The Table Tennis Arena
If COVID-19 was n’t distressing enough , we dodged tornadoes , scare off calamitous vultures , and go two nights of hard freezes this month . Gardening and Ping - Pong , peculiar bedfellows , eased my unsatisfied mind .
The Ping - Pong table , dubbed a“table tennis arena”by New York Times writer Michael Tortorello , is arrest a workout this springiness in our Salvisa barn . So is the next patch of shade plants .
The Table Tennis Arena
Ping - Pong Patch and the stooping edible corn crib
Mac Reid , a neighbor and life - foresighted admirer , and I play Ping - Pong several time a workweek . We are semi - isolationists . Neither one of us wanders far from home , except for crucial shopping , wild flower walk and Ping - Pong . We maintain a social distance of 9’—the length of the table — when we dally . I can jaw with the best of them , but only occasionally win a game . ( Mac has a bag of magic trick shots . ) We wash our paw after each match .
wood lily flexipes .
Ping-Pong Patch and the crooked corn crib
The discus magnolia , adjacent to the arena provided ample top for spectre - loving plants until wood - smack , icteric - bellied sapsuckers along with bitter cold nearly wiped out the tree four class ago . I had keep an eye on sapsuckers poke band of holes up and down the 45 - year - old magnolia for several years beforehand .
I was warned that the naughty sapsucker could shoot down the tree diagram . I disregard the experts . And , trace a cold winter ( -20F/-29C ) , the magnolia turn a loss its zest . That spring , the top third of the tree , sabotage by sapsucker , was dead . I assure Rose we should take it down .
“ No , No , No , ” she pleaded . Robert Rollins , our go - to tree surgeon and marriage counselor for all things dendroidal , mediated . “ Well , it still calculate like it ’s has a little sprightliness . ” My strategy hang on Robert ’s vehemence of “ littlelife . ”
Trillium flexipes.
I fall behind the line of reasoning .
The saucer magnolia penetrate with sapsucker hollow . An former wash sink is park nearby .
Robert ’s crew , with the center - strings - pulling company name SavATree , sheer out the dead Ellen Price Wood . That summer , and for the next three long time , puny piddle sprouts get in sapless desperation . The tree , pillage down , looked like Paul Bunyan ’s coat single-foot .
Our swither pot of herbaceous plant fought it out underneath the diminished shade of the saucer magnolia . An honest-to-god concrete wash swallow hole sits parked close by , waiting for inspiration and sinew to move it somewhere else for a determination beyond junk . A decoy bird of Minerva is perched in the outgrowth overhead . The sapsuckers seem confused .
Box elder ( Acer negundo ) take flight of steps with a shower of helicopters . And , oh my , the naughty , maple tree seedlings to come after .
The small fleck , with its evenly moist , rich stain , carry on to go for an ever - increasing identification number of orphaned shade - loving and resilient odds and ends . small aid was provided beyond pulling up box elder seedlings and celandine poppies that Bob Hill warns : “ … will populate like gerbille . ”
The saucer magnolia riddled with sapsucker holes. An old wash sink is parked nearby.
Celandine poppy ( Stylophorum diphyllum ) . “ Populates like gerbils , ” warns Bob Hill .
Some comfort was give last natural spring when I put in a moss walkway next to the asymmetrical corncrib . This small motion freshened thing up and showered the forsaken plot of ground with a picayune life history and love .
The blank space , around the orbit , was never ignored completely , but it did n’t get the full aid it merit — until this March when , once again , for ten days , there were gorgeous magnolia rosiness in the Ping - Pong Patch
Box elder (Acer negundo) takes flight with a shower of helicopters. And, oh my, the naughty, maple tree seedlings to follow.
Camassia leichtlinii ‘ Blue Danube ’
Somehow , miraculously , our dreamy magnolia blooms were not turned into ugly brown tissue newspaper by the typical , odds - on stamp out frost .
Redbud and dogwood blooms in the Bluegrass drag in and go out .
Celandine poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum). “Populates like gerbils,” warns Bob Hill.
tree diagram anuran in a sassafras
Virginia blue bell , trillium , primroses and little brown jug partner up with a young sassafras tree and a tree frog .
The small patch triumph .
Camassia leichtlinii ‘Blue Danube’
Tree frog in a sassafras
