In the garden

Recently, when I was talking about working in my garden, a friend said to me, "I sense that you are someone who gets a lot of healing from gardening."  And yes, that is true.  It calms me, slows me, to have my hands in the dirt.  I find a great deal of joy from communing with the plants while I water, while I groom, or just check in on them.  Notice which have new leaves, new flowers, which are struggling and which are flourishing.

My garden was feeling a bit overwhelming for a while there.  Gardening was something Lisa and I would do together.  But she's lost interest, or doesn't want to work with me in this way, and tending to a large yard solo is a pretty daunting task.  But my mom has been helping, and having a helper caused my manager side to kick in.  I broke it all down into tasks, made lists, prioritized.  Made a repeating reminder on my calendar to water, to fertilize.  The lists are still only half done, but I can see such a difference in the yard already, and I so much enjoy going out there in the mornings and checking in with the plants. 

The basil that I thought wasn't going to make it is putting out lots of new leaves, getting lush and bushy, though still only about 3 inches tall.  The sweet peas that are probably too much in the shade are reaching tall for the hairy twine wound around the trellis they are to grow up.  The tomato plants are all strong and green-smelling and starting to show signs of setting fruit.  The oregano and sage that had grown wild and lanky over the winter and which I cut back hard a few weeks ago are putting out new and healthy branches, smelling sweet and strong, and making me imagine the meals I can make with them.  It is hard for me to cut back plants that have gone lanky, as I'm often afraid that I'm going to kill them.  But more often than not, they come back stronger, healthier, more lush.

There were a few plants in my back yard container garden that survived the winter, though they never really did well last summer.  As a gardener, I'm not a good editor.  I have too much empathy for plants that are struggling but still showing signs of life.  I felt especially protective of these particular plants.  I have struggled through winters.  I have struggled to thrive in an environment that wasn't quite right.  These two or three that were valiantly a hanging on were rewarded with fresh soil, new pots, fertilizer.  I rearranged them so they got more sun.  And each of them is now thriving.  One has put out the burgundy blossoms that were the reason I purchased it in the first place, a fact that I had forgotten because it never flowered last summer.

It is hard not to draw parallels between my life and these plants.  And so I love on them, and in so doing, love myself.

Comments

[Amy]

I know exactly how you feel. And since I have been all out of sorts and therefore out of the garden lately the chores waiting for me there now seem so overwhelming, but even just bending to pull a few weeds often leads to much more, and thus, a sense of accomplishment and of setting things right in a much larger sense as well. I love the list and reminder idea...gonna steal that one from ya! Maybe my poor pot plants won't be so thirsty in between waterings that way! How the hell are ya' anyway??

[Kirsten Liske]

my journalling this morning was plants too. I was just looking at the jasmine covering my fence, fistfuls of sweet white stars and thought "shit! that plant made that nectar that nose those shiny green leaves out of sunlight and water" . How does sunlight and water make the jasmine flower? The sugar snaps proudly proffered by the pea tendril curling up the trellis?