I was 30 years old when my father retired. Since he was a pastor, we had never really had a home: our family just resided in the church manses where we lived. On retirement, my father bought some land out in the country and built a small house in an empty field. My mother was in frail health, so I was living at home to help care for her. When I looked at that field I thought, “Well, I have my work cut out for me!“ I had never been much of a gardener, but when one acquires a home for the first time, one is motivated to garden.
It would become an addiction, one that—I am now 71—has been going for 41 years.
I started out with a small vegetable garden. Some things grew, some did not. I remember the first sweet corn I planted, so delicious served with heaps of melted butter.
I went on to plant flowers. It was a while before I found out what perennials were and that they came up year after year. How wonderful that was! (Weeds also come up year after year.)
I always bought my plants at the end of the season, when garden centers got rid of things for the bargain price of two or three dollars. I bought this and that—as long as they were supposed to flower. Two bushes that were supposed to bloom pink ended up white. They are still blooming all these years later, and still a little of a disappointment.
Then I bought some bundles of small trees from the arbor society. They turned out to be beautiful!
Every year I would plant a few new flowers, bushes, and trees. We lived in the country, so there were always a few stray cats around, which I would feed and care for. When an older cat would pass away, I would bury it beneath a flower or a bush. Many years later, I would be digging a hole for something to be planted and come across the bones of one of my dear cats.
As the yard became beautiful, I told my parents, “When I pass away, I want to be cremated and buried under my pine trees.“
My father said I would not need a tombstone, as the yard was sort of a memorial garden. I agreed. One gets a sense of love and comfort sitting under the boughs of a tree. How can one want to be buried under a cold marble tombstone, when one can be buried under a lovely green tree with birds singing overhead every day?
This year I dug holes for two new trees, a redbud and a peach, to replace ones that had rotted out. Every year it gets a little harder to plant things. I just work more slowly.
At my age, I don’t know how long I will be around, but I will be the last thing to be planted in my beautiful yard. And every Spring when my dormant, colorless yard awakens from its Winter sleep and begins to bloom in an explosion of beautiful vibrant blossoms, my spirit will applaud from under the pine trees and say …
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This article was published originally in 2021, in GreenPrints Issue #127.
