I begin this very first newsletter of stories from the garden, with two milestones: This past February marked our first anniversary as homeowners. Consequently, February also delivered my forty-fifth birthday. A birthday that felt like New Years in some ways, offering a fresh start. Most definitely a new phase in life and a time of new meaning. The details exactly forthcoming from this point onward, I am not quite sure, but this birthday felt distinctly different - like arriving at a designated sweet spot in life.
So from this timestamp in life, I dig in and write from my own hobbit hole, who’s furnishings and comforts are still being assembled piece by piece.
Now, on to the story about ivy.
While we have been homeowners for a year, we have been occupants of this house for only 8 months. In the early days, while we were waiting for the interior to be painted and the floors to be installed, my eyes firmly set on the expansive ivy, which over the decades, slowly made itself home along the fenced perimeter of our entire yard.
The ivy stretched and extended its leafy vines, like dexterous extremities, crawling up wooden fence planks, the thick trunks of older trees or shrubs, and even rising up along cracked stucco walls.
I walked and talked with gardeners about removing the ivy. More than once I felt an unspoken sense of trepidation as they eye balled the job, and more then once I heard how a ‘job like this’ required a chemical solution. They warned me that the ivy would just keep coming back. I imagined this like a monster hiding in the closet waiting to creep back in through the darkness. Considering all of the above, I resolved to do the job myself and with my own hands.
I knew this home had history. In a span of 64 years, we would only become the home’s third owners. When it would be time to lower the blades of my shears into the thickness, I knew I would be touching that history. Stewardship weighed heavy on my shoulders.
I confess to feeling so guilty about ripping out the old ivy, that before I began, I knelt before the miniature green belt, apologized profusely and asked for permission to relocate it, meaning, remove it - at minimum, from my yard. Talk about a softy.
When it felt right, I dug my hands in, wrapped by fingers around as many leaves and limbs as I could wrap my fingers around - and pulled. When my fingers tired, I moved on to the sheers and the electric hedger (really, whatever tool I could work in the situation), until newly exposed vines and roots revealed themselves. At which point, I once again began to pull.
And so it went on, for 5 months.
The ivy revealed and revealed and revealed as I went along. Buried dog bones, animal bones, tiny green GI Joes, plastic tot toys, an ashtray (or two), socks, and a multitude of tennis balls, some with the lime green covering peeling off like a long limp tongue. It was an astonishing find: traces of other peoples’ lives. Artifacts swallowed up in the Bermuda Triangle that was the old ivy. And so it came to pass, in this way.
I eventually triumphed over the reign of ivy in our yard with my apologetic words and tired hands. One year later, the ivy, where I removed it, has not returned. Perhaps it heeded my humble request and resolved to grow elsewhere.
The two small patches of ivy still rooted in the remote locations of our yard, I have yet to “relocate”. An effort hampered by the Winter cold (which I am no match against), and a caravan of Atmospheric Rivers that reared its head in our direction in 2023.
But that is another story, for another newsletter.
Thank you for reading and supporting The Garden Chronicles! Until Next Time!
We have overgrown Ivy and we did pull it out by hand to keep it under control.
I love that you spoke to the ivy and did the removal yourself. How interesting to be rewarded with those "treasures" from previous owners, too.