Every Gardener Needs a Lackey

Coffee cup in hand, I wander out onto the patio to join the morning. My gardener has already been out and greeted all her new growth and is eager to share the morning’s surprises with me. We traipse over the wooden bridge and along the flowerbeds that line the paver patio. She shows me the tips of the daffodils that appeared overnight, the new leaves of the primroses, and the change in color of the forsythia branches. The warm sun seems to promise spring right around the corner, but I’m not deceived. This is the high desert after all, and though February may dangle the lure of spring through a few sunshiny days, winter hasn’t given up by any means. Still it’s a great time to peruse the property and plan this year’s ‘project’.
Every year seems to have its own ‘project’. The greenhouse, for instance. It was a recycled structure that we inherited from my brother. The pond and its subsequent enlargement was another. Initially, the pond got dug because we needed backfill around the house, and the cost of fill dirt was nearly the same as the excavation of the pond, but we were going to need an irrigation holding pond anyway, so two birds with one stone, you know? The pond enlargement provided the fill dirt that gave us a flat spot for the patio and the patio perimeter flowerbeds. The arched wooden bridge was needed to provide access from the house to the patio once the water feature divided the near front yard from the far front yard.
So this year it looks like there will be a new vegetable bed built against the south side of the shop. The location works on a number of levels: it’s convenient to the kitchen for fresh salad fixing’s (once true growth occurs, of course), there’s good sun most of the day, deer protection already exists on two sides, and perhaps most importantly, I won’t have to mow that area once its raised up as a garden bed.
Building the new structures for the garden is work. The payoff, though, is immense. Each time a new area gets added to the ‘garden’, it becomes the responsibility of the gardener – not the lackey! One time effort followed by…NO MORE EFFORT! Tear up a section of the grass and put a weed barrier around it? Why, of course (never need to mow there again)! Turn a portion of the front field into a wild flower meadow? Absolutely! (That one didn’t even require effort – just ignore it!)
Four plus acres is too big to expect that it will ever be entirely all landscaped garden area, but a lackey can hope, you know.