August 19: The garden in August

Last year before I left my apartment for two weeks in August, I went out and bought a stack of plastic pots and a bag of mulch. I fitted my potted plants into pots one or two sizes bigger, packed mulch between the two pots and soaked the mulch with water, stood some of the smaller pots in bowls, put mulch on top of the soil, and then watered them all again within an inch of their lives.

And it rained most of the time I was gone.

This year, I was not so prepared. I watered everything very well, moved the smaller pots under the eaves so they wouldn't dry out, and with my two favorite plants I placed glass watering globes.



Of course, there was no rain. I should have known, based on the previous months of this season, which has been unusually hot and unreliably wet, even for a summer in the South. Here's the status of my balcony garden.

Plants that were unaffected by the drought: baby pine trees, the larger of the baby elm trees in a moist pot, Dallas fern, shasta daisy (which hasn't grown much or bloomed since I planted it in April), oregano, volunteer millet. Some of these were okay, I think, because they were in deep shade.

Plants that revived fully after a watering, none the worse for wear: mums, coleus, cockscomb, mint, four-year-old maple tree.

Plants that suffered a lot, lost leaves, but will probably survive: tomatoes, willow trees, basil, possibly sage. (I list the sage here because although it looks completely dead, those suckers have been coming back in the spring, without replanting, for five years.)

Plants I have probably lost: baby elm trees in a small pot, two-year-old maple tree in the sage box, lavender, rosemary.

I was prepared to lose the tomatoes, basil, and sage, since they're past their prime and they struggle in the heat of August whether they have water or not. But the lavender and rosemary were the two I gave special treatment to with the glass water globes. I'm particularly sad, fighting off guilt, about the rosemary, which I've had for three years now, even taking it to the farm with me and tending it carefully for two winter breaks so it wouldn't die of cold in my empty apartment.

In August, tending a garden, like staying alive, is more than a labor of love and a partnership with nature; it becomes a fight for survival. You can't let down your guard, and even then there are no guarantees.

August 20: Days decrease

For the first time in two weeks I am back to my normal workday schedule of waking up at 0600. Because of the two-week gap, I suppose, I noticed a difference from two weeks ago: it is still dark when I wake. Well, mostly dark. The sky isn't bright, and the sun certainly isn't beating down on the balcony by the time I'm eating breakfast.

This summer, I taught some students from an equatorial African country. I always ask students at the end of the semester to tell me something that surprised them when they arrived here. These students said they weren't prepared for the fact that it didn't get dark until nine o'clock or so. "How can children go to sleep?" they wondered. In their country, they told me, the sun comes up around seven and goes down around seven every day, all year.

It's such a fundamental routine, seasons and day length, so ingrained when you've spent a lifetime taking it for granted.