Tag: gardening

The case for metal flowers

2 Comments

I’ve been a gardener for decades, mainly in the desert. For the past 30 years I’ve toiled in the raised beds on the east side of my Phoenix, Arizona home. That’s the first thing you learn. Never plant your garden where the scorching fingers of the afternoon sun can creep in and turn your lovingly tended plants into sad little twigs.

I taught my son Troy how to plant and tend a garden, but when I left town, he forgot his lessons.

The other thing you learn is that we have two growing seasons. In the fall—the first week of October or whenever the heat has subsided to nonlethal temperatures— we plant greens and herbs. In the spring, around the first week of March, we plant carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, and peppers and hope they bear fruit before the heat hits.

It’s a delicate dance.

Today, I spend part of my time in St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and I’ll admit I couldn’t wait to get my hands into that rich tropical soil. While I don’t have as much room as my garden in Phoenix affords, my sweetie pie built me a moveable rack from a discarded door where I hang pots. I figured container gardening couldn’t be all that tough, especially with all the gentle rain we get. For those of us who are desert dwellers, the idea that water comes naturally from the sky is quite exhilarating

What I didn’t expect is that gardening in the tropics can be as fraught as it is in the desert. My first crop was happy at first, but then inexplicably everything died. Who knew there were growing seasons in the tropics? Something a kind man pointed out while staring at my cleverly designed door that, at that point, held mostly dead plants.

“Try again in December,” he said. “It’s too hot now.”

My first attempt at gardening in the Virgin Islands didn’t pan out, but I’ll give it another try.

The problem is I’m not on my little island in December. We generally head back to Phoenix in November, where I recently found myself staring at what was previously my beautifully landscaped desert yard. What did I find? Dead plants! It had been an extraordinarily hot summer and fall, with virtually no rain. I expected the boys—okay, they’re men in their late 20s—who live in my home to have noticed my thirsty trees and flowers and herbs.

“Why didn’t you water the plants!” I pointed at the front yard where sad-looking foliaged drooped in the heat.

“I didn’t notice,” my son said, avoiding my gaze.

“How could you not see everything dying?”

He shrugged.

The indoor plants were equally as bedraggled, most overflowing as if they’d just been watered because I’d soon be coming home. As for my garden, nothing survived, not even the indestructible rosemary bush or the pomegranate tree that had shadowed my herb garden from the sun for decades.

The great thing about metal flowers is no one can kill them.

At that moment, I realized that given my nomadic lifestyle I might have to give up gardening altogether. Even if I’m in the right place at the right time to plant a garden, I won’t be there to tend it.

Recently, I walked around my backyard, rather depressed. It use to burst with color. But, as I am preparing to head back to St. Croix, there seemed to be no point in planting anything.

Then, I had a thought. I asked Ryan to get some paint to spiff up our two beige sheds, while I went to the Mexican Import Store.

Yes, I know they’re not real flowers. But, hey, no one ever has to water them. While my solution is not perfect, it works. And even the boys can’t kill my metal flowers.

Your Forgotten Sons

Inspired by a true story

Anne Montgomery

Bud Richardville is inducted into the Army as the United States prepares for the invasion of Europe in 1943. A chance comment has Bud assigned to a Graves Registration Company, where his unit is tasked with locating, identifying, and burying the dead. Bud ships out, leaving behind his new wife, Lorraine, a mysterious woman who has stolen his heart but whose secretive nature and shadowy past leave many unanswered questions. When Bud and his men hit the beach at Normandy, they are immediately thrust into the horrors of what working in a graves unit entails. Bud is beaten down by the gruesome demands of his job and losses in his personal life, but then he meets Eva, an optimistic soul who despite the war can see a positive future. Will Eva’s love be enough to save him?

Release Date: June 6, 2024

Universal Buy Link

Amazon

Apple Books

Barnes & Nobel

Google Books

Kobo

Bookstores, libraries, and other booksellers can order copies directly from the Ingram Catalog.

Anne Montgomery’s novels can be found wherever books are sold.

Goodreads

Amazon

The mystery plant

4 Comments
Somehow, this mystery plant survived the recent hellish temeperatures here in the desert. If you know what it is, let me know.

Calling all gardeners! I need your help!

But first, an explanation. Some of you may know that those of us who reside in the Sonoran Desert recently survived a miserable summer and fall where temperatures soared and rain was non-existent. The thermometer bubbled up to at least 110 degrees 54 days, at one point topping out at 119. We went five straight months without a drop of rain.

I’ve resided in Phoenix, Arizona over 30 years and have never lived through such a dismal time. People only went outside when absolutely necessary. One could get third-degree burns from a seatbelt. Birds and even insects vanished. Our hearty desert plants that are practically indestructible were dying all over. Trees turned brown and dropped their leaves, leaving skeletal branches against unrelenting, cloudless skies. Even our signature giant—the saguaro cactus—toppled over, dead from the heat.

My son Troy helps in the garden, but there was no way to keep our plants alive in the blistering heat.

I planted my spring garden before the worst hit. Vegetable gardening in the desert is always a tricky task, but I’ve been doing it a long time and understand the pitfalls, still I wasn’t ready for the unrelenting heat. No matter how much I watered, everything eventually withered and died. I kept going out to assess the damage, but all I did was get depressed. I’d show you pictures, but then I’d have to put up that warning: “Some viewers might find these images disturbing.”

We have two planting seasons here in the desert, the second comes the first week of October, but as I’d planned to travel for five weeks around that time, and it was still inordinately hot, I abandoned my plans, figuring there was no way my 26-year-old son Troy would water the little plants enough to keep them alive.

When I returned from my travels, the temperature had dropped enough for me to consider at least popping some greens in the dirt, so I asked Troy to pull a big turquoise planter from the garden up onto the patio. And there it was. A plant I didn’t recognize. The container had been sown with a packet of sunflower seeds, but, along with everything else in the garden, it had been abandoned, so the seedlings never appeared.

When I’m lucky, my garden is bountiful, but with last summer’s heat, everything died.

Still, somehow, this green plant—clearly no sunflower—had survived. I have no idea what it is, but as I stood over the pot ready to rip it out and plant some spinach and red-leaf lettuce, I paused. Tiny white flowers winked at me. When I considered tossing it in the compost heap, I realized that the tough little bugger deserved better, like maybe a Viking funeral.

I left the mystery plant in the pot, saving the lettuce for another time. And now, it’s taking over, thriving without any help from me.

As I will be traveling again soon, the garden remains deserted. But this strange plant seems happy. If anyone knows what it is, let me know. But even if it’s just an everyday weed, I think it deserves a chance, considering all it’s managed to overcome. Don’t you?

Find Anne Montgomery’s novels wherever you buy books.

Goodreads

Amazon