The Fickle Gardner

I stooped this morning with the late summer sun beating my back. In spite of my jug of tea, my mouth was dry, thirsty. I cursed the bermuda with its long zipper-like tendrils growing literally over my everygreen shrubs, hiding them, concealing them, draping them in its green arms.

At spring break, I was out here toting hoes and garden tools ready to embark on this new journey. My plans were clear, my faith secure, my heart open to the beauty that would soon be mine. As I went about my work, I marveled at the spring miracles and each new leaf, each new bud was a thing to be celebrated.

Now, after weeks of sapping 100 degree heat, I look at my garden from the cool of my porch and say, "Maybe tomorrow I'll go into the garden."

It's not that I don't love my garden. It's just that it hasn't quite realized my original expectations for it. The weeds,particularly the bermuda grass, continue to plague me. Each day I have weeded only to see more weeds the next day. Did I miss some warning in a garden magazine: NOTE: Weeding bermuda actually creates more bermuda. Forget your high-minded ecology. Just spray the stuff and be done with it.

There exist big gaping holes in my garden border where I thought there would be color. I understand now where I should have planted a shrub and should not have. The pavers that I worked so hard to level now appear as if a small earthquake has shaken them from their original space. Moles have feasted on the grubs and have made my clean-lined path look like something from a Dr. Seuss book, all lopsided and topsy-turvy.

I lamented the holes from some unknown pest that has devoured my sweet potatoe plants. I languished at the sight of my pond, scummy and green. The bright left over blooms of my roses aren't as alluring as I picked off the spent blooms and brushed them under the plants.


Whereas before I jubilantly looked forward to each new day, the heat and the weeds and the bugs have taken their toll on my passion, made me cautious, stand offish. I don't drop by as much to see the objects of my affection. I don't bring it new friends or water it like I should.

Like a fickle lover, I dodge my responsibility, play coy.

I'm like the bride who, after the honeymoon, is upset to discover that her new husband would really rather watch ESPN than "The Notebook". What really did I expect? That my garden would have no weeds? That my roses wouldn't wilt from the Oklahoma heat? That my pond wouldn't need cleaning out after months of standing in the piercing sun?

Yesterday a friend gave me a copy of one of my favorite gardening magazines. I sadly took it and laid it on my table, next to my unwritten novel and the books I've been meaning to read. I leafed through it but had to put it down, the pain was too great. It was like reading a Harlequin after just filing for divorce.

Four years ago I began in earnest to create this illusion drawn from the pages of glossy photos that seduced me mind, body and soul. In the throes of such passion, I did not stop and think about watering requirements, drainage needs, sunlight hours. My heart was set on some eden-like moments, where I would walk through my lovely garden and point out the objects of my affection, like a boy at the prom with his beautiful date. It was all about appearances and ego.

Now, four years later and in the throes of a late summer heatwave, my daylillies need dividing, my grasses are a mess and my roses need deadheading. I wonder through this garden of mine like a lover betrayed. I'm jealous of its lackluster blooms. I'm weary from its incessant needs. How could it need this much work? Where is the beauty that I thought would be mine? Where is the joy that I first knew?

I have on my desk a photo of my garden from four years ago. In it, the water birch is tiny, hardly able to be seen. There is no pond and no pergola. No roses, no shrubs. Only a small
dark ribbon of fresh earth where my dreams warmed in the pale spring sun. The rose arbor stood tall, erect but bare. It is on days such as this that I pull out this photo, remembering those early days. Like a old woman remembering her wedding day, I know the rush of new love is now long gone, like the wind in the dustbowl. It was not meant to last and perhaps this is the most difficult of all the cosmic laws of love. That slightly crazy-love is like the cast on a broken arm, holding two pieces together until the right growth can bind them together never breaking in that same place, never letting go.