not that sweet

My scribblings here are mostly about gardening and a few other things, but I realize when I write after a weekend like this past one, that one could think that I am endorsing gardening as a spiritual exercise, some new age escape.

And I don't believe that it is a new age spiritual escape.

My bent is to garden. To think about it. Design beds. Dig them out and amend the soil. Plant the beds. Tend to the plants. Re-plant, divide, continue to amend soil.

There is a thrill in this work -- for me. Sometimes it is like the school science project, where one labors on what is supposed to happen and then excited to see that the theory worked.

Sometimes it is thrilling, like right now, to see come out what has been months of hard frozen earth a whole new definition of the space with a full-throttled plant not seen since fall.

There is a thrill in seeing plants age and thrive, and dividing them so that there are more plants in the garden, or an abundance to share with others.

But gardening is also hard work. And the garden I work in has a lot of problems, starting with the hard clay soils of this part of the world. And the ever constant weeds that seek to smother the plants in the garden.

In the summer there are loads of blood-sucking mosquitoes, and despite the general amount of rain we get, there are times in the summer when watering is a necessity, and it can be very disappointing for the gardener who happens to be on vacation that week.

There is the cost of plants. Going to the nursery is like going to a good bookstore, I want it all. So sometimes I find a cheaper version on sale at a big box and nurture it, hoping it will grow up. These plants often take a lot more time. Or I receive gifts from other generous gardeners, willing to give me what I wouldn't find in nurseries.

Of course, I actually enjoy the delayed gratification of gardening. Do all the work, and eventually you see the results. And when the results happen, you smile and forget how hard it was to make that happen.

Gertrude Jekyll once complained that when people came and saw her natural style gardens that they thought it must have been easy for her to create it. Little did they know, she wrote, how hard she had worked to improve the soil and to make the right plant selections and to tender the garden until it reached that state of looking just about perfect and effortless.

Plants die. Pests or disease attack them. We learn from our mistakes. We (all gardeners) are sometimes pleasantly surprised by challenges to our collective wisdom and assumptions.

Great experience. But the work is real, and the payback, while fulfilling, is not a new-age la-la experience.

This evening, I still have to do something about my dirty fingernails (I start out wearing gloves but there is a point when they come off and I am clawing around in compost and dirt).