November Chores and Pleasures

IT’S ALMOST HERE. Winter, I mean. The clocks set themselves back last night while we slept. Remember going around the house, taking clocks off walls and down from shelves and manually resetting them? Another thing to be nostalgic about. I woke up here in my Long Island cottage and the cable box, computer, and iPhone had all take care of themselves. All I had to do was reset the stove. It’s nice to be up early, with the golden light of morning creeping through the woods…even though it’s “really” not that early.

Yesterday I built a compost bin out of cinderblocks and I’m quite unreasonably proud of the thing. Had been Googling “mulch with whole oak leaves,” thinking I might just rake them off the paths and lawn and into the beds and woods and have done with it. I’m in the middle of what amounts to an oak forest, and there are a lot more leaves to come. Meanwhile, my garden helper hasn’t shown up in weeks, not even to collect the money I owe him. He must be busy raking other people’s lawns.

I’d started a leaf pile next to my kitchen-scraps pile, but it was growing unmanageably large and I wondered how I might contain it. Wire mesh and metal stakes? I looked in the cellar to see what I had: nothing. Then I remembered the pile of cement blocks stashed under a large evergreen at the back of the property. They were too heavy to throw away and I thought they might come in handy someday for building a retaining wall, a foundation, a …compost bin? OK, it’s not a thing of great beauty, but it does the job. I would have made it higher but I ran out of blocks. Anyway, I got great satisfaction re-purposing something that was there already.

I’m out in the country for a few weeks, all things being equal. Naturally, I have a long list of garden chores. Plant ‘minor’ (small) bulbs in the blank space under the magnolia. Wrap burlap around deer-vulnerable and winter-burn-prone shrubs (that’s a big job, to be delayed until I’m feeling particularly energetic). Keep watering and spraying (anti-deer). Spread compost in the perennial beds. Rake, rake, rake.

There’s a can of sunflower yellow Rust-o-leum paint at the ready for this Dada-esque tractor seat, found in the house when I bought it 2-1/2 years ago. Another long-postponed project, but just the thing for a quiet fall evening in the country, listening to Philip Glass or Jagjit Singh, pot of ridiculously nutritious soup bubbling away on the stove…

I’m trying to savor the things I have accomplished here in this garden, so easily forgotten once they’re under control. The wisteria that once had a choke-hold on everything has been vanquished. The agepodium several landscape contractors wanted to Round-Up into submission has largely disappeared, through patient hand-weeding. The backyard, once impenetrable, now an open expanse. And many more.

A dear longtime friend of mine is very ill, making me acutely aware of life’s little pleasures. I’ve been going to yoga at KamaDeva in East Hampton; yesterday’s class ended with this prayer, which I’m moved to share in this month of Thanksgiving. (Don’t read on if you’re not a fan of this sort of thing. I am.)

Love before me Love behind me Love at my left Love at my right Love above me Love below me Love unto me Love in my surroundings Love to all Love to the Universe

Peace before me Peace behind me Peace at my left Peace at my right Peace above me Peace below me Peace unto me Peace in my surroundings Peace to all Peace to the Universe

Light before me Light behind me Light at my left Light at my right Light above me Light below me Light unto me Light in my surroundings Light to all Light to the Universe

Raking Leaves is a A Fool’s Errand

THAT PHRASE POPPED INTO MY HEAD TODAY as I raked leaves. It’s an impossible task, because every night’s breezes bring a fresh layer. Yesterday I observed my next-door neighbor raking, raking, raking, making huge piles for the town pick-up. Today, I glanced into his yard and saw that they’d been replenished. But I happen to know he rakes for fun, so it’s OK.

Daffodil bulbs ready to go in the ground at Bridge Gardens

Besides raking, I’ve been busy with other fall landscaping chores, inspired partly by a two-hour workshop I attended on Saturday at Bridge Gardens in Bridgehampton called “Putting Your Garden to Bed for the Winter.” At least half the discussion was about which hydrangeas bloom on old wood and which on new. I can’t have hydrangeas at all because of my deer friends, so I tuned out.

Below, transplanting clumps of hydrangea ‘Annabelle’ at Bridge Gardens

I was reminded of how important it is to keep watering, especially after such a dry season as we’ve had. I’ve been moving hoses around from individual tree to tree so they get soaked in the root zone (particularly some of the big evergreens that look parched), pulling up spent annuals, planting three new aronia (chokeberries) as part of my ‘tapestry hedge’ in front, and moving other things from places where they’re not thriving to places where I hope they will.

Below, annual Japanese fountain grass, perennial geranium ‘Roxanne,’ and Saturday students at Bridge Gardens

Just as I was coming to the end of today’s to-do list, the UPS truck pulled up with my bulb order from Scheeper’s. It’s not a big order — just 10 ‘Gladiator’ alliums, 10 gorgeous lilies I couldn’t resist, even though they need sun and deer like them (I’m going to plant them by the front deck and keep a spritz bottle of Deer-Off handy), and 100 Spanish bluebells for a wooded area in the backyard middle distance that I haven’t gotten around to doing anything with.

How Bridge Gardens deals with deer, below

I’m feeling a bit of urgency, as I’m moving into my Brooklyn pied-a-terre next Monday. I won’t be around much in November, and I want to leave my East Hampton place in good shape — well-watered, nicely mulched, cozily tucked in for winter.

One of several unusual types of elephant ear at Bridge Gardens, below