In my first year since retiring, I’ve obsessively plugged the few remaining gaps in this thirty-five year old, acre and a quarter garden. Any spot of bare earth potentially grows a weed, so every inch must be covered. Of course, this is also an excellent excuse to purchase new plants, so a few weeks ago I visited the local garden center to pick up something on seasonal clearance.

What was I looking for? Nothing, at least nothing specific. My typical plan is, I’ll know it when I see it, so I piled a handful of perennials and sedges into the trunk alongside a striped leaf bromeliad. I saw a splendid bromeliad display in an arboretum conservatory several weeks earlier, so the brilliant idea popped into my impulsive, acorn-sized brain that I could do the same.

My greenhouse barely fits a potting bench and shelves for a few flats of seedlings, so there’s no indoor space suitable for such a garden. Planted outdoors, bromeliads will need to be dug and stashed in the basement for the winters, and I haven’t a clue where this small garden could be planted, but somehow, these things will be worked out. With plants in hand, I’ll make it happen. And, so it goes for the past decade since my wife first declared that the garden was full to the brim.

The fullness of the garden is subjective, I think, and I’ve taken full advantage to plant to my continuing delight. As my wife strolls the garden more regularly, I suspect that she is also delighted, no matter that she continues to shake her head with every parcel delivery or haul from the garden center.

She now terms the lower rear garden “comptemplative,” and while I don’t attempt to define the emotions the garden evokes, I expect she’s correct. Neighboring properties loom nearby, but none can be seen through the wall of green. Paths meander past varied colors and textures with scattered blooms even in the dark of winter.

The garden is a hodgepodge of trees, with thirty-some Japanese maples, a dozen dogwoods and redbuds, and assorted other trees too numerous to list. Large hollies, cypress, and evergreen magnolias keep the green through the winter months. Though I jokingly say there’s one of everything, there’s not, or even close to it. Which is why I must continue planting. In every garden article, visit to a public garden or just seeing something as I drive by, I’m inspired by a plant I must have.

While I have little control over this obsession, I give myself credit for giving careful consideration before adding new trees to the garden. While the size of perennials and many shrubs can be managed, trees can not reasonably be jammed into tight spaces. Well, I’ve done it, but with an experienced eye for plugging too many plants into too small a space, I exercise just enough good judgment to pull it off. At least, for now. Come back in another thirty-five years. It’ll be a different story, though I’ll be long gone and forgotten.

What comes next? The more I consider it, the more I think the proper planting of epiphytic bromeliads should be above ground, crammed into the crotch of trees. Nothing fancy, just bare roots anchored between branches of dogwoods and Japanese maples. Beyond this, I have no plans. Nothing at the moment, but it’ll come. It always does, and so I look forward to next year and five years from now. I’ll be adding, with some inevitable subtracting, but always excited by what’s next.