AYEE
. . . UGH!
There,
it is out of my system.
First,
years ago, after experiencing curate
and curator in the written word in
just about everything I picked up to read, I researched it to see if I wasn’t
spot-on about its meaning. I thought,
curator as in a museum, or curator of a collection of old books. Someone who kept them in good condition,
indexed them, a caretaker, a steward.
Later,
stumbling over the word curate even more, I reviewed the definition again and
added to my mental notation of it to select, organize, or maintain a collection
of resources. Resources? HMMMM
In
the back of my mind I remember the blogs I did on Marie Kondo – how to tidy up
your house, your life – January 15, 2017 through January 17, 2017 blogs – go visit
them if you missed them. She didn’t use
the word curate – I wonder why?
Maybe
it is a “politically correct word?”
But,
I sum it up as: keep the best and toss the rest – on a personal or professional
basis.
I
curate my photographs. I curate my china cabinet every couple of years to find
any chips or cracks that need tossing out.
I curate my plastic container cabinet, just about monthly, keeping the
best and tossing the ill matched covers or scorched plastic containers.
Under
the direction of Marie Kondo, I curated my books – oh doesn’t that make me
sound smart – “curated”.
I
curated my closets and my bureau drawers and my bill receipts.
I am
on a roll.
So,
let me get to curating the garden. Oh,
already been there and done that and now I need a T-shirt pronouncing it to the
public.
GARDEN
CURATOR
Nah,
that doesn’t seem catchy enough.
Okay,
enough with the foolishness of the buzz word – curate.
No
matter what you call it, curate or revise or clean up or gut the darn garden of
the weeds and the perennials that just don’t work and replant – I’ve done it
and it is a lot of work and it takes a bit of time.
The
front of the house, I cut down the towering shrubs that covered the
windows. I had to, I couldn’t see out
and trimming them required I use a step ladder and falling seemed likely. Much better, no shrubs, neater look, less
likely to fall and break a hip. And, it
gave me more time, less mold on the white vinyl siding and easier cleanup in
the fall of leaves. It also gave me a
fresh empty canvas to create an easier to work landscape in front of the
house. The sidewalk and front steps are
more pronounced, therefore the bronze whippet shows up better from the street. A curator’s success!
We
had a white birch tree cluster removed last year and a dappled shade garden
bordering the patio and the driveway suddenly turned into blazing sun. I’ve been curating it now since last summer,
fall, winter, spring and back into summer.
Looks like I will need more time for my curating. Shade weed seeds suddenly grow to monster
weeds when they get full sun and the rain we have been getting.
Slowly
I am saving the huge hostas and replacing them with perennial chrysanthemums. So far, the Chinese ground orchids, Blietilla
orchids have made the transition from dappled shade to almost full sun.
But,
what surprised me the most were the violets.
Those dainty little tufts of spring violets about the size of a saucer,
so sweet with their heart shaped leaves and tiny fragrant flowers in my dappled
shade unsuspectingly turned into monsters.
Now they are flourishing and are smothering everything else in existence.
Yes, they have gorgeous dark green heart shaped leaves and larger flowers now, but
the huge mounds are the size of peach baskets.
I
have already filled up one of my new compost bins with nothing but excavated excessive
violet plants from the now SUN garden.
I
obviously have more garden weeding and work to do, so let me recap: I am the
custodian, keeper, conservator, guardian, caretaker and steward of my garden –
just call me a working Garden Curator.
Does
that come with a raise? – Oh, I forgot, I am retired!
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