Part II - First Monster Plants then flooding and embarrassment

 

Oh my Lord dear reader it was May a year ago when I promised you the rest of my first Nova Scotia gardening adventure. You must be terribly cross with me if you are even talking to me still.
I will attempt to woo you back with my promised sequel to the Rhododendron that ate Foxpoint.

Part II - Water features are not for starters

The one and only flower bed on the property was living mostly in shade, overgrown, and had the sump pump hose running through it. The hose would jerk and wiggle like an eel on occasion then you had to tromp through the garden to reattach it properly to the basement wall exit hole. It would vomit and belch ground water over whatever part of the lawn or driveway it was pointed at.

 

One sunny late spring day I worked up either enough energy or disgust to tackle it head on. With all my garden tools at hand, a chair to rest in, and some bottled water, I struck out to either revive or kill the garden bed. It certainly could not get any worse. I ripped out weeds, attempted to identify the plants that looked purposely planted and pondered the umpteen amazing finds beneath the surface.  There were 30 year old pop bottles, the original plastic pots some of the plants came in, plastic flowers very faded and mangled, mussel shells, beer caps, broken pottery, hard clay, sandy soil, vermiculite studded potting soil, degenerated red mulch, bulbs about to burst through into unknown plants, spiders the likes of which I had never seen, various curiosities in the form of insects, and the piece de resistance -black flies.

 

Now I am Canadian born but was never much of a camper so I had only been exposed to black flies in the legends and tales of the NFB, or late-night summer horror stories told by guests at BBQ’s. I knew of Northern Ontario black flies as big as hogs that would rip the meat off your bones and laugh as you went insane. All right, this may be a bit of an exaggeration but not to the people who have ever gone camping in Algonquin Park at the wrong time of year, that being when there is no snow.  But Maritime black flies are their evil cousin making the flesh-eating Ontario bird / insect seem like harmless sparrows. These nasty no-see-ums could get through the screen door when it was closed and hermetically sealed at the edges so you can imagine their delight at this silly Upper Canadian in shorts and a t-shirt exposing multitudes of fresh meat for the feasting.

 

I cleaned up the garden after a few days of work but the bugs got nastier with each progressing day. I divided the Hosta I dug up with several hacking downward strokes of the spade blade and unceremoniously dropped it into two new holes and replanted all the tiny bulbs that turned out to be flaming oriental lilies. I scavenged the lawn for all the violets and violas dotted around and scattered packets of mixed seeds for cutting and wildflowers. An epiphany suddenly struck me, the bright idea that I could build a make shift water feature that would put the sump pump to good use too.

 

You see there is one thing that grows better than anything else in Nova Scotia – rocks. I had big ones, small ones, gravelly ones, even boulders. I fitted them together as best I could in an artistic fashion trying to make it look as natural as possible and filling in the gaps with shovels of sand from the mysterious pile I had by the side of the house. It was my masterpiece and at the bottom a small empty pool waiting for the sump pump to fill it from cascading water burbling down the waterfall path I had built. The sump pump hose now securely hidden under a tunnel of rocks perched at the top, I settled in my chair for a break and waited. I imagined how the white violets and violas would look when they had filled in around the rocks, watercress crossed my mind and the mound of dirt that sloped away from my house partially planted and very lopsided suddenly in the bright sun looked like a garden from a glossy magazine. I do not sit still well and shook my head thinking I must have sunstroke with the ridiculous imaginings and check my watch to see how many hours had passed while I waited for the confounded pump to go off, it had been ten minutes.

 

Now I won’t say I am cheap, much preferring the word frugal but the dollar store people know me by name. That year I discovered another dollar store in a nook at the back of a plaza and they had more gardening ‘stuff’ than anyone else. I purchased four rolls of green edging just for this flowerbed and while I was waiting for the pump, I thought I should get back to work and put it in. I really had not been paying much attention to the edging and the waterfall / pool had been very spur of the moment so I got my first lesson in why you preplan everything in the garden. The end result of plans is a happier back, knees, arms, and all those muscles that you only use crawling around in the dirt winging it as you go. 

 

The edging was in tiny rolls that when released became giant snakes of unruly plastic that refused to stay put unless I held it there but my arms are not 25 feet long and I had not made a simple oval curve to the edge of the garden but had to have it dip in the middle didn’t I.  The edging had no feet or little spikes either so first I got a board and mallet and tried hammer it in a bit at a time. Well after about 6 feet the first foot popped out again and then came the hard clay area after was the lawn tightly bound with weeds so it was not getting hammered in at all. At least not with renting a large piece of equipment that would have shattered the edging long before I made a dent in the clay or weeds. Time for plan B, I got the edger and thought I could make a slot all the way round to slide it in. Jumping up and down on the edger furiously and toppling over repeatedly I realized I was not a good substitute for mechanical engineering and got down to dig with my trowel and pulled out the weeds. The narrow trench I dug was too wide at the top and seemed to further enlarge the garden considerable in some places the border became more irregular as I dug around the hardest places and it swerved back and forth but I do not like square edges or perfect geometric shapes in gardens so I decided this was even better. Except now the total linear length I needed of edging was shorter than the roll by a considerably amount. I would have to figure out how to join it at one side. Of course, there was still the edge of my waterfall to deal with, I had not planned on it originally and put it in before the edging and you can guess what came next - Yes, the rebuilding of the rock pile. If edging won’t go into clay, it was certainly not going into granite.

 

Of course, as I am putting the last of the rocks and sand back in place and I am standing dead aim in front of the hose the sump pump finally decides to go off. I had never really paid much attention to it before so I was quite surprised when after a small gurgling I was greeted with a thunderous splash of water forced up and out of a two inch hose and hitting me square in the thighs with ice cold water. I fell back and sitting on the lawn I watched as the water rushed over my rocks not even touching the top and forced rocks and sand out onto the lawn. My pool over-filling and the mud puddle around my butt growing. Up rooted violas floating along and my lovely pool full for a few minutes before it seeped away across the lawn and into dirt.  After a short, stunned, silence, I moved the hose to the other side of the garden and out onto a spot on the lawn. I decided on a dry rock waterfall and really wondered if water features were something I needed just yet. We have never seriously spoken of adding water features since.