You could not have asked for a more beautiful day than yesterday.  Sunny and in the high sixties with a nice breeze.  I especially like weekdays in the garden, because it's so quiet.  And after a late night landing by the Marines Tuesday — it was bigger than D-day — I needed my R&R. 

Wednesdays, which I usually have free, are the best day of the week — better than weekends, by far.  Most folks are deep into their weekday rut by then.  Beaten down, they're docile.  Wednesday is the most docile day of the week.  Weekends are rushed.  Mondays are jump-start jittery, Tuesdays and Thursdays are whiny. As the weekend nears there's a frenzied dash to the finish line that can feel a little forced to the likes of me.

Because I'm quite content to get out of your way if you're in a big-ass hurry.  Speed is one way to measure time, but there are plenty of others.  Yesterday there were little moments of sheer transcendence.  A gentle wind, the scent of lilac on it, setting the willows to whispering.  The sun on my back.  Moments you have to stand still for.  Moments you miss if you don't.

It's these moments when I almost have to pinch myself I love my garden so much.  I think to myself, the fact that there are even such things as gardens in the first place — how brilliant is that?  And then that these plots in the Fenway are here, and that I managed to get one.  And it costs me just sixty bucks a year.  I mean, I must be dreaming.

Speaking of dreaming.  On the ride to the garden down Orchard Street, I saw a peony in full bloom.  When I got to my garden I checked on my tree peony, which is becoming a monster.  It has no less than twenty buds on it (up from nine last year).  And these babies are ginormous. 

It's in the teasing phase, as you can see...


It should be in full splendor by this time next week.  It generally blooms by May 20th. 

So it was a long, dreamy day.  Towards the end, one of my fellow gardeners asked me to mow the path in the herb garden.  He stuck around and weeded.  We got to talking about the weather, and how nice it was on days like these, when we can sneak away from the workaday world and get some time in our little urban Eden. 

Like I said, the weekday gardener is a slightly different breed than after-work and weekend gardeners.  Most of us are retired or happily on the dole, for starters.  The pace after work can be frenetic.  You drop in on your way home to water and maybe weed a little, but it's usually rushed.  You're still in work mode.  Weekends, you're often playing catch-up, and not just with the garden, but with gossip around the garden.  Deep into the work week seems to me the only time you can spend three or four hours in The Zone, and actually harvest some Chi.  I mean, most folks don't have time for Alpha State on a weeknight. 

As we worked in the herb garden, conversation turned to a gardener known to be a bit of a pest — we'll call her Hilda. Hilda the Horse Fly (not her real name).  Talk about "invasive species" — Just when you get in the Zone, here she comes.  There's no hinting around.  Even if you ignore her she'll stand there blinking at you at the edge of your vision, forever, or until she drives you away, whichever comes first.

My garden buddy was like, "you'd think at her age, she'd know when to bugger off.  I mean, that's what growing up is all about.  Learning why it is that people are always beating up on you."  And then, presumably, buggering off.

I had never heard it put quite that way, but there seems to be some truth in it.  I mean, the individual in question has, let's say, attenuated social skills.  Like I said, she didn't get the hint-taking gene.  You can turn your back resolutely and bury your head in a garden bed, and she will stand there, banging on.  Not only that, she has been known to follow her fellow gardeners around as they pretend she's not there, chattering on at them as if they were engaged in a most riveting dialogue. 

The only thing for it is to either hide, as my herb garden buddy tells me he has done on occasion (he showed me actual designated hiding places carved out specifically with Hilda The Horse Fly in mind) or, as another buddy has done, alter your gardening schedule so that it doesn't coincide with hers (which can be difficult, as she's sort of tricky, and shows up sometimes when you least expect her). 

There is a third way.  We call it The Nuclear Option.  It's to level with her and to tell her, point-blank, "Go away.  I'm harvesting some Chi.  You're on my Alpha Wave.  You're in My Zone."  But no one wants to go down that path.  And I can see why.  There'd be a big drama down there.  Because Hilda literally does not know how to go away.  She does not even know that there is such a place.  It would rock her world.

Urban gardening has its challenges.  Invasives are high up on the list.