The Simple Life

Yesterday, April 2^nd, was a perfect spring day, sunny and warm - enough. For, I believe, the first time in my life, I did some gardening.  I turned some earth, got some pots out, arranged some stones, took the patio set out, planted some seeds and watered the freshly turned earth.

Hodgson Burnett’s “The Secret Garden” is the only book that ever made me long to garden and Von Arnim’s “Elizabeth and her German Garden” the only one that ever made me desire to sit in one. I’ve never really been attracted to gardening before. I’m still not sure that I am. But I’ll give it a try.

After going through a frenzy of decoration inside the house (which created about 65% more havoc than there was before, but hey, it’s an ongoing project) my creativity and my love for my environment suddenly discovered it could spread to the immediate outside. What can I say, I am nesting. Literally. I am creating a nest around me that will bring me beauty, peace, comfort everywhere I look.

So I took a shovel and went to work. I must say, my love for earthworms and unwittingly slicing them to pieces is very limited. And I had not the slightest idea that peanuts in their shells grew deep in the ground.

But there is a certain sense of satisfaction and anticipation, once you look at an orderly garden, brown and dry but also trim and neat, to know it’s ready to bloom into splendour.

Of course, once you start looking into gardening in a little more detail, it is mind boggling. You have zones, temperatures, climates, types of ground.  People seem to know whether they have acidic or well-draining earth…There are the plants you plant in the Spring and those in the Fall; those you must plant every year and those you plant only once; those you have to cut often and those that must grow wild; those you must water often and those who need dryness; those that need shade and others that need sunshine. The shrubs must be trimmed, but at a certain time only and a certain way only. If you don’t trim a certain bush, it will no longer flower. If you trim the one beside it, it will die. As for fertilizers, it takes an MBA to figure out which goes on what plant. If you’re wrong, you’ll probably kill the plant or become infested with bugs.  It’s staggering.

So I happily ignore most of it and I go with instinct… I’ll let you know how we fare, my garden and I. Like my house and my life, it’s an ongoing project.