My Garden's Worst Enemies

My garden has an enemies list and it looks like I'm on it?

I think I must be a pretty boring person, because I don’t personally know anyone on my enemies list, and most of the people on it are just creeps in the government who I’ll hopefully never meet.

I honestly don’t think anyone is out to get me, but my garden isn’t so lucky. Overall we don’t get a ton of garden pests up here on the terrace—I don’t know if it’s because we’re on the second floor or because we’re in a city—but the garden does have its adversaries. Some of them are well-meaning, while some are completely evil (spoiler, in case you’re reading this via email and this post cuts off as all of mine do these days: it’s the squirrels).

This Terrible Winter

My first Brooklyn winter spoiled me with its mildness, and I was naive enough to think that they all would be so pleasant. Well, this one hasn’t been pleasant, and I’ve overheard so many native New Yorkers saying that this is a typical winter that I might need to start believing them.

It snowed a lot, and I know that snow is supposed to be insulating to the plants underneath, but maybe not insulating enough to protect them from nighttime temperatures that sometimes dipped into the low teens.. I think that’s what did some of the plants in. Fortunately most of the perennials seem ok (most of them have tiny little leaves starting to come up at their base, very promising) but most of the biennials I was trying to overwinter seem to have died, including my hollyhocks. There’s one that might have made it, and I hope it does, because even just one hollyhock plant would be an amazing thing. But, yeah, I’m going to have less plants than I thought I would. Which may not be such a terrible thing, I guess . . .

The Union Square Greenmarket

OK, I can’t blame the greenmarket. I’m the villain in this story, but the greenmarket is where I commit most of my crimes, buying plants I don’t need, most of the time on impulse.

When I order my seeds at the beginning of the year I try to Photoshop a messy collage of plants I like to see how they’ll look together in my garden. I’m not good at having a color scheme or limiting what I grow (I hope to someday, but I’m still in the excitable gardener phase), but I want the flowers to look decent together and I want to try to plan ahead, somewhat. So I’ll plant those seeds and enjoy the flowers, but soon enough I’ll find a bare spot in a pot or I’ll have a new stoop find planter to fill, and I’ll go to the Greenmarket and come home with something that doesn’t go at all. Those Montauk daisies I bought last year? I kind of hate them, but the price was right. The hydrangea? It does fit in well with the garden, but I still wonder if it’s going to pull its weight, taking up that big pot that could be used for something else. Right now I have my eye on a Flamingo Salix, so if I find one at the Greenmarket this year its probably coming home with me, but do I really need it?

The Cobaea Scandens seedlings that I finally got to survive past germination

My Own Anxiety

It’s definitely possible to give too much care to a garden, and I know I’m guilty of it. But I can’t help it. And no matter how many times I’ve killed a plant with kindness I always forget that it’s possible to do so, and then I kill again. Case in point: my cobaea scandens. What amazing plants! But I had the hardest time getting them to grow past germination, for reasons that were mostly my own fault. Remember when I scoffed at the seed packet’s recommendation to pre-soak the seeds? I thought a soggy seed would just rot, but apparently there’s a reason why people soak them. Once mine germinated the poor little cotyledons would stay trapped in the very tough (un-soaked) seeds. I’d try to be patient and Drew would tell me not to mess with them, but I couldn’t help myself. I ended up killing a few of the seedlings by thinking I could pry open the seeds myself, only to rip off the cotyledons, too. I know that a lot of gardening is about trusting nature to do its thing, but I have trust issues sometimes.

Drew took this photo of Peep last spring, most likely pre-bark

My Dog’s Anxiety

My dog Peep and I are such a messy pair, constantly feeding off each other’s nervous energy.

Overall I’d say that he’s a good friend to have in the garden. He’s sensitive and smart and weirdly interested in what I grow. He always comes up to see whatever it is I’m working on, sniffing plants, but very gently. He especially loves watching bees and following them with his nose—I worry that one day he’ll be stung, but hopefully the bees know that he means no harm. He’s very sweet.

But his nervousness! And his barking! He’s afraid of wind, he’s afraid of voices out on the street, he’s afraid of the clanging of the mystery pipes. It doesn’t take much for him to get nervous and start to bark, and then I get nervous because I’m constantly afraid of getting evicted for having a barky little dog. I get nervous and I cut my gardening sessions short.

I also get nervous, when Peep is out on the terrace with me, of large birds that fly overhead, but this one is on me, too, since one of my biggest fears is of him getting scooped up by a hawk, and I have this fear no matter where we live. I don’t even know if hawks fly around Brooklyn neighborhoods, but sometimes I see them in Prospect Park or in nature photos. You know those photos you see on Instagram of hawks or eagles, with some kind of caption underneath marveling at how majestic they are? I hate them; they make my heart beat faster in a bad way. I check the location of the photo and hope it’s nowhere around here. Even poor Flaco the owl, R.I.P. I liked following his Manhattan exploits as much as anyone else, but a small part of me was always afraid that he’d fly across the river and go toy poodle-hunting.

Not my squirrel, not my garden, not my problem: a Prospect Park black squirrel probably up to no good in a Park Slope front yard

Brooklyn Squirrels

Did you know that squirrels eat violas? I had no idea and was trying to figure out why the violas I’ve been hardening off have nibbled-at leaves. I’d assume slug but I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen one up here on our second floor terrace. Since we’re in Brooklyn I’d always guessed rat, but I don’t see them up here much, either, thankfully. But squirrels we do have, and they’ve already been busy this year in the garden, digging random holes and eating a few bulbs, so when I read that they eat pansies I knew they were the ones to blame.

I don’t like photos of squirrels, either, unless they’re of Prospect Park Bumble or of those cute little red squirrels in the UK. The grey squirrels we have here are no good whatsoever, and my garden right now looks terrible since every single growing plant or pot of bulbs is covered with ugly chickenwire or wire protection of some kind. I finally went to Dollar Tree and bought a bunch of the $1.25 wastebaskets that most people buy to use as cloches, and so far I’m a fan. As far as thrifty garden hacks go, the Dollar Tree cloches and the plastic storage bin as coldframe hacks are my favorites. But, yeah, it does look ugly to have everything covered up when you just want to peek in all the time and see which bulb shoots are coming up. But I guess it’s probably a good thing that those plants are covered up and protected—not just from squirrels but from my prying, impatient hands.