Flowers in a Green Vase, 2002
Fritz Scholder
For my friend C, who is having the week from hell.
I’d send these for real, if I were any better off than you!
Traditional grape arbors are single purpose. So grow vines on a pergola instead.
Why didn’t I think of this sooner?
This is about that time
in the spring when I start to get nervous about all my plans.
Did I over commit? Is the potting mix I’m using low on sulfur? Am I slowly stunting all these seedlings? Do my plants hate me? Can I fit them all in the car for the long drive to my mom’s? Does the achillea really grow if I check it every 30 minutes? No question— I definitely over sowed on the rudbeckia. Do I actually know how to prune the witch hazel, or am I just kidding myself? I just identified that plant as coreopsis to the new garden director, but honestly, I don’t remember what I planted there. And I’m pretty sure the black raspberries aren’t supposed to be leaning like that.
I wait for spring like a kid waiting for Santa Claus. It keeps me up at night in February. But eventually I have this week near the end of April/beginning of May that gives me pause. I’ve started the seedlings, divided some perennials, done some spring pruning and started some spinach, arugula, radishes, peas, onions, and potatoes in the garden. easy peasy lemon squeezy. It’s all going to start blooming soon— showing me where the design is lacking, where I have blank spaces, something will get destroyed by bugs, another by some unidentifiable disease and I will realize: I don’t know what in the hell I’m doing.
There’s always a mountain of things to learn. It’s utterly impossible to know everything I want to. 
But that’s also why I start it all over again every spring…
catmint & parker’s yarrow.
nepeta faassenii & achillea filipendulina.
going in at mom’s this spring.
Every Man His Own Gardener:
Being a New, and much more Complete,
Gardener’s Kalendar
Than any one hitherto published.
By Thomas Mawe, 1767
(Jefferson’s Library)
