“There are some moments when I feel pleased with my garden, and other moments when I despair. The pleased moments usually happen in spring, and last up to the middle of June. By that time all the freshness has gone off; everything has become heavy; everything has lost that adolescent look, that look of astonishment at its own youth. The middle-aged spread has begun.”
Vita Sackville-West
What a perfect expression of my feelings about the front garden over the last week! Of course, Sackville-West wrote these words about her gardens at Sissinghurst Castle in southeast England, and I am despairing over the way some of my plants suffer in the heat and humidity of Gloucester, Virginia, with only sporadic rainfall for several weeks, but I feel a kinship.
After a spring of pastel loveliness that ended with some restrained Chelsea chopping, I feel somewhat deflated and less than eager to venture outside to work after 10 a.m. I now wish that I had chopped more robustly. The catmint (Nepeta x faa...