Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 6, 1995 TAG: 9506060104
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
They were originally planted by a previous tenant in the plot outside our house, inheritances like the kitchen stove with a temperamental oven (now replaced by a gleaming white Amana) and the reading light anchored beneath the cabinet.
When garden-planting time came last spring, the strawberries already had staked their territory. Like our stubborn cat when she wants to sit on your lap, they were rooted where they wanted to be, whether anyone liked it or not. The berries were so red and cheerful, not to mention tasty, and the leaves such nice green filler, I didn't have the heart to disturb them.
I opted instead to create a red and purple garden that would be free to grow as haphazardly as it liked, and it did. Red dianthus, purple nicotiana, and a variety of plants along the chosen color spectrum were installed in and around the green strawberry leaves. I even capitulated to my natural tenancy to flee from nursery standards and added a single red petunia in one hole between leaves so the plants could all overgrow in one continuous, dependable heap of color.
But even as I planted that last petunia, probably as late as July, I decided that next year I would bring some order to those strawberries. I wanted my flowers to bloom in progression as I saw fit.
Well, wouldn't you know it, this spring rolled around and before I had a chance to stop them, and the sprawling, fast-growing strawberries were back - some in places where they hadn't grown last year. Business took me away from town for a couple of weeks, and I returned to find that my dianthus had followed.
They looked so happy sticking up from the strawberry patch that I found myself thinking, "Look, Allison, the way this spring and summer are shaping up, you may have to forgo a garden this year."
You see, this is a Book Year. I'm the author/mother of a travel book about the Chesapeake Bay region, and the final manuscript for Edition II is due in July. Sandwiching book deadlines around newspaper deadlines has a way of eating up spare time, what with running back and forth about 650 miles in one weekend, and editing contributors' copy into the night.
Under these extenuating circumstances, the strawberries grew unchecked.
About a month ago, a strange plant in the back right corner of the garden plot began to grow, too. Its leaves resembled those of a purple-blossomed creature I'd purchased last year, not knowing what it was, but liking how it looked. This stranger shot straight up, instead of curling artistically around like the old plant. But I decided to let it grow.
And that's when I called a halt to deadline rushing and went to the nursery. Instead of overgrown and vivid, this year's garden will look rather airy: columbine. More dianthus. Carnations, such sturdy souls, even into fall. I got home with my 99-cent trowel, and began to dig.
This morning, I awoke thinking about Chapter Seven, due in a few days, but first went outside to admire my handiwork. Finally, the sprawling strawberries have been tamed and unified, all on the left side of the garden plot. One last coral-colored zinnia needs to be strategically placed, I believe, in order to properly segue from blossoms to berries.
My dad used to have a huge tract of strawberries. When we were kids, we'd all but hide at his dreaded spring-to-summertime request: "Who wants to help weed the strawberries?" He finally brought them under control by exerting his will over that particular garden plot. He pulled up the strawberries, and planted lettuce.
I thought about that as I dug into Chapter Seven.
by CNB