the tripod in the yard. The photographs scattered around here show the fruits of my work.

And, no, I'm not getting rid of the garden. Any thought of that evaporated the second a black-and-yellow polydamas swallowtail timidly brushed the newly freed-up pipevine. Then a zebra longwing stopped in, looking for maypop that wasn't there, and conjuring up my desire for maypop so intensely that I won't sleep tonight. 

I want new plants, too. But not 'til late February or so, when the threat of freeze has passed. But I'll be out there again, oh, yes, I'll be out there.