The Hanging Gardens
We had a beautiful day yesterday in New York. There was a thunderstorm between five and six, but a beautiful evening followed. My calendar clear, I had no excuse not to get this season's geraniums into pots. I bought them nearly two weeks ago, and they've been running dry in their small pots. They needed to be taken care of.
I changed my shoes, put on an apron, and got to work. An inadequate gardener, I don't clean up in the fall, but just let the annuals die of natural causes. This means that the pots are stiff with root balls and littered with dead vegetation. I spread newspapers over the wood-slat table. I worked the soil in the first part with a dibble and then scooped out soil with a fancy stainless steel cup measure. What happened to my Smith & Hawken trowel? Lord knows; the cup measure works fine. In no time at all, the four pots dedicated to geraniums were full of blooming plants. That's how they always are when you buy them; they'll never look that good this summer unless I deadhead like a fanatic.
I found that I had bought exactly twice as many geraniums as I needed. What to do? I had four more pots on the step above the geraniums, but those are meant for impatiens. I'm a bit tired of impatiens, but they do last the summer and they crown nicely. So I decided to let Kathleen find some pretty ones along Lexington or Madison on her weekend walk. And I attacked the stump of a boxwood that never took to balcony life. I had meant to plant some nice big hostas in the planter, but on the spot I resolved to buy the hostas from White Flower Farm in the fall. That way, I'll be obliged to do garden cleanup for a change.
With a manly tug, I pulled the boxwood stump from the planter. Heavy! The dense root ball held a lot of soil, and it took a while to pry this loose. Once I had retrieved enough earth to satisfy my far from zealous frugality, the remaining gardenias were soon soaking in their summer home. Once they get comfortable, they'll be a nice shot of color for anyone walking into the apartment, at least when the balcony door is open.
So! Even with the impatiens question provisionally decided, I still had plenty of decorative pots looking very undecorative with their blasted husks of last summer's greenery. But before heading to the corner florist for more plants, I wanted to sit down and finish The Leopard, by Giuseppi di Lampedusa. And when I did finish it, about an hour later, I realized that it was just the book for a friend who is in mourning. It will resonate with him for many reasons, and as by chance I'm having lunch with him this afternoon, I thought I'd get him a copy. Having washed my hands, taken off the apron, and changed my shoes, I went to the Barnes & Noble across the street to look for a copy. I wasn't surprised that they didn't have one; once you take away the Starbucks and the big cookbook section and the usual piles of new books, it's more of a magazine shop. I headed up 86th Street to the other Yorkville branch, on Lexington between 86th and 87th. The literature section there is much larger, or so it seems anyway. But there were no Leopards on offer there. I was only slightly disappointed: I was having a wonderful walk up and down Yorkville High Street.
At the florist, I picked up a few pots of ivy, two pots of basil, three pots of portulaca, a spider plant and a bag of potting soil. Also two spath lilies, for the dining area. The ones that have been there for five or six years have needed to replaced for some time. The point of the things is to look nice, not to prove that I'm good at life support. The other plants were potted up within half an hour. Cleanup wasn't arduous.
Within just a few hours, the balcony went from looking sad and neglected to colorful and inviting. There is still a great deal of mess here and there, but it's not what strikes the eye at the balcony door. My reward for the few hours of agreeable work was spotting the very first Stella de oro daylily scape, just emerging from the foliage.
