7 Petals Floral Design MaryAnn Nardo

Annual vine pulling contest:
The quince bush before the vine extrication. It's really pretty looking with all the draped vines...... but there should be no leaves and only brown branches filled with salmon colored flowers.

This was one of those days, you know, when you're just merely walking by the  garden and somehow three hours later you realize that it happened again.  I love to work in the garden. Today I had a lot of confused feelings. Usually my mind  is gratefully empty, but today I had the task of the annual vine pulling off the quince bush. Come end of the summer, artfully intertwined in this beautiful shrub are the also picturesque morning glory vine, jasmine vine, trumpet vine, and ficus vine( yeah, guilty for planting two of these close by). Come spring, the quince bears beautiful flowers. But you can't see the flowers for the vines. If I didn't pull the vines off each year, the quince would be eventually smothered/ killed by the vines. What's going to  happen eventually when I'm not here to take care of it? The vines will do battle and the most vigorous will win maybe living on the skeleton of a dead quince bush?  Last year I did an especially good job of trimming back and uprooting the vines  and they rewarded me this year with even more verdant growth and I was pissed! Then I thought, well who are you to call the shots- just the resident garden dictator. Here just for a short regime. I don't know.  Could it be that men make wars and women make gardens?

 

But the site of the pea growing down into the cabbage leaf was balm for my monkey mind. Still vine pulling...