The long hot summer

While you dig the hole to find a home for your latest native plant, you can run the risk of adding another crick to your lower back. Watch how you handle your tools, be aware of your stance when digging, lift properly, and don't even attempt to move a 100-pound boulder without assistance. And once you have accomplished your goal, do take the time to sit, reflect and observe the beauty of nature.

The physical efforts of gardening — digging, planting, bending and twisting — are great forms of exercise to keep your body healthy. Activities such as weeding and digging not only burn calories, they are similar to weight training in building bones. Your mental outlook and emotional mood is improved, stress and anxiety are lowered. Your garden can be a comforting retreat, a place where anxieties dissipate into the ground.

Your garden is also a long-term relationship and, like all long-term relationships, requires continual work. But now, during these long, hot summer days, you, too, need a break. And while you lounge and sip iced green tea, you can work on the long list of intended must-do items.

Making this list summons a certain ingenuity; it also allows you to believe that our wishes have a beginning and an end, and there is great satisfaction in checking it off.

September is on the horizon, time to envision your spring flower bed and the bulbs you want to add to it. A wonderful early spring pleasure is chionodoxa (Glory of the Snow). I planted several hundred pink chionodoxa forbesii five years ago, and added blue ones last year in a lightly shaded area, combining them with dwarf daffodils. These bulbs come back in early April year after year and are delicate, almost orchid-like, with four to eight flowers per 6-inch stem. Deer have not (yet) discovered these little beauties. Catalogs are excellent resources for these and many other spring bulbs.

There are many reasons for the way we arrange and rearrange our gardens, among them a need for order, a desire for beauty, a level of comfort. Some wonderful plants to consider for your garden are:

• "Vision in Red" — A most droughttolerant astilbe, it turns the dry shade under trees into an eye-catching scene. Highly adaptable to heat, humidity and cold, this compact plant offers dense glossy foliage and long-lasting late-summer plumes for fall and winter interest. It is sun tolerant as well — a fine choice for the shade garden perimeter.

•Baptisia australis, or false indigo — A prairie native with pea-like blue flowers and soft blue-green foliage. An excellent garden plant, it comes in many colors: lemon and gold (Solar Flare) deep blue (Midnight) and burgundy tipped with gold (Twilite). These new varieties have not lost what they learned on the prairies: they need very little water, attract butterflies and are not susceptible to diseases or pests.

•Acanthus spinosus (bear's breeches) — One of my most favored perennials, it has a classic form, architecturally bold spikes and handsome foliage. The long-lasting flower spikes bear purple/silver blooms from June through July. This plant will stand out in your garden! It is not readily available in local garden centers; your best choice would be to order it online or through catalogs.

Remember, don't give your lawn a buzz-cut. Try to keep grass at least 3 inches high. The longer the leaf blade, the more photosynthetic capacity a lawn has, thus building a better root system. Longer grass also helps weed resistance.

Robins are notoriously sloppy nest makers. I am amazed at their tenacity to rebuild immediately after a new nest has been blown off the branch. Wouldn't you know, they rebuilt it in the same spot twice, evidently not having learned their lesson. This year, their nest is snuggled shoulder-high in the leaves of the Southern magnolia on the patio, and four baby robins are visible. They are very quiet, contrary to the tiny house wrens who announce their presence quite loudly and have fierce fights with purple house finches over the right to occupy a favored birdhouse. The wrens have always won that battle.

"It is not the thing done or made which is beautiful, but the doing."

Jacob Bronowski

Gotti Kelley, past president of the Navesink Garden Club, is on the board of the Garden Club of New Jersey.