I spent the morning weeding my garden. My poor garden has suffered terribly over the past eleven months. Its gardener has been MIA. Or maybe I mean AWOL? Anyway, I decided the house reconstruction could wait; I simply couldn’t stand looking at my garden in that state any longer. It started raining after I’d been outside for about an hour, but I kept working. It wasn’t raining THAT hard, and at this time of year, a light rain is better than a hot sun.
This was not a chore for me. I actually enjoy gardening. It’s in my blood. My 89-year-old mother still loves working in her garden, as did her mother before her, and her mother before her. My children tease me about my garden, but I only smile. You see, when I was their age, my mother and her garden amused me, too.
I recently found a photograph of my father’s grandmother: a little old lady surrounded by a riot of roses and tomato plants. On the back, my grandmother had written, “Mama in her garden.”
So it came to me from both sides.
I grew up gardening. In fact, we always had multiple gardens, but these were all vegetable gardens. Unlike you, though, I had enough of gardening as a kid to last me forever. No more gardening for me. It's too much like work. Let the stuff grow wild.
ReplyDeleteI love gardens, but hate the work of gardening. Perhaps it comes from always living in Louisiana, where the steamy summer heat makes working outdoors so difficult for me. I don't tolerate heat well at all. I hope someday to have a beautiful garden, however -- if I strike it rich and can hire a full-time gardener!
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