I used to work in a windowless office so I completely understand when every other visitor tells me I have the best job in the world. I know. I totally do. But contrary to popular opinion amongst non-gardeners at least, the weather isn’t always 70 degrees and sunny; gardening is not always serenely therapeutic, and it’s certainly not glamorous. Especially not when it involves hauling out a truckload of annuals out of a garden, or shoveling dry compost in a windstorm. Gardening is dirty work.

It’s been an especially back-breaking work-week here between taking out the cutting bed to make room for tulips (next week’s work), cutting back, dividing and moving various perennials around like musical chairs, and forking compost into the two North Garden beds that won’t be trampled during the wall’s restoration project. Of all the hard work this week, the compost was definitely the dirtiest. But it was also the most potentially gratifying.

We haven’t amended the soil in the North Garden in a very long time and it has become compacted from years of feet and years of moving plants around in wet springs and falls, just like the Rose Garden had. And just like we did in the Rose Garden last year, we opted to use Bristol’s own (free) compost made with biosolids and yardwaste, which is super stinky but certified top-grade and tested pathogen-free. Thanks to a strong team of volunteers (Go Rockettes!) who plugged their noses to rake out and fork in the compost, we have every expectation that next year the North Garden will be every bit as stunningly healthy as the Rose Garden was this year. (The Rose Garden is still glorious by the way – although frost/snow might do it in tonight…)

We are coming close to the end of the dirtiest work in the gardens for the season. Once the tulips go in we will have to make a shift to the more mentally challenging work of planning next years gardens. – Just listening to Gail and Tara try to plan where to plant the tulips in the cutting garden is making me feel a whole other kind of exhausted…

Have you been doing dirty work in your garden too?

It’s a challenge to keep a vegetable garden productive and handsome into the fall. Cool nights set back and do in the hot season crops like cucumbers, beans and summer squash. Tomatoes are slowing down – the ones that weren’t destroyed by Irene, that is. Over the last 2 weeks, Blithewold garden volunteers – the Deadheads and Rockettes have put in extra veg-garden time harvesting the late season bounty. – With tomatoes and the last of the cukes, beans and endless kale, we have gone well over 700 lbs. in total donations to the East Bay Food Pantry! Personally, I’m shooting for 1000 lbs. before winter kicks us out of that garden.

And winter is going to have to push hard. We have invested in row covers and seeded down spinach, lettuce, carrots and turnips. And of course we still have Brussel’s sprouts and those lovely cabbage (and endless kale) to look forward to. Gail and Linda also planted our first ever garlic – because we’re already thinking about next year.

The garden looks – I hesitate to say it, but it’s true – better than ever. The cabbages, like I said, are spectacular; the kale is excellent and even the artichokes have sent up a new flush of sterling-silver foliage. Freshly prepared rows are dusted with seedlings – such a hopeful thing! And along with harvesting, the volunteers spiffed and weeded the whole garden. We wanted to make sure that everything would be as gorgeous as possible for the Fall Family Food Fest (The One Day it’s OK to Play with Your Food!) this Sunday.

In addition to all of the activities associated with that event (like gourd juggling, sushi rolling, and Mr. Potato Head making) our good friend Pam Gilpin will be giving a slide show on the amazing not quite invisible world of garden insects (at 11am in the mansion). Her pictures are truly incredible and a little alarming. And Blithewold’s own Dan Christina will be leading one of his famously fabulous tree walks (at 2pm from the Carriage House). The forecast for Sunday is only gloomy if you decide to stay home instead.

How’s your vegetable garden? Are you celebrating a fall food fest too?

With Helen Dillon, whether you read her books (the latest is called Down to Earth with Helen Dillon) or hear her speak you know right away that she only tells the absolute truth – particularly when she’s talking about her own garden. If you’re not already a fan, Helen Dillon is a gardener and garden writer from Dublin, Ireland (originally from Scotland). She reminded us that Ireland falls along the same latitude as New Foundland and although the climate is much milder, the sun is just as low. She mentioned taking Graham Stuart Thomas around her garden on an “ugly August day”. Thomas she said, was not a fan of strong yellows and it wasn’t until she met Christopher Lloyd that she realized there can be more than one opinion on the matter. Now she knows that “yellow is so luminous. It lights the place up.” But she’s “gone off” dark purple.

Aren’t we all fickle? Over her 70 years as a gardener (how can that be?), Helen has formed plenty of her own decided opinions. And is as unapologetic about changing her mind as we should all be. She has taken out swaths of lawn and replaced “80′s looking” gardens (bit of this, bit of that; one of everything) with a gravel mulch garden full of self-sowers in the front of the house, and a limestone (bluestone) surrounded pool between her famous borders. She planted a grove of birches in her front garden because, says Helen, “I never don’t love birches.” And she has added blues (among other colors) to the red border and reds to the blue border because they were becoming like overworked paintings. She lately wrapped a “smug” cherub sculpture in barbed wire before deciding to remove it altogether. There’s no reason to be overly sentimental about anything in our garden that we don’t still love like we used to.

Her advice on plants was just as much fun. Try arranging teasels after they’re dead – simply cut them down and replant the stalk in a deep hole. – Because why not create an allay of teasel for the winter wind to whisk through? Put sun loving plants like agapanthus, Casablanca lilies, and tall alstromeria – not the squiffy short ones -  in pots (she uses “dustbins” and big black plastic containers with handles) and move them in an out of the garden as they bloom and fade. She may have “gone off” boxwood balls but says that if you want to topiary a holly tree (hers is mushroom shaped) it’s very quick and “you could have a go this afternoon.” She only allows beautiful plants in her garden and considers Sisyrinchium striatum ‘Aunt May’ to be the ultimate of all plants not to grow because most of the time it looks neither alive nor dead. On the other hand, she’s keen on ubiquitous candytuft (Iberis sempervirens) because you only ever need to buy one packet of seeds and after blooming the green seedheads are just as pretty. I’m sold. But then anyone who thinks that the rudest thing to say about a garden is that it looks “manicured” has me at hello.

Have you met Helen Dillon yet in person or through her books and articles? Do you let yourself be as opinionated?

Last week I had the great pleasure of speaking with the author/photographer of some of my all-time favorite garden books. Ken Druse, who wrote Planthropology and Making More Plants among about a bazillion others, called – while a raging river ran through his garden – to quiz me about Blithwold’s Rose Garden and he recorded our conversation for his podcast, Real Dirt. Those who know me, know that I am a reluctant (read terrified) public speaker: when I have something to say, I’d rather write it down. But Ken, who is effortlessly articulate in print and voice, put me at ease and our few minutes were up before I even knew it. I only wish I had said…

Most of you are already familiar with our Rose Garden, so feel free to pass by the rest of this post. But for anyone who might be visiting for the first time via Real Dirt, allow me to fill in some of my gaffs gaps.

Ken intended to ask about how we prepare the Rose Garden for winter and in case he calls back to get the scoop, I’ll hold off on those details for now. We got instantly sidetracked (my doing) by compost instead. The Rose Garden was compacted from years of tromping through it to deadhead and rake leaves so we turned about 3″ of compost in to the soil, which improved the drainage immensely. I also want to say that while I’m perversely pleased that I never mentioned the word “sustainable” I feel I should do so here. Roses, unless you plant your neighborhood’s natives, are inherently difficult. They are heavy feeders, need tons of water, and a lot of gardeners have gotten hooked on spraying regimes to keep them fungus and pest-free. By filling in the garden’s gaps with bulbs, annuals, perennials and shrubs, and refusing to spray, we not only encourage beneficial wildlife but the garden stays colorful even when the roses start to look terrible. Which incidentally, to bring it back around, they haven’t – ever since we amended the soil and installed irrigation. I like to say that our Rose Garden is as-sustainable-as-possible-under-the-circumstances.

I also didn’t mention “Knock-Out” roses among my list of favorites because they’re not on it (though we do have a few in and out of that garden.) To give them their due, Knock-Outs are tough-as-nails and need very little in the way of babying but they lack the grace and charm of the roses that are on my list. I mentioned Rosa ‘Champlain’ but forgot to say that I really love how its deep-green foliage turns burgundy/bronze towards winter. I tried again to take a picture of Rosa ‘Hot Cocoa’ and the color simply defies my lens. It is redder here (and maybe because of the cooler nights lately) than the coppery-brown it can be. And I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but little Rosa chinensis ‘Viridiflora’ is blooming its heart out right now. But then, I’ll take weird over knock-out any day.

I want to thank Ken again for his kindness to me and for speaking so generously about Blithewold – especially while his own garden was being savagely ravaged by both Irene and Lee. (I’d have been too distracted for any words at all…) And thank you for listening/reading. Have you filled the gaps between your roses too?

Being surrounded by beautiful flowers, interesting foliage and delicious fragrance is great and all but I think the best reason to grow a garden might be for the privilege of sharing it with a few of nature’s other creatures. This morning in the pollinator garden I came nose to nose with a hummingbird (who obviously, was much quicker than I…) Our little moment together would have been fairly unlikely had I been standing on of an expanse of lawn instead of in the middle of a garden full of his favorite flowers. Plus where else can you, if you train your eyes to see, easily find praying mantis hanging out?

And honestly, is there anything better than a bucketful of frogs? Blithewold’s Camp Sequoia kiddos have been monitoring the frogs’ progress all summer from tadpole to poliwog (froglet?) to today’s wee teensie frogs. They’ve been finding all sorts of other creatures in their nets too like dragonfly larvae and water striders. Any garden that mimics nature the way the water garden does will be full to bursting with activity. Fascinating to watch – and catch.

Of course nature will occasionally send a message that a close encounter can be too close… For all we cultivate and maintain, gardens are still wild places. – Or so the bumblebee told me on Monday. But for anyone who isn’t fatally allergic, a little pain and swelling is a small price to pay for getting such a good view of their way of life.

It seems like the activity in the gardens is ramping up to a frenzy (or maybe the critters all think a hurricane is coming) – have you had close encounters of the natural kind lately too?