Patience

Patiently, I try to keep my impatience in check.  The season has merit for planting, trees and shrubs, garlic and azaleas. Seems counterintuitive, perhaps, with leaves yellowing--some reds, too. My maples, however, in no hurry, their show awaits.

The garlic goes in this afternoon. I'll separate the cloves by a hand width, rows mostly aligned. I joke with a neighbor I seed and plant with the soul of a poet. No square foot gardening for me. Regardless, the rewards of fresh garlic are more than three seasons into the future. 

For the longest time I will have to watch the green stalks without easing a bulb out of the ground prematurely. This year I pulled two of five out of the ground too early. Note to self, wait. Wait. Wait. 

Same with trees in the ground, a Ginko the other day. I tell myself to plant them now, trees I mean, and they'll settle in for the long winter's nap, ready to awaken as allowed next spring. As if somehow I might cheat the ebb and flow of sap by a day or so, maybe a week. And so a little closer to a maturity that is a decade off at least.

Even when I'm warned of a late season bloom--Table Mountain sunflowers--the long green stems filled with buds mocked my hopes late into September. Any day now, I reported. Any day. Wait. Wait.

A one-gallon Japanese maple in the spring will not be a three-gallon specimen in the fall. I know, I know, or so I remind myself. Maybe settle it in the ground now, wait a few years, and then dig it up and put it in a five-gallon container on the patio. 

After all, might catch a little extra spring energy. As I look forward. Patiently.