There are no stars in the city. Every night I walk out onto my back porch and look up at the sky. The moon waxes and wanes, and a planet might appear, but never the glimmer of a star. On clear, moonless nights the sky is black. Under cloud-cover I see a murky, yellowish grey reflected curtain. The orange alley-way dusk-to-dawn streetlight illuminates my city garden—garish, eerie, unnerving. In its beam the lilac and the American holly get no rest. Nor is there a time to sleep for the vegetables and flowers in summer or the conifers that hold their green needles through the fall and winter. The street in front of my house sports lighting sameness throughout the year, causing the tulip poplar to delay dropping its leaves until fall passes and winter begins.
I have little recent experience of a world without streetlights, porch lights, car headlights, and advertising lights that create that canopy of ambient light—a dome that blocks out almost everything natural in the sky. Without those artificial sources, would it be so dark that, frightened, we would run inside to the safety of our lamps and big screen TVs? Is it fear that causes us to embrace this dull sameness and turns night’s darkness into simulated day? I began to wonder how humans survived in past eras when there were no streetlights, gaslights, or whale oil lamps—when people navigated the streets by half moonlight or the glow of the stars. How much light would there be, and how much would be enough? I decided to go on a journey in search of answers.
My first stop would be the ocean, where baby turtles, guided by starlight, make it across the beach to the water but become disoriented when lights from houses and streets bath the beach from behind them. I went to Nantucket and, waiting for the night, I sat on the sandy beach near the dunes as the sun slid softly below the horizon. A fog rolled in from the water and engulfed my beachhead. I tucked my toes into the soft, moist sand and listened to the gentle turn of the arriving ocean waves. Complete darkness enveloped me as if creation were beginning again. Feeling the dampness of the night and disappointed at finding no stars, I returned to Nantucket town and its uniform brightness. Nantucket harbor was alive with pier lights sparkling across the water. It’s undeniable that artificial light can be lovely, but I prefer a line of rippling moonlight on a lake. It looks different—cooler—and it varies depending on the phase of the moon and how high in the sky. Enlivened by a slight breeze, it makes tree and leaf shadows float in and out of unlit spaces. Would starlight make this kind of magic?
My next stop was a place I’ve long loved—Chautauqua, an intellectual summer community on the shore of a natural lake in far western New York State. This is a place that controls mosquitos by maintaining purple martin hotels on the lake shore. A community that’s sensitive to the natural world must be knowledgeable about the impacts of artificial light on migratory birds, trees, garden plants, and humans. My visit revealed some stars not obliterated by Chautauquan’s porches. A few twinkles are better than none, but not the starry night that’s the object of my search.
Traveling far across the country trying out parks and roadways, I sought the emptiness of Death Valley—the lowest place without water in the United States. Uncountable stars from horizon to horizon splash the world with brightness. Yes, stars do light the earth, and it is enough. The sky pulses with the observations of ancient Egyptian astronomers, Copernicus, Galileo, and Ulugh Beg and of mariners in past centuries who navigated by the stars and constellations. I find no monotony here, no drabness, no boredom. The landscape reflects the excitement of a flamboyant sky—a canopy of light unsullied by human fear.
City houses, close together, give me a sense of belonging to a place and to a community of gardeners, but not everyone shares my natural gardening philosophy. Seeking nature’s solutions to nature’s problems, I avoid chemicals, but this isn’t true of every gardener. I fret about the dead branches in the next door neighbors’ tree that may have suffered herbicide drift from the garden two doors down. I’m sure some neighbors are using insecticides liberally because their gardens are perfect. Are the wrens that I’m housing eating tainted insects? Are crucial populations of pollinators being exterminated?
Most of my neighbors build high fences to either keep human neighbors out or perhaps their own family members in and secluded. I’ve never been sure which, but this system works for both objectives. I haven’t encountered a rabble-rouser, burglar, or an unfriendly neighbor breaching any of the wooden stockades of fearful homeowners. However, the walls have no impact on the non-human residents. I once saw a half-hour standoff between a squirrel and a hawk on top of the fence two doors away, defying any attempt to control them. Rabbits are everywhere finding holes in the fences or digging their way to the next yard. You might see an opossum strolling down a driveway, babies on her back, oblivious to human habitation. Neighborly birds—many species—are here in my garden, but these fair weather friends only arrive when there’s something to eat.
Recently, I discovered the dangers that neighbors can pose to my garden ecosystem in a gruesome way. A squirrel died under my car in the driveway. I’m no fan of squirrels. They dig everywhere. Tomatoes and new plantings must be covered and protected from them. They’re a nuisance, but having a dead one in my driveway covered with ugly blue flies and wiggly, white maggots made me sad, angry, and afraid. Nature requires that squirrels die like all of us, but not on my driveway or anywhere that I’ve seen them around my garden. The town’s animal expert told me that someone was probably ‘thinning’ the squirrel population—or maybe rats—with poison. I wonder what else this neighbor is thinning. Baby rabbits that the Cooper’s hawks eat? Someone’s beloved cat?
I may not love all the activities of my neighbors but how can I avoid recognizing that they also have to put up with me? What others consider weeds run rampant behind my house filling up the cracks between the alley-way bricks while the areas behind other houses are clear of vegetation. Invasive clematis and honeysuckle droop over the stones marking the back of my garden, and my lovely native plants thrive a jungle. I avoid blowing away the leaves because pollinating bees are wintering in the leaf litter. Perfect Lawn? Never in my yard. My neighbors are neighborly and come to help me with the leaf collecting, edging, and weeding chores. I love it. Everything looks better after they finish, but I imagine them confiding to partners, “Is she ever going to clean up that driveway?” “How long do we have to put up with those weeds?” “Why doesn’t she just grow grass like everyone else?”
As I collected the supplies to clean up the squirrel’s remains on the driveway, a live squirrel arrived to investigate. He circled his dead colleague but stayed about three feet away. Having noted the dwindling numbers of squirrels lately, I wondered if this one was the last of his family left to nestle into their winter home high in the trees alone—like the last one of a species on the verge of extinction—no loss for the garden, but leaving a void in this micro-ecosystem.
Neighbors—both human and animal—offer challenges, but they make the garden spaces whole. When rabbits attack the parsley and hollyhocks, I place chicken wire to keep them out. Small stones around a new plant keep squirrels from digging under them, and completely covering tomato plants preserves their crimson fruits. I thank my neighbors for their efforts to cleanup my weeds and edge my driveway, and I bask in their generosity. If neighbors are thinning animal populations and using insecticides and herbicides nearby, nature—squirrels, weeds, grass, rabbits, flowers, and insects—will rebound this year or next, and my neighbors’ friendship will always be a priceless gift.
A visit to a friend’s garden inspired me to consider its perfection. The flower border encircled emerald lawn that had never seen a weed, much less had one growing there. Each grass blade stood at the precise height as every other blade—not a single miniature spike out of place. Individualism did not exist in this garden. The border displayed a row of flowering islands surrounding the lawn and backed by an elegant wooden fence as immaculate as the lawn and flowering border. The day lily blooms were aligned with the height of the adjacent and alternating roses. Small bedding annuals lined the front edge blending white flowers next to pink which faded into lavender. The line along the edged border was sharp and straight—no perceptible deviation allowed. The arrangement of plants reflected the hands of an artist—careful planning that a talented landscape architect can do—and a patient and obsessive gardener.
My garden design is simple and ad hoc. In my hand I hold a plant that I will cherish. Where can I find a space that meets its requirements—sun, soil, and moisture? I plant it and hope to watch it grow and bloom. I water it along with the rest of my garden caring and tending to the needs of each plant. But in the end, with no plan and no design, no matter how lovely the bloom, my garden is colorful, but irritating, chaos.
But then one year I plan. I make drawings of the location of existing perennials and fill in the ones I want to grow. I use crayons on multiple pages of drawings to map out how the colors will go together at various parts of the growing season. This little pink rose goes here in full sun next to the fall blooming chrysanthemums with some lower growing annual nasturtiums in front. The tall Asiatic lilies—white with red centers—are in back behind the bright red bee balm at about half the height and in bloom at the same time.
Spring arrives and I’m excited about executing my plan. But, wait! I have too many plants. Unexpected volunteers fill up spaces that should be foxglove, and the lavender-blue Stokes aster fails to bloom. As always, I hold in my hands these extra plants—full of potential—and I find places for them, forgetting the planning and drawing and again creating chaos. I could be aggravated—maybe even angry—because all the effort fails to offer the perfect garden. But one morning I walk out for my daily inspection and find a wide-awake yellow flower as big as my teacup pushing up from the ground—nature’s surprise—and then the struggle for artistic perfection doesn’t matter any more.
Growing roses challenges gardeners. They must be constantly on guard for funguses, bacteria, bugs, tiny caterpillars, and devastating, psychedelic green and brown Japanese beetles that love the buds and destroy the blossoms’ perfection. They are unwelcome foreign invaders bringing with them diseases that have destroyed many of our elm trees. Some gardeners pick them off the roses and squeeze them, but I prefer to shake them off into a jar of soapy water. In case you wonder, they can’t swim, but they try.
When I walk out into the garden in June or July, every rose blossom is being attacked by one, two, or three of these beetles, and where there are two, they are right on top of each other. I imagine this to be the Japanese beetle version of sex and reproduction. Sometimes I see a beetle ménage à trois. Sex in the middle of a sweet smelling rose blossom must be euphoria although only if a beetle has a sense of smell. I rid the world of two or three of these at a time when they fall into my jar clinging to each other without hope. It may seem cruel, but it’s quick. I wouldn’t bother if there were two or three, but their over-sexed lifestyle results in hordes of emerald green beetles that seem to have no predators and that can’t be tolerated in any respectable garden.
On the other hand, some insects are worth a different approach. One morning I visited my butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa), a member of the milkweed family. I was standing three feet away and a monarch butterfly flew past me and landed on one of the bright orange bloom clusters. Although I was close enough to see its proboscis unroll tapping into each small flower, it paid no attention to me. I was free to marvel at its orange wings flapping slowly like gentle fans and to observe the striking black and white spots and stripes on its body. Satiated, it flew off in search of a mate or another drink of nectar from a red zinnia.
No longer captivated by the butterfly, I could take a moment to observe the plant more closely. An aphid is so small that one by itself would not be noticeable. However, where there is one, there are thousands, making them easy to spot. The stems and seed pods of the butterfly weed were covered in the tiny orange aphids—yes, the same color as the flowers. A close inspection revealed the bugs moving around and acting like aphids, whatever that means. I could have run to the garden shed for the insecticidal soap, an organic killer, but I chose to leave them alone to see if something more natural would reduce the population—and it did. The next day there were noticeably fewer aphids.
Since aphids reproduce asexually, I suppose their only pleasure is eating butterfly weed, so something needs to eat them. I’ve heard that lady bugs feast on aphids, but I haven’t seen those small black-spotted red beetles on this plant. I visited the plant for a third day and encountered two milkweed bugs. Research suggests that these striking insects—black with an intense red ‘X’ on their backs— may eat aphids, and, though the evidence is anecdotal and it’s impossible to be sure, some insects are eliminating the aphids on my butterfly weed.
After their feast of either aphids or the plant, the milkweed bugs celebrated by having sex. I found them languidly attached to each other rear end to rear end. These may not be the most benign bugs for the health of the garden, but, for my part, I’m delighted that there are ravenous predator insects out there relieving me of any obligation to be the predator. No pesticides, please. After all, who am I to deny a lady bug or a milkweed bug couple a decent meal?
From May to July wrens own my garden. Each one is small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, if it would be still long enough to be measured. Their activity is frenetic, flying so fast that it’s often impossible to tell where they’ve gone. I sit well-hidden inside my screen porch, high above the driveway and perennial garden where I can watch them fly, disappear, return, and constantly work to raise the next generation.
Long ago I developed the habit of sitting inside the screened-in porch to avoid the constant onslaught of mosquitos who considered me a perfect buffet dinner. Working in the garden required a full cover-up—long sleeves, jeans, hat, socks, some kind of chemical or plant-based repellant. Rising en masse out of the soil under the hostas and chrysanthemums, these insects would take only a few minutes to discover their next meal and buzz around my ears in swarms. Gardening isn’t possible while sitting inside a screened porch, so this problem had to be solved.
I knew about two natural ways to reduce mosquito populations—purple martins and bats—both less than ideal for my small garden. Purple martins need open fields, ponds or lakes, and a fifteen-foot pole supporting a bird apartment building. I couldn’t imagine putting up such a structure, not to mention climbing up to clean out the apartments at the end of each season. Bats could work. They’ve been in this neighborhood and in my attic, but, bat guano in the attic isn’t a great substitute for too many mosquitos. My research suggested that wrens might be as good as purple martins. All you need is a birdhouse with a 1 1/8 inch entry hole placed in a tree at a height of eight to ten feet. The dogwood tree in the perennial garden is twenty feet from the porch and has low branches. For a cost of a fifteen-dollar birdhouse, I was in business.
In May the male wren arrives first. He checks out the living quarters and gets to work. Over a couple of weeks he fills the small cedar house with twigs. I watch as he searches the driveway below for just the right sizes from among the trees’ detritus. Then he flies up to the house and moves the twig to the correct angle to get it through the small hole. He is far more industrious than most people I know—including me. I’ve read that the male may build several nests in the expectation of attracting a female to one of them. My little birdhouse is the fortunate choice of one female wren.
Early spring mornings offer the opportunity to sit on the porch and watch. The smell of freshly brewed coffee awakens my body and mind to the intricate details of my garden—the sweetness of the sweet bay magnolia mixed with the earthy dew rising in the first sun’s rays. I don’t have to wait. My view-scape is full of activity and noise. Although I can’t see inside the birdhouse, the wrens have laid eggs and now have nestlings. The adult wrens’ calls are louder and more boisterous than the vocal cardinals, robins, and doves combined. They fly from the birdhouse to the ground and return with an insect that I hope is a mosquito, hop inside, and immediately depart to repeat the operation.
The next day I see only one adult, and I’ve learned that the female leaves feeding the nestlings to the male. Now he’s working harder than ever. I watch as he flies back and forth frantically—two trips every minute by my count. Consider the magnitude of this work—a thousand trips from dawn to dusk. Now I can hear the chicks’ noisy clicks each time Dad arrives with a new mosquito morsel. My anticipation building, I wonder if I will be sitting here on the porch to see the nestlings leave the nest.
Feeding his offspring is one of many obligations that this little wren must shoulder. The most important is protecting his brood. Wrens are intrepid and will attack anything that comes near—except me, fortunately—but I haven’t been curious enough to get too close to the nest. An innocent squirrel meanders through the garden grass sniffing and digging for leftover acorns. It must be a myth that squirrels hide food and then remember where it is. They don’t need to remember, because they sniff and dig everywhere until they find something. They sit up neatly on their hind legs on the cap at the end of the raised flower bed and enjoy their breakfast but this morning is going to be different for this fellow. Despite the wren’s cacophony of quick, sharp chucks, the squirrel moves along ever closer to the dogwood tree where the wren nestlings are chirping for their next meal. Without warning the wren dives at the squirrel and hits his target on the head. The shocked and frightened squirrel ducks and turns but before he can escape he receives another brutal blow. The squirrel’s departure is faster than a pitcher’s fast ball. Then without a moment’s break, the wren continues his urgent chore of feeding his hungry babies.
At the end of June, after all his feeding and protecting, another miracle happens—the nestlings become fledglings. Departing the nest one by one, they flop around, skitter across the driveway, and get barely enough flight to hop the fence into the neighbors’ yard, reminding me of awkward, newly emboldened teenagers. In a few days they become expert flyers, and they begin, like their parents, to assist with my mosquito problem. However, this is not the end of the story. My wrens will lay more eggs, feed nestlings, attack squirrels, and get another brood out into the world in one season, and only then will they be gone south to warmer climates until next year when they return to a brand new cedar house and a regenerated, voluminous mosquito population. Nature helps us sometimes while providing a richly entertaining show—if we are patient enough to watch.
My garden changes—each day, each season, each year. The dying back in the fall and regrowth in the spring are expected, but it’s the unexpected that keeps my gardening spirit alive. Plants work hard to fulfill their photosynthesis role keeping the world’s energy level churning. Their growth can be astounding when cut-back leaves and stems push out again to produce unanticipated flowers—year round gifts to the gardener.
I take a stroll around the garden every morning to inspect and observe. In midsummer, a saucer-size, pale yellow flower greets me one day from a half-hidden place on the ground. When I planted this native primrose, it displayed so little energy that it was forgotten. Its life force now gives me this special treat before my morning coffee.
A sweet potato plant purchased at a farmers’ market is another morning surprise. A white trumpet blossom with a red center peeks out from under the leaves—a harbinger of subterranean fruits soon to arrive. Rosemary’s pale lavender blooms appear for the first time in my garden amid royal purple hyssop and ripening cherry tomatoes.
Suddenly in late July, surprise lilies, which are not actually lilies, send up two-foot straight, bare stalks topped by pink lily-like blossoms. In springtime, buried deep, their oversize bulbs presented dark green, graceful foliage—an arched background for yellow daffodils. I cleaned up all the dead and dried leaves in June and tended to other parts of my garden. The surprise lilies were forgotten until this miracle happens producing this bounty of toxic, pink flamboyance. Yes, they are toxic, leaving me to wonder how a lovely thing can be filled with poison in all its parts. Bees and hummingbirds won’t touch it. Although not lilies but rather related to amaryllis, Lycoris squamigera has many names—surprise lily, resurrection, magic, naked lady, and mystery lily.
Some surprises are also mysteries. Having bloomed rich purple for almost twenty years, the Japanese irises have decided to produce some red blossoms this year. Have they been hiding a genetic secret? On the other hand, I can guess why sunflowers advertised as dwarf plants two feet tall reach five to eight feet. The seed company’s mistake is more surprise than mystery. Why is a squash plant flourishing with elephant-ear leaves and copious blooms while three feet away the same plant from the same seed packet has less abundant growth? The answer is undoubtedly in the soil—the microscopic underworld that is forever mysterious.
The transition from fall to winter can be full of surprises, and I’m thrilled that no two years are exactly alike. Fall’s first freeze is typically in October. Yet, on Thanksgiving flowers are still blooming. Among dying foliage I find a few brilliant yellow chrysanthemum blossoms, red dianthus (sweet William), foxglove, and a cheerful, orange nasturtium. This year an enhanced splash of green, gold, and crimson decorates my background view. The pines have grown exponentially, and the annual needle drop creates a golden glow in the sunlight surrounded by deep green and a backdrop of fiery burning bushes.
We can blame the warming climate for the late blooms and delayed fall metamorphosis, but on my garden’s micro-level I expect next year to hold different surprises. A frost in late September? Hellebore flowers in midwinter that didn’t bloom last year? Without doubt, spring germination of seeds scattered this year without much thought will be next year’s surprises.
