It’s often one of those things we skim over in our young adult life, maybe in a doctor’s office or while walking through a pretty garden. It’s the magazine that makes gardening look fun and easy. Why it would take about ten years for me to realize what a misconception this was is a classic example of “live and learn.”
As a teen, yard work was reserved for the hardworking man of the house, used to manual labor and with a passion for being out in the sun. My American friends, girls and boys, surrendered weekly to yard work as a chore, or a way to earn some extra spending cash. The women in my home were all but forbidden to get dirty in any way, shape, or form—unless it happened in the kitchen.
Let’s cut to the chase: I live in a neighborhood with mature lawns and gardens, elderly and retired folks who spend many hours outdoors, and those who spend an unrealistic amount of money on Andy’s Lawn Service instead of tackling the job of mowing their own lawn. I have neither the money, the time, nor the talent to throw myself into the landscaping, and as a result, our suburban home is possibly the most unsightly of the neighborhood. Now in my thirties, I have subscriptions to home and garden magazines, journals filled with landscapes that I have tried or daydreamed about, and a proven black thumb. Given the exact same set of seeds to sow or plants to immerse in the rich soil that came with my house, I will commit planticide on any and all forms of green life that my father will otherwise see thrive, grow, mature, and bloom. My brown lawn matches my uneven back yard. My potted plants last all of two weeks before I manage to perpetually forget to water them, and my perennials are, well ... not perennial.
For now, I have two choices: give up or keep trying, and hope that, by the time I am a retired grandmother, my black thumb will have at least changed to dark green.
