Mary Mary Quite Contrary How Does Your Garden Grow?

 

 

 

I was sharing my garden with a fellow Gardner, who just happens to also be a retired hippie and it got me to thinking, I wonder what makes some people so obsessed with gardening and others could care less.  Right after that someone asked me why I love gardening so much. That made me really have to stop and think about the answer.  And so after some musings (Grin), I felt a little nudge in my brain and voila a blog topic was born.  

The answer to why I like gardening so much is really very complex. When I was a youngster I hated gardening, as my Mother of course made pulling weeds out of her garden one of our chores. My Mother always had a beautiful flower garden, as well as a vegetable garden with fruit trees. So since my Mother was an avid gardener I suspicion it is in my blood.

I am really reaching here, but I think gardening helps with your hand and eye coordination, I mean this definitely needs to be in sync when gardening so those important messages can be sent to the brain. Ok, maybe this one is a bit farfetched (Grin).  You have to admit I do get exercise, the up and down, walking around, even my Fitbit counts it as aerobic exercise.  I told you I really have to dig deep,  (pun intended) how about I just enjoy being outside, who can argue with that one. After all it is a way to commune with nature, and that is for sure the hippie in me.

It’s an escape, if something or someone (I mention no names here) is bugging me I go out and grab the pruners. Gardening calls to me as an artsy person, allowing me to be creative as to the flowers I plant and the way I arrange my garden for the best visual effect.  I created a sanctuary for the hummingbirds, butterflies, and bees. Gardening is meditative, food for the soul. It’s very satisfying to see something thrive and grow which you have nurtured.  But most importantly I love to sit and look at the beauty, so my final answer is ‘I LOVE IT.’

One of the things I found myself taking note of while riding around the community in my golf cart was the fact that every yard I saw, even those around the most modest homes, reflected some kind of gardening.  I realized something I suppose I really already knew, people love to garden. They love plants. They love flowers and vegetables and outdoor spaces and they often work hard to fashion them in designs and plantings of their own choosing. They wind walkways through their gardens that may travel only a few yards but offer something unique at every turn. Some yards were dominated by trees that dictated what could be grown beneath them, but many were open and layered, mimicking the layers of the forests that were once here - trees, understory and ground covers.

I believe a garden is an imposing teacher, above all it teaches patience and trust. After all it taught me to consider every plant hardy until I kill it myself, and the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it, if it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant (Grin).

There is no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone while they were working, you would find them smiling. I am so excited about my garden that I wet my plants (Ta Dum Dum) and new gardeners learn by trowel and error. (Hardy har har)

Here are some of my favorite quotes on gardening:

The love of gardening is a seed once sown that never dies. Gertrude Jekyll

“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.” Abraham Lincoln

“If you have a garden and a library you have everything you need.” Roman philosopher Cicero

“Flowers are restful to look at. They have neither emotions nor conflicts.” Sigmund Freud

“A garden requires patient labor and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them.”

 Liberty Hyde Bailey

In conclusion, and in this bloggers humble opinion: With all gardens the beauty is subjective. “A garden should make you feel you’ve entered privileged space-a place not just set apart but reverberant-and it seems to me that, to achieve this, the gardener must put some kind of twist on the existing landscape, turn its prose into nearer poetry.”

My garden, as with most gardens, is a constant work in progress. I grow plants for many reasons: to please my soul, to challenge the elements or my patience, for novelty and beauty, for nostalgia, but primarily for the joy of seeing them grow. The easiest way to improve your mood - and your life - is to take time each day to focus on the simple things that bring you joy, and gardening brings me much joy. And lastly after all gardening is cheaper than therapy (Grin).

”God made a beauteous garden
with lovely flowers strown
but one straight, narrow pathway
that was not overgrown.
And to this beauteous garden
he brought mankind to live
and said, to you, my children
these lovely flowers I give.
Prune ye my vines and fig trees,
with care my flowers tend
but keep the pathway open;
your home is at the end.”   Robert Frost

 

I thank you again for taking this retirement journey with me, or as I refer to it, “my longest coffee break."  I'm just sayin’…