<p>Cate Gable stands amid blooms at the Fitzsimmons’ garden.</p>

Kali in the Garden

Saturday dawned in a gloomy humid way, but actually it was perfect for gardening and garden viewing, both activities I had planned for the weekend. After being gone for several weeks, the garden gets into its head its own notions about what to do mainly roll over and let those pesky weeds take over. The mild-mannered potatoes, berries and greens are like deer in the headlights. They murmur to each other, What do we do now? I dunno. Guess wed better wait til Cate comes back.

So when Cate does come back, she becomes Kali the Destroyer wrenching out, lopping off, and pulling up. But its not like that nasty bindweed starts shaking in its boots. (And isnt it a bit like mosquitoes? Why did God invent it, anyway?) It just keeps twisting around unselfconsciously, swaggering with bravado. That stuff grows up from the thinnest wire-like beginnings and sneaks around at the bottom of the real plants until it gets a good strangle hold up the stems of say, my raspberries then those wiry-twists become so tough you cant break them. So its me crawling around on all fours, with my glasses off, mole-like, and my Japanese scythe at the ready searching out bindweed. Humiliating.

But you cant just cut off or pull up a determined bindweed. No, you have to unwrap and untwist the darned thing from all up and down and through the other peaceable garden plants just to figure out where its root-end is. Its a quiet killer. And if any part of that nasty white root is left in the ground boom within days, it seems, its nosey sprout is sneaking around again, up and out to strangle another unsuspecting neighbor. Its criminal!

Pests and Perks

Then there is the question of the actual deer, whove been busy handily taking off the tops of all the raspberries that have wandered out of their safely-fenced plot; or the ends of the apple branches that poke out beyond their wire cages. I guess this is the work God doomed us to when we were banished from the garden. The irony is that the calmest, most inviting and untroubling creatures in my yard are the beautiful garter snakes. They wriggle through the grass or quickly get out of the way when I pull back the plastic from my compost pile.

Those glistening black snakes, chevroned with red and yellow, are just warming up in the sun, minding their own business. Im delighted to see them. They make me feel like Im nurturing a habitat and not just a garden for my own pleasure. And they always put me in mind of that wonderful D.H. Lawrence poem (excerpted here):

A snake came to my water-trough

On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,

to drink there.

In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree,

I came down the steps with my pitcher. And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before me

But must I confess how I liked him,

how glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough

And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,

into the burning bowels of this earth?

The Real Gardeners

Post bindweed battles, I struck out with friends to view some real gardens created by authentic gardeners. For starts, I bow to Lynn and Mike Dickerson who have been toiling for 19 years on their acre plot of what must have originally been rolling dunes and scrubby pine meadows.

I barely know where to start to sing their praises. Contented beautiful chickens, enormous bins of potatoes, fava beans high as an elephants eye, and dahlias bigger than a dinner plate were just the beginning. But heres a mention of two engineering ideas that caught my attention. One: when the chickens are let out to forage, theyd destroy any garden rows left uncaged; on the other hand, you want to be able to weed a plot easily. So, Mike devised a system of putting in the ground at the plot borders hollow PVC pipe into which stakes fit. Attached to the stakes is netting to keep the chickens out; or, lift the stake out of its housing and move the netting aside to weed. Brilliant.

Second and equally time-saving: they planted 4×4 posts with a horizontal board on the top, almost like a bird feeder, then permanently attached a sprinkler. So, just drag the various hoses over and screw them on to the designated sprinkler and, le voila! irrigation. We worked out the height of the posts and the arc of the sprinklers to match the plot size. This hose serves that one and that one, Mike said pointing, And I learned to buy the cheapo 10 buck sprinklers. They last a couple years and then you just get a new one. Easy, perfect.

Because some garden viewers started at the northend and headed south and some at the south end heading north, it appeared for a wonderful 15 minutes as if we had all descended on the Dickersons, midway, at the same time. Lots of hugging and I havent seen you in ages, took place. Not only that but daughter Maddie, founder of Pink Poppy Bakery, provided snacks, and the Mozart Chicks were playing. I could have danced all night.

Ocean Beauty

In direct contrast to the Dickersons full-service garden was Jo and Bob Fitzsimmons Long Beach sanctuary. In a series of brick-lined walkways surrounding their 1896 home, we found blazing color everywhere. The flowers were astounding, beginning with an entrance of wall-to-wall geraniums in reds and pinks. Poppies, fuchsias, asters, tobacco plant anything and everything brilliant and bird-friendly burst from these carefully tended beds. Interspersed throughout were whimsical birdhouses and feeders of all shapes and sizes. There was a virtual traffic jam of admirers making their way through the blooms.

And I cannot let go of the day without mentioning Harvey and Dee Bristols exquisite oceanside meadow designed by landscaper Diana Canto. Diana was on hand to answer questions and give us tips about pruning rhodies (I cut them down drastically, sometimes to 18 inches.) and sedums planted in the crooks of an undulating piece of driftwood (You can blow the seeds into tiny spaces with a straw. Is that called the breath of life?).

The tour earned $3,725, representing 248 tickets, for the Water Music Festival coming up this fall. Despite not seeing the sun, it was not raining so, all-in-all, a pretty darn good day in Peninsula-ville came to a close.

Stay tuned next week for The Benthic Zone, Part Two Dale, Dwight, Jim and Richard go to Washington, where they meet 47 representatives and staffers who cant get along or get anything done, and return with a two-inch stack of business cards but no dough.