Surveying the garden after three searing heat waves I see plants whose leaves are curled and brown at the outer edges.
It’s good to finally be outside after being shut in and scrolling my way through life. I have no phone with me.
Has technology usurped our ability to see our surroundings and each other? Seems like, if I have a spare minute, I reach for my phone instead of looking around. Will the next generation be able to discern visual cues?
This isn’t new.
Twenty years ago my husband and I read an article about how medical schools were taking students to museums to train them to observe the details in paintings. They hoped these newfound skills would translate into seeing more details in their patients. The program focused on the “human aspects” of medicine. What a novel concept.
I wish the last medical resident that saw my husband had graduated from that program. After he spent 30 minutes asking questions and typing without looking up, I said, “Why not look at him?”
I should invite medical students into my garden. A garden is as good as a museum. And let’s emphasize the human aspects of this garden – as in how this gardener created some of her own problems by doing some dumb things in rapid succession.
What with soil-borne diseases, fungi, bacteria and viruses spread by insects, weather and me, there’s no shortage of things to examine. And disease can be turbocharged by bad watering – as in overhead. Or am I witnessing a nutritional deficiency that I didn’t see last year because I used a foliar feeding? Hmm. And let’s not forget that spores can hitch a ride on my garden boots and tools. And in the heat, I can be a lazy gardener, rarely stopping to clean them before I carelessly transmit the disease to the next plant.
I pull on my garden boots and fire up my imagination. (I’m going to need it to make connections.)
Let’s start with the old rose bush.
Last week those black spots on the leaves were small. This week they are larger. A lot larger. I removed the infected leaves, so why did the black spots spread? I look all around, including up. I see sticks and leaves lodged in the downspout. It’s clogged and the overflow is hitting the foliage and spreading this disease.
Diagnosis: black spot.
Remedy: Remove infected leaves. Prune. Clean out downspout; improve air circulation by thinning nearby plants. Apply Bordeaux mix or neem oil. Re-apply after the next rain. A friend of mine swears by her homemade remedy of baking soda, neem oil and liquid dish soap.
Yesterday that same friend sent me a list of ways to combat stress. Here are the top two: 1) Sit and observe something for five minutes; 2) Get out in nature. In the garden I’ve got both covered.
Come back next week and let’s look at my hostas. I promise you’ll leave relaxed.
Listen to Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins