Summers End and Thoughts About Time and Energy

I wonder if everyone feels just a bit disappointed every year at the end of the garden season. I know I do. So many things that I had planned to do never actually happened. No time. Not enough energy either.

The hostas are wrapping it up for another year
The hostas are wrapping it up for another year

Last night as I watered I noticed the hostas are starting to fade. Summer has rushed by as though on fast forward. But for the most part we have enjoyed our little garden.

The Fuschia is in it's prime
The Fuscia is in it's prime

The fuscia is gorgeous now, the grapes are starting to turn and the gooseneck loostrife is the best it’s ever been.

The gooseneck loostrife
The gooseneck loostrife
The grapes are beginning to ripen

The grapes are beginning to ripen

The day lilies, now almost finished and slumping, flower stalks dried out, were beautiful in their prime back in July. The unknown groups of purple flowered plants are now standing sporting only seed pods.

Earlier they were a riot of purple around the garden
Earlier they were a riot of purple around the garden
Now spent and ripened to seed
Now spent and ripened to seed

I am of two minds as to what to do about spent plants. On one hand I want to have a tidy garden and cut out or pull out all of this spent plant life. But I have noticed in past years that the birds do enjoy eating these seeds throughout the winter, benefitting from my negligence.

We had plans to find more plants that flowered all the way to September. Unfortunately, only the solitary dahlia survived the winter here, which had us lose quite a few plants, like the hebe. Somehow we never got around to finding all those plants although we did find a few like the maidenhair fern.

The
The maidenhair fern

But now our inexperience and lack of time have caught up with us.

I know I have to accept the fact that summer is almost over. Plants set seed, die off, they have no regrets. They have done their jobs. But I, not ready for it to end, still wish for a green and flowering garden. Ah well, time to accept reality.

And maybe it’s also time, if we had any, to start thinking ahead to next summer and make some solid plans to get the plants we didn’t get this summer. After all we’ll have all winter to make plans. Or so we hope.

But time, time and energy, those are harder things to get. By the time summer is over I have generally run out of energy. I’ve come to the conclusion that the only people who have those wonderful luxuries of time and energy to spend extravagantly on their gardens don’t have so many other things they also want to do. Like teaching mosaics, making art projects and sculptures, participating in and preparing for art shows, or building a business, not to mention reading, dinner parties with friends, garage sailing, too much to list.

Maybe I should spend some time this winter thinking about how to have a garden that looks green and wonderful all summer without needing so much time and energy. Should I should switch to more bushes? Or more perennials? But I know what we really need are perennials that bloom at different times over the length of summer.

Or maybe I need to think about the fact that energy and time are limited, especially if you want to do other things besides garden. I’m one of those people who wants it all. But the end of the summer in the garden is teaching me that I must prioritize, compromise and reassess what I really need against what I want. Ah, maybe that’s the answer or at least a path to explore.

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#7 in the Pique Assiette Mosaic Inspiration Series – A Little Bird and an Abundance of Fruit

With this Pique Assiette mosaic shrine, the fruity patterns on the dishes created the main theme. As sometimes happens there was one dish that started the ball rolling. In this case it was the little plate with cherries.

Bird and Fruits mosaic, Helen Bushell, summerhouseart.com

Without a clear idea in mind, I started to set aside dishes I found with fruit patterns on them. I didn’t know where it was going, had no clue really, just a feeling that someday I’d do something with a fruit theme. Besides, all these fruity dishes were really quite beautiful. For months no real idea came to me as to what I’d do with them.

Then one day, probably while out shopping for dishes to break, with some of my students, I happened upon this wonderful little bird. I don’t know who designed this bird, who lovingly sculpted the original, but thank you, mystery artist. Ok, looking at it, it’s probably a collectible ornament, maybe even worth money, but to me it was the missing piece. It was the piece that twigged an idea. Fruit and birds, birds and fruit. We have grapes and kiwi in our garden as well as a small apple tree. Birds love these fruits. They like to take a tiny bite and move on to the next fruit.

Bird and Fruits mosaic, Helen Bushell, summerhouseart.com

I saw the bird on a shelf and immediately knew the bird should be reflected in a mirror. Then I needed fruit. Where to get some? Well, thrift stores are full of fake fruit, nice squishy fake grapes and cherries, pear salt and pepper shakers, apple and orange ornaments. It didn’t take long at all to collect what I needed.

I often tell my students that making art is all about making one decision after another, often using intuition. In this case, once I had the final ingredients, all the decisions seemed to make themselves. For one, I made everything rounded, the shelf, the shape of the support, it all seemed to call for roundness, fullness, dare I say rounded fruitiness.

I could have done the mosaic pieces as a random overall pattern but chose instead to group the patterns in flowing areas to set off the cherry plate. The piece was almost too easy to do. I let intuition guide my decisions and with the find of the bird ornament, the piece just “flew” together. OK, OK, I’ll stop now.

detail, Bird and Fruits mosaic, Helen Bushell, summerhouseart.com

Then last, but not least, I wanted it feel abundant, like the way that trees and vines full of fruit make us feel. Under the shelf, I glued veritable bunches of those nice squishy, kitschy grapes and a few cherries, so it was practically dripping abundance. I’ve given the pretty bird a setting, a home. I like it, it makes me smile. That’s all I really need.

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