No 12. The Story Light Tells
A light study, garden pests, and a bathing Scrub Jay.
Sunday | September 3, 2023
Hello Friends,
Getting to know any place takes time.
It’s been 13 months since we moved into our little house, and I am still finding new ways to experience a deeper intimacy with our space. I suppose this never ends. Like a life long relationship that still yields surprises, even in the later years.
For me, these insights and surprises occur during quiet moments in the garden, when I can almost feel the expansiveness of the garden breathe. Just like watching the busyness of bees, moths and finches around my own stillness.
Yet, there is one more character in this play.
Have you ever watched, with a studied eye, how natural light slowly crawls across the hours of the day? Slow, as if the sunlight is taking its time to greet and caresses every leaf, blade of grass, and flower as it transits across the sky.
As romantic as I am making it out to be, for gardening, watching the light is, well, quiet practical. For how else would we know where to plant what?
I began my light study in earnest, after walking through the garden with my fiancé and my brother. We were surveying the work yet to be done with my brother, since he is the master craftsman responsible for laying the new pavement this Fall.
As we walked from one end of the garden to the other, the conversation often went like this...
Me: “Here, in this spot, I’d like to place a Mediterranean gravel garden, but considering how the trees drop these skinny needle like leaves, can we pave this area instead?”
My brother: “No, that won’t work. Let me tell you why…”
Me: “And here, I would like to put the raised garden beds to grow herbs and vegetables…”
My brother: “Nope. Nope. This is not a good spot. Let me tell you why…”
And so on went the conversation and walkabout around the property.
As you can see, I had to quickly reconsider several ideas in my mind about what the garden will look like when we are all done. It also brought me back to the drawing board (quite literally, as you will see), and to the subject of light.
Where does the light fall? When is it direct, or indirect? For how long? If the raised beds could not go here, could they go there? What does the pathway of the sunlight have to say? There is a story the sunlight wants to tell.
And so I began to sketch the pathway of light (and shade) as it moved from East to West across different parts of our garden.
In the illustration below, I specifically attempted to capture how the shade from our three Birch trees and Laurel hedge shaded (be it light shade or heavy shade) different parts of our lawn at 8am, 12Noon, 1pm and 4pm.
I embarrassingly admit that these 4 sketches may only make sense to me, since I know exactly what part of the garden I am looking at. So, perhaps this is more about sharing my process then anything else.
From what I see, there is LOTS of shade, with direct sun around 12Noon - 3pm, right where our Jasmine hedge is, and indirect sunlight until around 4pm, after which there is a return to deep shade once more. I am also keeping in mind that we are currently enjoying 13+ hours of sunlight per day, and this is waning as we creep slowly into Fall.
Why does this matter? I am planning 3 distinct “garden rooms”: a grassy area for leisure and the dog, an outdoor dining area to eat al fresco, and a raised bed kitchen garden to grow food. Each room, and the plants I imagine in each will have a different relationship to the light and shadows of the day, and most certainly will have different needs.
Where each garden room will go is now up for debate, along with some hardscaping decisions.
Regardless, here is what I am learning: The more I look through the stillness and see the many faces of the day, the more I sink into a deeper conversation with our home. From here, and a little bit of research, all else will fall into place.
GARDEN UPDATES
Oh Pests!
What are these little black things on my Jasmine hedge? Why are the ants all about them? What is eating my newly potted lemon tree?
The answers to all of the above, as of right now is, I don’t know. To remedy the Jasmine hedge immediately, I cut off the infected limbs, and trimmed down the entire hedge with a hedger. All this to buy me time while I research and identify the pest and an environmentally friendly solution.
To answer my many, many questions, a link to the University of California, Integrated Pest Management website was passed along to me. In kind, I thought I would pass this resource on to you here.
Is anyone else dealing with pests in their late summer garden?
And finally, for your viewing pleasure, I leave you with this short video of our resident Scrub Jay (aka the backyard bully) bathing in our humble little bird bath.
Until next time! Thank you for reading The Garden Chronicles!
