Tenacity in the Garden

I have always avoided gardening. I don’t even do outdoor dining. It’s one of those things like getting a pedicure... I would rather pay someone else to do the bending.

I thought people who talked about gardening were boring and had no life. I mean really, who cares when bulbs should be planted and what to do about those pesky aphids?

My gardening career began when my paying career ended. I had just contracted to have our back yard landscaped, and since I could not get out of it, I had the landscaper leave as much work as possible for me to finish up. This was no problem as he took most of my money and left before his job was done. But that’s another story best left for the Better Business Bureau.

Fast forward through many gardening magazines and landscaping books; I was a regular at the large home store where every plant known to man could be found. I envisioned a lovely garden, one that Martha Stewart herself could admire. The reality is that I just picked out what I liked—plants that would attract butterflies and birds. It gives me great pleasure to see that I am providing sustenance for living creatures.

Every day, I would find myself fretting (yes, fretting) over my special plants—the fuchsia that I bought at Wal-Mart almost dead, my dahlias still blooming so late in the year. I am the mighty warrior, fending off snails and other potential enemies.

My biggest inspiration in my gardening experience has come in the form of a plant I had nothing to do with.

After terracing our hilly back yard, we planted some fruit trees and put sprinklers where there was previously no source of water. Some weeks later, a spiky stalk started growing. It was a large stemmed plant, with huge leaves. Seasoned gardeners would know immediately what it was. There were times when I wanted to pull it out, but its boldness and grandness impressed me to leave it and see what happened.

Weeks later, when buds started to appear, I did some research on the computer and the strange plant turned out to be a sunflower. I’m so glad we left it to grow. And that sums up my garden. I let things grow, plant what I like, move what I don’t and see what happens.