Emerging
Emerging from its long nap, this lily of the nile reaches up into the early morning sun.
I water my garden usually while it is cool and still in the morning. But this morning, this ramshakle garden was busy, anything but still. In a haphazard bed, odd lilies of the nile, the ones that survived last summer, thrust their buds up and erupt into small blue bouquets. They are surrounded by mint and violets, sturdy naturals in this small bed, unrelenting troopers really.
To my left, I water pots hanging from avocado tree branches, one doing well, one not so much. And the spiders have cast their nets, flung them from branch to branch, laid out to catch the evening flies that swim by. Nested into their summer homes, these spiders will make many a fine meal of wave after wave of these pests.
In a far corner of the yard, a young lime tree struggles. I’ve surrounded it with cedar bark mulch and that seems to be helping it keep the water I pound it with and it now hints at greening up again. The pomegranate nearby blooms with abandon. It needs little-to-no care, perfectly adept at making its own way in the world.
In the driveway, a camelia, still in its pot, nestles up under a rubber tree plant, also clinging to its pot, or what is left of a pot. Content to get by on what water I bring to them, they await the day they can find a home in the garden by the patio.
The crabgrass is the happiest of the lot, dug in under the lemon tree. I dig it out, and a month later, it has surfaced again, as if to say, you’ll never win. Yet, I will try again, someday soon. Maybe. Other pots sit on the side of the driveway, some planted and happy, some empty and waiting, some leftovers from last summer’s construction work. One, a clump of homeless fortnight lilies, dropped in a pot and occasionally dotted with water, have decided to bloom. Their innocent white faces stick out their blue tongues as if to say, we’ll just bloom anyway until you get around to putting us in the ground again. And beside them, new daisies have budded up from seeds in leftover pudding cups.
On the far side of the drive, a small barren square has become home to a jasmine and a honeysuckle. The soil is poor, but they have finally taken root anyway and they are crawling up a broad metal trellis on the block wall. The jasmine are blooming their little hearts out while the honeysuckle is busy putting on leggy limbs covered in green. A few pale yellow blooms attempt to emerge, but they are not yet ready to let go.
Behind them, a bougainvillea has returned from near death and its blank branches are now green, almost lush, about a foot off the ground. To the right of it, the orange tree has lost most of its winter fruit, but it still drops enough fruit for a quart or two of juice a week. A basket of oranges awaits me on the kitchen counter.
As I back away, walking the hose back to its resting place, I look back across the yard. In this early morning light, the sheen of the bricks transforms itself into a dull mirror, reflecting a somewhat gray haze, or perhaps reflecting the block walls around the garden. The garden is trying to become itself, not understanding my laggard ways, and it reaches out in spite of them. It’s green vitality still tries, calling me each morning.
And each morning, I begin my trek about the garden again.