I Love a Beautiful Garden

I love a beautiful garden. I will walk miles to see one. You see, I am horticulturally impaired. It can’t be my genes. Both of my grandmothers had green thumbs and my mother’s roses were the pride of the neighborhood. My father grew raspberries that I am still scarred from picking. I seem to have passed those good genes to my #2 son, who at a very young age, dug in the dirt and planted stuff. Today he is a farmer. Can genes skip a generation? Give me a little plot of dirt and some seeds and I’ll soon show you a little plot of dirt with grass and weeds flourishing. Do the seeds ever sprout? How do you tell?

When I have guests, I suggest a trip to my cousin Linda’s to admire her garden. (I should state here that I am blessed with two cousins ‘Linda.’ The one sings like an angel and makes costumes and directs plays etc. The gardener is my other cousin Linda.) One spring, I bought topsoil and dumped the bags on my little plot of dirt. Then I asked Linda of the beautiful garden (who is also beautiful and doesn’t have dirt under her fingernails like I do after just dumping the bags) what to do next. She said, “buy some flowers and I’ll help you.” She showed up one morning before I was up and planted my plot.

It is beautiful! I do hope it will last. She used strange words like mulch and fertilizer. I nodded like I knew what she meant. The very next day another friend came from afar and brought more flowers in a flat. Why do they call it a flat, I wondered aloud? (Possibly my problem is that I am more interested in words than gardening.) She replied, “I’ll plant these if you’ll fix lunch.” Guess how quickly I went to the kitchen..

Now, pots and planters are another matter. I can do pots and planters. I churn up the dirt from last year, and tuck those little buggers in and add water. When the little plants come with their own dirt and I plant them every year, why don’t my pots seem to gain dirt? I wonder about things like that. And I can do house plants. When I walk by them, they grab me with their little tendrils and scream “water me or I’ll die and you’ll be ashamed.” Years ago my friend Jeanene, who worked in a greenhouse told me to just water houseplants once a week and to really soak them. I can do that. If it’s Saturday, I water.

I am not pitiful, not at all. I am a crucial link in the gardening chain. One thing I have learned is that gardeners need someone to appreciate the fruits (and vegetables) of their labors. I do that very well. They hate to see anything go to waste. My son, the farmer, plants dozens of rows of sweet corn each year and worries if it doesn’t get picked. At the same time, he complains that the raccoons and deer are picking it. Some people are never happy.

So I am the consumer every gardener needs. People bring me crispy green peppers and cabbages almost ready to burst into cold slaw. Can I use a few tomatoes, cucumbers or zucchini? Of course, I can! And I am truly delighted and appreciative. And I barter. Bring me some apples and I’ll bake you a pie

I’ve gotta run now. My gardener neighbor just called and said “I need to divide my creeping phlox and wondered if you’d like to have some for that bare plot of dirt along your sidewalk.”Yes, I’d love some”, I said. “What is it? How do you plant it?”

“I’ll be right over with some mulch,” she said. I dashed inside to bake her a pie.