“Do you want to go for a walk?” Marilyn asked, after dinner. I’d already been for two long walks that day. We set off.
“Okay, but I don’t want to go too far. Or too fast. Also, I don’t want to use my right leg.”
“How’s that going to work?” my sister asked.
“I’ll use one of yours. Aha, I know where we should go. There’s this great impatiens garden on Georgetown.” So we strolled that way, passing the pond and the egrets fishing and geese strutting about with fluffy goslings.
Soon, we arrived at the impatiens garden. It extends all the way across the front of the house, and it’s perfect from the day the flowers go in. I was about to tell Marilyn the man’s secret—which his wife shared with me some years ago—when a deep voice said, “Good evening, ladies. Out for a walk?” It was the gardener himself, out in the yard.
“Yup,” I answered. “We’re admiring your garden. This was our destination.” There’s much more to his garden than impatiens, all of it lush and thriving.
“Thank you,” he said. “If you like the front yard, you should see the back yard. Would you like to?” Marilyn and I looked at each other.
“Yes,” we said.
We weren’t even to the back yard when we started oohing and aahing in earnest. The gate in the tall fence has lovely carved wooden panels that our host said he and his wife change out periodically for panels of stained glass. And just through the gate, blocking further progress, was a downspout extension. He flipped it up and out of the way. It had a hinge.
“Did you make that?” Marilyn asked. Marilyn can fix everything. She can build anything. She has headed up Habitat for Humanity builds. She’d never seen a downspout hinge before.
“No,” the man assured us. “They have these.” And that was the least of the marvels of his back yard retreat. There was, for instance, a dwarf kiwi tree. His students had given it to him years ago. Its foliage stretched at least ten feet from one side to the other. Who knew you could grow kiwis in Michigan, and why was this tree called dwarf? “Because the kiwis are this big,” he said, holding thumb and index finger close together.
He also grows several varieties of coleus. One of them is unusual enough that I didn’t recognize it as coleus at all. “My wife got that one for me,” he said. “I’ve never seen another one like it.” And so it was with the other plants. A white flag iris so simple and elegant that it looked like art. The pathways. The koi pond. The plans for future projects, including a breakfast spot where he and his wife can sit and watch the multitude of hummingbirds that frequent the yard.
It was a delightful tour. And on the way home, I told Marilyn the secret to the splendid impatiens display, as shared with me by the man’s wife some years ago. He doesn’t take the plants out of the flats they come in. The two of them used to plant all of each year’s impatiens in the ground, but no more. Now, he’s angled the garden bed and just puts the flats down. Instant perfection.
Speaking of perfection, my husband and I are now Up North, sharing a cottage on Lake Huron with a daughter, a granddaughter, and the granddaughter’s husband. We’ve been watching boats go by. Purple martins on the wing. Swans in the water. Gulls fishing. People fishing from small boats, trolling motors moving them slowly over the water. The marina’s odd little runabout boat, with a young guy twirling round and round on a high stool.
We’re on Saginaw Bay, where property owners have to deal with reeds as a nuisance. Or, more accurately, reed corpses. Large stands of reeds are visible from where we are. And when, alas, each stalk breathes its last, it breaks off and goes floating across the bay. In due course, it takes on enough water to sink to the sandy lake bottom. After which, wave action brings it ashore. Piles and piles of woody reed straws accumulate on the beaches, and the householders rake them up and dispose of them.
But we’re on vacation. With family around us. And soon we’ll be with more family. Tomorrow is another granddaughter’s wedding day. She and her intended plan an outdoor wedding, and so far the weather’s holding favorable for the occasion.
Gardens, a great lake, and a wedding. Ooh. Ahh.
10 June 2022