Tag: Drip System

Keep Calm and Carry On

Powdery mildew. Black spot. Rust. These are not conditions a rose enthusiast wants to see in the garden. They’re all forms of fungal disease and, unfortunately, my roses were hit this year.

I’d like to say that the first thing I did after discovering there was a problem was to identify the source and fix it. You know what they say about any kind of hole you want to crawl out of. Stop digging, for crying out loud.

Alas, my first reaction was to literally cry out loud.

When I collected myself and did my due diligence, I realized we needed to reprogram the entire drip system. The roses were getting watered in the early evening along with everything else on the property that likes a little drink before bedtime. Roses prefer their brandy in the morning, thank you very much. It turns out, evening binges leave them with a nasty hangover and vulnerable to any sleazy fungi loitering around looking for an opportunity to stake their claim.

Reprogramming the drip system probably sounds easy-peasy … if you’re high-tech savvy. When I was a kid, adjusting the water meant moving a sprinkler from one side of the lawn to the other. Now it means entering numbers into something that looks like a bomb detonator. You have to know what sequence affects which drippers and whether to include said sequence in Program A, B or C. One mistake can foul up the whole thing.

For a 65-year-old who’s still trying to figure out how to stop text alerts after 9 p.m., the prospect of reprogramming the drip was paralyzing. Here’s where I pause and extend a thousand thank yous to my husband who did battle with the blasted thing for me … twice!

Arresting the source of the problem was only the first step, of course. Then I had to play surgeon and remove the diseased foliage. Next I tapped into my inner fireman and sprayed the bushes with some healing mist (an organic brand that promises not to kill bees or animals or humans along with the sleazy fungi).

All the while this was happening, I couldn’t help but notice that my roses seemed oblivious to the drama. They calmly continued to produce new foliage, grow new buds, and take my breath away with spectacular blooms. They continued to live their beautiful life despite the ugliness that threatened them. It was like they inherently knew what we humans must see repeatedly in memes and on coffee mugs, posters, and t-shirts before we realize the genuine wisdom embedded in it.

Keep calm and carry on.

It might seem impossible to live a beautiful life with the overwhelming level of ugliness that exists in our world today. I don’t need to waste space here to list the maladies. You know them by heart.

The question is, can we also teach our hearts to memorize the goodness that surrounds us? Can we still grow, learn, and bloom despite the drama? Can we spend every day spraying our personal healing mist on those around us to make their world just a little more beautiful?

I’d like to think we can.

Heart of the Matter

It’s important to understand the backstory before making decisions in the garden.

To choose a fertilizer, you have to know whether your roses need help blooming or protection from disease. To time your watering system, you have to understand how the soil absorbs moisture.

Alas, I sometimes forget this fundamental rule. Take last summer when I dug up an unsightly shrub to make room for a new rose. The feeder line attached to the drip hose was so entangled in the shrub that I had to yank the two pieces apart.

Easy fix, I thought. The hose ends right about there. I’ll slice it off here, cap it, and attach a new feeder.

I made the repairs, went happily about my day, and proudly showed my husband my handiwork when he got home.

“Um, nice job,” he said, “but I think you cut off the drip hose from the water source.”

He installed the drip system almost a decade ago and has done nearly all the maintenance since, so I humbly tested his theory. Sure enough, when I turned on the system, no water reached the newly planted rose. In fact, I had also sacked the water source to several other trees and shrubs.

I suppose the mistake was an honest one. Years of shifting desert sands had partially buried the drip network. I couldn’t see the arteries, so I made assumptions that created a bigger problem.

The next morning I carefully unearthed the disconnected hose. To my surprise, I found that it was not only buried but embedded in the bottom of the concrete and stone boundary that defines the foot paths in our yard. I tried to extricate it to no avail. Ultimately, I did bypass surgery and got the system working properly again.

In the months since, I’ve flashed back to that experience time and again. Perhaps the most profound moment had to do with my son’s business.

He had labored for months over core values designed to enrich the organizational culture. At the end, he was stuck on one word. Pride. Some in his circles were turned off because it brought to mind an oft-misquoted biblical text – pride goeth before a fall. He and I literally spent days trying to find an alternate word that conveyed his message. Purpose, perspective, presence. The list went on.

Finally, in a moment of clarity, my son returned to pride. It wasn’t the word that was lacking. It was the explanation of what it meant in the context of the core values. It was never about boastful pride. It’s about knowing that what you do matters.

I suppose there was a lesson in the exercise of testing substitute words just as there was in mistakenly cutting that drip hose. But it sure would have saved time to first sort out the backstory.

What we do in the garden and in life, what we say, how we treat others – it all matters. And it’s best if it comes from the heart.

garden drip system