Category: Garden

 

We plant seeds that will flower as results in our lives, so best to remove the weeds of anger, avarice, envy and doubt…  ~Dorothy Day

I really don’t expect much with our weather…I hope…I have lots of hope, but not expectations for a warm, sunny, early spring.  If I expect this, I know I will be disappointed maybe even depressed.  Oh who am I kidding, I am disappointed and depressed.  Who wouldn’t be with snow arriving this year in late November and still going in late March.  I mean come on. Yes I am whining.  I need to whine a bit.

OK I have been told to allow these feelings to come out.  Feel the disappointment.  Really… why would I want to? Because it will make you feel better.  Are you kidding me?  OK, I’ll try it. I am so ready to get out and start cleaning up, planting, watching the growth of the garden.  I have lots of projects to do, and I can’t get to them.  I have this aching need to be in my garden with my plants and flowers, but I can’t.  So right now I am whining and feeling this disappointment.  See if you have expectations folks, you will inevitably have disappointments.  It is life and it sucks some days.

And actually feeling disappointed is reality.  We see things as they are meant to be.  So right now even though I am disappointed, I know I have lots of other things that need doing.  Maybe not in the garden, but definitely projects in writing, in the house, reading and researching.  And really these are important things that must be done so I need to focus on these things.  I know there is a grander plan for why I am not in the garden yet.  Maybe it is to give my body extra time to continue to heal from the brutal beating it took last fall.

As gardeners we constantly deal with disappointment.  We plant seeds and nurture them only to have them never grow, be killed by frost or eaten by animals. Last year I planted hundreds of sunflowers and 3 came up.  Most were eaten by animals and those same animals moved many all around the garden.  Two flowered and survived.

We have seen our beloved plants killed or maimed by floods, wind and all manner of other destructive forces Mother Nature dishes out.  So we feel that discouragement sometimes bordering on depression, but I think it hardly gets that far.  After all we buck up and figure out what went wrong and we move on.  We gardeners are a hardy lot that perseveres.  And this gardening hardiness has taught me much in other aspects of my life.

 

 

• When my job was cut to part time, I felt the disappointment, accepted it as a gift of more time to do other things, like gardening, and moved on.  The moving on part didn’t happen overnight, but it did happen.

 

• When I injured my shoulder with too much weeding, I put it in a sling, learned to weed with my other arm (although I almost damaged that one as well), asked for help (not something I like to do) and was able to get through the projects.

I have also begun to see expectations are rooted in hope.  But hope isn’t a benign feeling that we have.  It is so much more.  In reading the book, The Gifts of Imperfection, by Brené Brown she describes it as a thought process.  And I rather think she is right.  When we have hope we don’t feel it, we think it.  We actually take action to make things happen.  We plan, we make alternate choices if we have to and we believe it will happen.  Think about it.  I have hope for spring like weather, and I have plans for the garden when the weather warms.  Since it is not warm, I have alternate plans for now of seed starting indoors, planning, researching and the like.  And I know it will become warm soon enough.  I work hard at this hopefulness.  And it pays off with the wonderful fruits and flowers of my labors throughout my life.

So now as I gaze upon my garden, I am seeing it a bit messy, brown, damaged and in need of tender care and warmer days.  I am feeling a bit disappointed with the lack of blooms.  Soon that will change.  She has already begun the slow process of shaking off her winter coat.  And as I wander about looking upon the ratty patches of earth, I almost do not recognize this garden.  This may mean big changes for her future, but I think I need to take it slow.  Think some more, start drafting ideas before any plans materialize.  Maybe the slow start to spring is giving me time to contemplate what really needs to be done and when.  Start slow and small.  Clean up one area as it dries out instead of trying to tackle an enormous area.  Begin the grand plans in hopes of completing it in due course.  After all what more can I expect….

Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in.
~ Bill Bradley

 

Special Note: As the garden season is beginning, I am feeling a bit rushed for time to do everything especially now that I have this full time day job.  So I am reducing my blogging to once a week in April.  This will allow me more time to garden and start designing gardens for others.  I hope to write my regular blog a couple times a month on Mondays, and also do some traveling around and post some garden walks.  Promised a few folks I would and it will be fun.  Once a month I hope to highlight my gardens including the veggie garden, and once a month I will highlight some Native Plants.  As I am growing the blog is morphing and growing too, but I will stay with my roots; my main posts that sustain me with life lessons.  Thanks to all who continue to read, comment and enjoy the blog.  You are an important part of this blog and its author.