In the Garden
My mother’s favorite hymn was “In the Garden,” and my husband’s favorite place to be is in the garden. Every spring he goes wild ordering seeds and saplings from catalogs and truckloads of dirt and mulch from local purveyors. (Actually, he is already poring over the catalogs and asking me when we’ll have enough money for dirt and mulch. And rocks. He adds assorted rocks to fancy up his gardens. There’s a local place where he can take his pick and load them up in the back of our SUV. It doesn’t run terribly well with that much weight in the back. But I digress.)
When he lived near Philadelphia, Dan had a small greenhouse that was attached to his parents’ house. I think it got heat from the dryer vent. He moved away from there over 40 years ago, but I know he still misses it. (Sometimes, when he’s feeling grandiose, he describes himself as a former greenhouse manager. One Christmas long ago, I bought him a do-it-yourself plastic greenhouse kit, but he’s never used it. But I digress again.) But now he has a big yard in the front and a woods for a backyard, and he gets his ya-yas out there.
Most of the time, he plants native wildflowers and assorted trees, including fruit and nut trees. He tries to eradicate invasive species and propagate plants that are good for pollinators, particularly butterflies. He also has birdhouses and birdfeeders (yes, multiple) on the property.
Dan gardens to refresh his soul. He also gets some exercise there, digging and pruning. (He also gets gardener’s butt burn when his pants ride down and his shirt rides up. But I digress some more. Graphically.) He gets much less exercise in the winter and gets the opposite of the Summertime Blues.
When he doesn’t have a shovel or rake with him, Dan always takes a walking stick with him in anticipation of falling down, which he sometimes does when the earth turns to mud. He has multiple walking sticks, some of which he bought in Gatlinburg and Ireland, and others he’s rehabbed from random branches. He also uses them when he tours the backyard, which is still suffering from tornado damage, or the slope on the side of our property.
Am I involved in his endeavor? Not much. I find my ya-yas in other places. Oh, sometimes he asks me where he should plant something, or which color of clematis I prefer, what I want to be planted by my study window, or where to put the aforementioned rocks. I go out, studiously look over the landscape, and offer a completely uninformed opinion. I also look up plants for him online — how big they get, whether they’re good for pollinators, how much it costs to buy them, and so forth. (He’s annoyed that many of the seed places are putting their catalogs online, which makes it harder to flip pages. He did buy some sassafras trees because he knows I love sassafras tea. But I digress even more.)
Of course, Dan’s gardening is an investment in someone else’s future. At our age, he knows that he won’t be around to see the oaks and pines grow to their full height or maybe even the apple and plum trees bear fruit.
For now, though, he’s got his happy place, and he doesn’t have to go to a beach to find it. It’s right outside the door.
