Living Garden

It was summer 1959. It was the year when cars had taken such a radical shift in design that dads who otherwise weren’t especially interested in automobiles talked about them while grilling hamburgers in the back yard. It was the year I embraced Richie Ashburn and Robin Roberts of the Philadelphia Phillies as heroes – because boys were supposed to have baseball heroes. It was the year when trading baseball cards, flipping baseball cards against any available wall, and studying baseball cards became a passion, partly out of social mandate, partly out of a genuine curiosity about athletic prowess and the concept of celebrity. It was the year when house chores, neighborhood fistfights, and a few limited new “Saturday Freedoms,” began to become more regular features of boys’ weekly schedules. It was the year that offered me my first experience of gardening – something that was sort of a secret from my friends because it didn’t fit the emerging package of “boyhood,” and yet was something that touched part of my imagination. 

I hadn’t planned on learning to garden. It was just one of those moments that present themselves in life as a gift. Our next-door neighbor, Mr. McNamara, had planted a number of vegetables in his garden, and had a few leftover red peppers. I happened to be in the back yard clipping our thorny hedge, when he asked if I wanted to have a try at growing some peppers. I accepted his gift and ran into the house to ask mom, where I might find a patch of dirt. She suggested a little spot along the side of the house that got lots of sun and I dug a few holes, stuck the baby plants into the clay-like, rocky soil, watered my experiments, told no one, and several weeks later had peppers the size of bananas. We didn’t even like peppers, especially these long Italian hot kinds, and so I gave some to Mr. McNamara, whose peppers had all died. (My mother later told me that my gesture made him mad.) During those weeks of watering and watching it seemed to me that I was cooperating with God somehow. It’s an idea that has stayed with me.     

I have made feeble efforts at gardening in other places we’ve lived as adults, but none that have ever produced prize-winning anything. That’s partly because we haven’t stayed in any one place long enough to discover the subtleties of the soil, light, and climate of our yards. We’re beginning our fifth year here in Norfolk. Our back yard has survived the removal of an enormous Pecan tree and the addition of dozens – and I mean dozens of camellias, azaleas, jasmine and clematis vines, acuba japonicas, lilies, hastas, hawthorns, phlox, a crape myrtle tree, and annuals of all sorts. Some have survived – many haven’t – but THIS YEAR – THIS YEAR -- I think I finally have a garden with balance. There are plantings that flower at various times during the year; every space has been considered; there’s a rock here and another there for a very particular reason; even the patterns and preferences of the birds who frequent our little yard have been considered.  

It feels like a commitment is emerging to and from this little space. I admit some hesitation at working this little space with such care – some pause about allowing a vision for this space to emerge. Perhaps I feel some risk in committing to this space because I don’t have much experience at being in one place for a long time. Perhaps I’ve begun to fall in love with more than just my little garden, and that scares me. 

I visited a couple from the parish yesterday that has just moved from their home of thirty years into an apartment. I know the affection they held for their home and their little back yard, because I stood in that yard with them and listened to their stories about the times they’ve shared with family in that yard, and where in the yard the rising or setting sun can be seen in each season, and how their successes and failures with geraniums, camellias and all other elements of life are reflected in that sacred space. I knew that this move would be hard for them, and entered their apartment ready to hear about their loss. But I didn’t. Instead I heard joyful characterizations of their years in that home and back yard and what sounded like a genuine enthusiasm for their new “view.” I heard loving remembrances of all that their home held for them, and a mature acceptance of the changes life is dealing them. I saw two people – married for 59 years – walking together, loving together, hoping together, and remembering together, in ways that made every ounce of energy spent in their garden worthwhile and precious. 

 I’m going back outside to plant another lily.