My challenge today was to clear out the weeds that I have
been avoiding. Sunny, the woman who lived north of the border when I moved in
here 37 years ago, explained to me her definition of weeds: anything that’s growing
where you don’t want it. So, though I never planted it, the milkweed stays.
Besides its lovely fragrance in June and those parchment pods full of magical
white stars in the fall, it provides essential food for the Monarch
butterflies, and I love butterflies. Cone flowers tend to attract them as well.
The day lilies stay too. They were here when I moved in, and I admire their
tenacity and the splash of orange.
With my sturdy garden gloves on, and armed with clippers and
trowel, I head out to extract the wild grasses, the thistle, and that sturdy,
winding bittersweet that weaves itself around anything nearby, especially the
galvanized steel mesh of the chain links. Most of the regular weeds come up
easily, but the bittersweet is a challenge. It involves un-weaving its tiny
branches from each diamond of chain link and frequently clipping a small piece
of branch with one hand while catching the piece with the other hand lest it
land on my neighbor’s lawn.
As I am doing this, I think about Sunny and the fence
between us. A delightful woman and an inveterate gardener, she was 93 when I
moved in. Every square inch of her tiny city lot was planted with some variety
of edible or flower. She even had a tiny koi pond in the middle of the back
yard.
Back then the fence was covered with pink roses that she
encouraged me to pick. She would frequently come to the fence with a gift from
her garden or some wise piece of advice for the new homeowner. She taught me
much about plants and nature. “If you plant a garden,” she said, “you’ll always
have something to look forward to.”
Our friendship grew because she saw the fence as a place to
meet and share—both flowers and wisdom.
