The Patient Gardener

I finally got back to my garden after an almost six year hiatus.  So much happened in those six years.  I opened and closed a business; I terminated my landscape and horticultural therapy contracts; I started roller derby and finished it (unfortunately due to a really bad fall on my tush bone which still hurts almost three years later!)  My body got really angry with me for disregarding it all those years.  Stress.  The silent killer.  Ain’t it the truth.  It’ll getcha every time.

 

But my garden didn’t revolt. I did lose my beloved smoke tree (Pop’s Pink Champagne cultivar stopped popping its cork!)  Not to neglect.  It was beyond anything I could do.  It did its best, as did my entire garden, to patiently wait for my return.  That’s a lot to expect of a teenager.  My garden is sixteen years old.  And as anyone who has teens knows, they have their own minds and do what they want!  My wild hippie garden, too, has this independcnce separate from me and was fine living on its own for those years.

I have now been spending time with my “child” daily.  Moving what’s left of old perennials to open spaces, contemplating life after a massive change.  I find that it is assisting me now, without asking.  After every adjustment, it thanks me by settling into the changes gracefully and without the typical teenage angst.  I feel like it’s saying, “Ahhh, that feels good” after each change, a “welcome back, nice to see you again”!

As I stare at its beauty it offers me suggestions of what it would like next.  And I say, “Of course, that would be a wonderful addition”!  Unlike my own teenager, it is assisting me with the work.  I think it needed to stretch its legs after a long slumber.  It did it’s best, letting go of what was unnecessary, much like what I am currently experiencing; a change of my own seasons; what to keep and what to let go of.  As I play in my garden, it gets easier and easier to let go.  Like my garden, I never really owned those things in the first place.  They were just offering their beauty to me, to savor and ponder as they passed through, blooming and fading, blooming and fading.