I love languages and learning about the origins of words and phrases. I collect quotes. I also love gardens. It shouldn’t have been surprising at all, but it just dawned on me that the majority of my quote collection is linked to gardening in some way. One of my particular favorites is, “The difference between courtship and marriage is the difference between the pictures in a seed catalogue and what comes up.” –James Wharton
Those little snippets of wisdom are easy things to remember in times of stress and things I draw on for moral courage. “Plant kindness.” “Bloom where you’re planted.” “The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all.” “Where you tend a rose a thistle cannot grow.”
“Gardening is the art that uses flowers and plants as paint, and the soil and sky as canvas.” –Elizabeth Murray
Eric and Johann have been helping me create our beautiful garden. My original vision was to create a backyard habitat for birds and butterflies as a Shanti School project for Johann. At the same time, I would get to finally play in the dirt while I’m passing on my love of nature and gardening. Maybe we could even grow some of our own food. This is a natural extension of our nature and listening walks that I started with Johann when he was 3 years old.
“Gardening requires lots of water — most of it in the form of perspiration.” –Lou Erickson
As with most endeavors, there was much more work involved in making this garden happen than we realized. When we started the weeds were taller than me. After a week of solid weeding, I thought we could start planting. But I couldn’t dig a hole. And then I found out why.
After lots of digging we found layers of sand covered with dirt, then weed block fabric, then several inches of chip gravel followed by more weed fabric and dirt, and then a thick layer of mulch. Plants were placed directly on top of the weed fabric and/or covered with weed fabric at the base. The plants were unhealthy and dying. The weeds took hold in the weed cloth and were thriving. Even if you weeded, there would still be roots in the weed cloth that could send up a new shoot. There were also lots of rocks, some of them cobblestones, which we have used to line the back of the garden. We even pulled out several 10 foot lengths of plastic edging, a fork, broken glass, and a drill bit.
We dug everything up in the back flower bed and sifted out as much of the gravel as possible. We extracted enough gravel to recover the 90 square foot parking area on the other side of the property a good 3 inches deep. We are almost done with the front flower bed. We are working section by section and replanting as we go. The level of the flower beds has gone down a good 4-5 inches in the process of removing all the junk. Landscapers who have been hired to redo the garden in the past just put another layer on top rather that take out the old before putting in the new. Johann is learning the value of hard work, delayed gratification, and doing a job right the first time. The plants and tree that were already in the flower beds are now thriving. We are already attracting birds, bees, and ladybugs to the garden. Working together as a family on this feels good and has gotten a lot of attention.
“Show me your garden and I shall tell you what you are.” –Alfred Austin
When Johann and I were outside last fall, a little girl who was about 7 or 8 years old was walking by with her father. She asked, “Daddy, what are they doing?” He replied, “They’re gardening. See? They dig holes in the ground and then plant the flowers.” I thought it very sad that she had no idea what we were doing. Even though I couldn’t garden with Johann like I wanted before now, I made sure he potted houseplants with me, I told him stories about my garden in Idaho, and we read books with pictures of gardens and people working in them. The father’s response made me feel like Johann and I were doing an historical reenactment in period costume, not planting our bulbs for the spring.
Used to be I could talk about gardening to anyone and they would eagerly share their stories or at least smile about my enthusiasm. Around here it depends. Some people are avid gardeners also. Others get haughty or simply don’t get it. Why would I want to get dirty and sweaty? Why don’t I pay someone else to do it for me? Why would I want to be out in the garden for any other reason besides having a party? But money doesn’t buy everything.
“The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.” –John Ruskin
This area seems to be a land of extremes. There are some people who are open and friendly and others that just plain aren’t. Our old neighbor let his dog go to the bathroom in our garden right where we were working every day and kept telling me I was crazy for doing this for nothing. We had a hole in the front flower bed for a few days while we were moving some of the larger shrubs to give them more room to grow. People were throwing trash into the hole and often throw trash into the finished parts of the garden. Many people walk through the garden rather than take the path a few feet away. They simply don’t care.
Numerous people have commented on how we should get paid for our work. They are dazed when we tell them we volunteered to do this. Our payment is in creating and tending the garden, creating something beautiful. My father’s credo as a military officer was always leave a place better than you found it. The people who come after you will appreciate it. Military life is hard enough without finding your new home in a shambles. And it is important not to leave the locals with a bad taste in their mouth about you and military people in general.
“When the world wearies and ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden.” –Anonymous
On the flip side, the optician downstairs has given us Japanese iris from her own garden and helped do some of the weeding by the building. Two other friends have given us plants from their gardens. We have been coordinating with our next door neighbor, since the property line goes right down the center of the flower beds. We’re supplying the labor and the plants, he’s getting the mulch and the cedar we need to make the towers for the birdhouses, in addition to giving us the occasional free pizza from his restaurant.
He likes how we’ve turned “the barren wasteland” (the back flower bed) into a shade garden with hostas, bleeding hearts, and wild bluebells. We are being watched with interest. People are deliberately coming by to check our progress. The optometrist has personally come out to thank us for our efforts, because it benefits his business as well. He said his customers have commented on how nice the mostly sunny front flower bed looks, and all we’ve done is get rid of the weeds. I’ve got lots of ideas to make that area full of color for them to see out the window and for us to enjoy while we’re maintaining the garden.
“He who plants a garden, plants happiness.” –Chinese proverb
When our daffodils and grape hyacinths came up this spring, Johann was so thrilled. He wanted to start planting for next spring right away. I’m so grateful we have the opportunity to garden here. I’ve been without a garden since we left Idaho 6 years ago. It’s true you don’t realize how important things are to you until they are taken away. Many of the things I’ve longed to do with Johann in the garden I’m finally able to do. Hopefully someday we’ll have our own small house with a very large garden around it and we’ll be able to do it all.
I also noticed that after our bulbs came up, all of a sudden the space under the tree by the path behind our building was cleaned up and replanted. The island in the parking lot was weeded and freshly planted with hostas and daffodils. The landscapers came over and looked at our back flower bed to see what we did before going back to work. We are deliberately choosing plants to benefit birds and butterflies, trying to use as many native plants as possible in the process. Hopefully they will copy that part of it as well. I never thought we’d have that affect here as we did in Idaho.
“One is nearer God’s heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth.” –Anynomous
Our situation is still the same, but I have more hope now that I have a garden again. I am more at peace in the garden. The fact that we had a garden wedding was very deliberate. If Johann could have been born at the rental house where I had my garden, I would have wanted to be in the garden then too. (Whether or not Eric would have allowed it is a different topic!) People around here have a habit of couching anything religious they might say with, “I’m NOT religious. But this comes to mind…” Well, I’m going to end with this quote without saying that. Take from it what you can.
“Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God
Who made him sees
That half a proper gardener’s work
Is done upon his knees.
So when your work is finished,
You can wash your hands and pray
For the Glory of that Garden
That it may not pass away.”
Rudyard Kipling
