Reflections on Gardening
More Than Blooms
By Laura Chapel, Master Gardener
Sometimes
I sit smug with my cup of coffee. I know I outsmarted the rest of the world
by getting out of bed to watch the first rays of sunlight. The sky is
brilliant red, the color of the new gaillardia plants that started to bloom
yesterday.
Sometimes it’s the solitude. In the woods no
one else can see my garden. The delphinium spikes, deep blue with
fluorescent centers are magical. It seems rich, arrogant and fascinating
that from the first bud, to the last fallen flower I watched them alone
again this year. A private gift opened in the morning & the last view I see
when I feel like I close the door in their faces at night.
Memories are apparent:
The periwinkle vine I started from the
cemetery next to my father’s grave. The vine looks so unassuming but It
holds a lifetime of memories every time I sit & weed. I know I stay too
long, but maybe I can find just one more weed.
My best friend, holding a pot of sickly Iris
plants she brought back from Louisiana. I guess they didn’t like the car
ride. They are spreading across the back of the garden now. Somehow I knew
they would survive, they had to, Laurie gave them to me.
The statue of the little boy & girl with
curly hair. The statue is gray, but I can tell the curly hair is red.
They’re grown now, but I see both of the faces every morning peeking out of
the bee balm. I have to laugh; she is turning into her mother. She has too
many plants, and she still has room for just one more.
Gardens are so much more than blooms.
They are a lifetime of collected moments, and
each plant has a story. The plants we gather from grandmothers, friends and
the grouchy greenhouse owner. God knows he should have been in another
business. His prices were too high, and if he didn’t have that rare shade of
peach tree peony, I would have driven by.
Somewhere along the way, between dawn and the
last light, my garden became a journal.
I understand now that journals are truly only
for only the author.
When I put my private thoughts into each
plant, as the years go by I can sit, weed and read my journey in each new
bloom.
