Of all of nature’s attributes, I love her unpredictability the most.
Every year about this time, I start to dismantle my garden. I use the term “garden” loosely, as what passes for one here is actually nothing more than a small mound outside my door that erupts into a mass of perennials put into place by previous tenants.
In all honesty, I’ve never really known what to call the area in front of these apartments. Each unit is fronted with an expanse of grass that could conceivably be called a lawn. This is bisected every 20 feet or so with paved paths that lead to and from the buildings to the parking area and to the other apartments. Anything beyond what we call our gardens is off-limits as far as planting things goes, because that would impede the property maintenance crew who fly around here on their riding lawnmowers, ear protectors on and oblivious to anything else going on around them.
Every so often, the supervisor comes around to assess how good a job they’re doing and what, if anything, needs to be trimmed in order to maintain the proper distance, required by law, between anything we grow and the buildings. Imagine having to get out through a front window during a fire and having to drop three feet into a rose bush, and you can see why they insist on that rule.
When this annual inspection took place recently, I was told I had to move some of my potted plants away from the building. They’d begun to look pretty straggly at that point anyway, so that provided the incentive to start the dismantling process sooner than I normally do.
Anyone who gardens in containers knows that potted plants require more maintenance than do their earth-bound counterparts. The reason for this is that the plants’ roots grow to fill the pots causing the soil to dry more quickly and to need much more frequent watering. A plant growing in the ground has the luxury of letting its roots grow as deeply and in any direction as they want to, thus being able to avail themselves of moisture even during dry spells. This is why many annuals continue to thrive in the garden long after their potted cousins have gone limp and bedraggled.
So I wasn’t too sad to see those plants go, and it was no trouble at all to simply grab them by their shriveled tops and pull them, root ball and all, from their respective pots. I tossed them all into the middle of the garden where a few of them were actually rejuvenated when their newly-liberated roots connected with solid ground. And some of those are still blooming now as I write!
Once washed and dried, the empty pots went back into their storage tote, which also served as a plant stand this year. The lid of the tote itself had accumulated nearly a summer’s worth of dirt, dust, and other plant debris, so it, too, needed a good scrub. All that was left to do then would be to bring it all back inside to put away, which is always a rather bittersweet event. But, as has so often happened during my long friendship with nature, she once again came to my emotional rescue.
There beneath the blue plastic tote, curled up and oblivious to everything up until that point, was a small black and yellow snake. It didn’t move at all at first, but kept poking its tiny forked tongue out, most likely as some type of warning to me. It was small, not more than a foot long, so I deduced that it was young. This led me, of course, to my computer, where I learned that it was indeed a young ribbon snake, which is very common in Maine.
Reaching an average maximum length of roughly 30 inches, the common ribbon snake (Thamnophis sauritus) is, according the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife website, semi-aquatic in nature and feeds on small amphibians such as frogs and toads. A member of the garter snake family, the ribbon snake is non-venomous but will bite if handled.
Unlike many other wild creatures, snakes rarely make their presence known, and I’ve almost always come upon one suddenly. This wasn’t the first time I’ve seen a ribbon snake here. While trimming the perennials back last summer, one slithered out from beneath a small rock, which is where one might expect to see a snake. I never imagined, however, that I’d find one curled up under a storage container right outside my door, and I actually felt bad that I’d disturbed it.
My little visitor hung around long enough for me to get a few photos of it. But in the short time it took to bring my camera back inside, the snake left, most likely into the dense vegetation that I call my garden or maybe even farther away to the wetland that drains the eastern end of this property.
For most wild creatures, home is whatever space they happen to be occupying at any given time. And on that day, that little ribbon snake decided to share its space with me, leaving me to wonder how long it had been there before I disturbed its peace, how many times I sat outside with my book and iced tea with never a thought to what might be lurking close by, reinforcing the reality that, with nature, we are never truly alone.
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