May 12, 2008
The sting
The unseen perils of gardening
When I decided to get serious about the back yard, I surprised myself. A domestic goddess I am, but indoors. What's on the other side of those windows was for my husband to mow, plant, water, and occasionally, weed, and for my son and dog to run around in.
But we live nearly surrounded by woods, and after a while, they started to invade. My lilies were shaded, the mums overrun, and my hostas gave up sprouting entirely. It was time for action.
I bought gardening gloves. Pretty green ones with rubberized palms and mesh across the back of the hands for ventilation. My son and dog didn't really notice, but my husband was impressed.
Pulling weeds in the late afternoon could be pleasant, if I brought the dog outside with a tennis ball to toss and catch as we moved around the yard. He'd chew the ball as I compiled handfuls of tiny trash trees and creeping vines, which I'd yank to the roots.
I filled my wheelbarrow again and again. Each load felt like progress. I discovered how people get addicted to gardening, to the sense of control and order one can impose on a wild place.
I snuck looks at the brightly colored rubber clogs in the gardening section of the home improvement store, and weighed whether I needed kneepads. I mentally mapped new areas for mulched beds and planned what to plant in them. I told my husband to take a saw to an old shrub at the edge of the patio that had gotten rangy.
I began telling people, "I weeded today," like a kindergartener reciting the day's accomplishments. I started looking forward to bulb-planting weather.
I learned which little leafy things belonged in the yard and which didn't, and eventually I had the backyard cleared of invaders. I could survey my small domain like a master. And my dog was well exercised.
But I had new horizons. Past the neatly landscaped area was the margin between suburban back yard and untamed woods. From there came viney tendrils that grabbed at trees and mulch. I got ambitious, took out the tennis ball and called the dog.
I put on my green gloves, now well seasoned with chlorophyll, sap and dirt. The first, thin tendrils were easy to pull off the ground. I pulled harder and they emerged from the thicket and broke. I was taming nature with my own gloved hands!
The viney stuff got thicker and ropier, and I pulled harder. Now it was a tug of war between me and the vine. I put all of my weight into it. And when the vine finally gave, I fell backwards onto my bottom, into a low-growing juniper bush.
I thought the dog was the only witness to my bruised dignity. I laughed. And then the stings began.
From a hornet's-eye view, my quickly descending rear end must have seemed quite a threat to the nest tunneled under the juniper. It was a mere instant between the time my butt hit the ground and the swarm surrounded me. The first hornet crawled into my glove to pierce my wrist. It felt like fire.
I received multiple stings before I got inside, sat down and waited to succumb to anaphylactic shock. It didn't come, but I didn't feel very well, either. Three days later, the pain began to subside.
I had a guy in a bee suit with a veiled pith helmet come and dust the juniper bush. He said it might take two dustings to fully eliminate the nest.
Today my green garden gloves are under the kitchen sink with the tennis ball. The dog and I are taking regular walks for exercise. The vines are growing in their corner of the yard. Don't ask me if I've weeded.
Copyright © 2008, The Virginia Gazette
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