What the Hell Is Happening?
A little background: I have been alone in my family’s Vermont vacation home for almost three weeks. I live near NYC, and there was already an outbreak of the coronavirus in a stop on our commuter train. One of my sons was studying in Europe when the program was abruptly cancelled. This happened the day someone got his facts mixed up and caused a panic for Americans returning from Europe. My other son was home from college on his spring break, and the school announced that they would not be resuming classes on campus, and my daughter’s highschool cancelled classes as well.
I am in an at-risk group, and the lax social distancing that was beginning to happen wasn’t enough to make me feel safe, so I packed up and drove north. Except for a couple of trips for essentials, I haven’t been in the same room with another human since then. It’s a drag, but it beats the alternative.
March in Vermont
I doubt that I have ever spent more than five March days here in any of the 15 years we have owned the house. Sometimes March skiing is good, but it’s never great and March is a wonderful time in my Connecticut garden. It’s much colder up here and you have to strain to see fattening buds on the trees. The ground is too cold and soggy to do much, and I am reluctant to start seeds indoors because I don’t have any lights and the house is high enough that May frosts are likely.
Friends and family send me pictures of the garden and all the beautiful bulbs and hellebores popping up.
In Vermont, we are at least two weeks away from that up here, and I will have to drive into town to see gardens waking up because in fifteen years, I have never gardened up here. When we come up here outside of ski season, we come for the woods, the swimming holes, and the local summer activities. Mostly we come up to escape the heat, because it is always cooler here than it is in Old Greenwich, but I also come up here to escape the garden. I have never been up here long enough to really dig in, so we maintain the property just enough so that it doesn’t encroach on our house or cause problems with the neighbors. Also we really don’t see the front (except when we pull up in our cars) and the back has a stunning view of Mount Equinox and forest, so any borders would barely be noticeable, shrubs would be exposed to incredibly cold wind, and trees would be redundant.
It’s not horrible…
but it’s definitely a bit of a secret shame for me.
So now I am up here for the indefinite future, and I must garden. I am trying to decide on a reasonable project that I can do myself. I have a lot of time, but I only have my muscle (which is not inconsiderable, I have very strong legs and I can work for hours when I am on a roll - all while wearing a hat and gloves!) I also need to keep safe because I am not going to burden an emergency room with some avoidable injury. I need to be especially careful because I am by myself and the property is basically a steep bog with huge rocks - that’s not a mistake, the property is steeply sloped and boggy at the same time.
So I will start with the front of the house. It is very visible and it is drier, but I am starting there because it’s pretty obvious what I should do: I am going to tidy up the “foundation plants” and fix the very sloppy edges of the woods, carpark, and front entrance. This is a manageable project, I can create a very straightforward design, and it will have a lot of impact. I am going to make it as low maintenance as possible, and it will make winter maintenance easier. I also know that many of my favorite sturdy plants will thrive.
I will put some pictures of my site in the next post.
