MY FRIEND CAROLYN knocks on my door and when I open it she extends her palm. I reach out and feel what she is holding; it’s the moist, dimpled skin of strawberries. She pops one in my mouth.
“Where did those come from,” I ask. Her response startles and almost annoys me. She points down to the low plants beside my door. “There’s lots of them.”
The previous owner had planted them, along with the rose bush that snowed whitish pink pedals at the left corner of the house. She had also begun saving compost in a plastic bin in the tiny back yard.
The little heap of berries on the counter gave me a mild rush of pride, again basking in the rewards of someone else’s labor. A year earlier I had clipped the last rose from the bush I never pruned, and gave it to my boss, who was impressed and grateful, but still fired me the following spring.
But now I was feeling guilt as well. Despite two years of home ownership, I had barely kept up with the mowing and had done nothing to maintain the little inroads the previous owner had made in adapting nature to the short, sharp angles of lawn encircling the red brick house.
My legal blindness blunted any sustained interest in gardening. I was almost brazen in my pride at being able to name few living things, my reaction against poets who catalogue flowers to flaunt their at-oneness with nature. Of course, who was I to talk: I relished a comment attributed to a Zen master, “Why admire buildings: the exquisite architecture of the weed is all around you.” It certainly was, and getting taller every day.
On the Saturday evening I was planning on catching up with the yard work, I stepped out of my friend’s car onto my lawn and got a shock. The waves of grain were gone. Someone had mowed my lawn. I was ashamed, scandalized. I had a mild epiphany, imagining an angry Robert Frost look-alike scything me into conformity.
Even in a war village of tight, row houses and postage-stamp lawns, nature encroaches, according to its own whims and the actions–both creative and neglectful–of its residents. I realized that whether you can’t see your yard or can’t bear to look, to be part of a community means to tame nature, to show in some celebratory way that you are there.
You don’t have to become Martha Stewart, but if John the Baptist is trolling for locusts in your side yard, that’s not good either.
I had certainly noted the surprising burst of nature around me: the angry chuckle of raccoons robbed of food the night after trash pickup, the smell of cat-addled skunks the night before, the sound of sparrows and downy woodpeckers in my yard, the musky mix of lilacs and assorted spores, the silky feel of pollen residue on my car hoods. But what I needed was a basic checklist and plan. Carolyn came through.
First, I had to forego my retro refurbishing dream of the push mower in my basement and borrow a mower every week or so. Starting by the sidewalk, I could double back and use the left-wheel track to mark the next row. Scheduled mowing would mean less raking and more mulch. Backyard growth was so sparse and uneven Carolyn suggested a patio and shed as a better use of the space and which would also require less work.
I could claim custody of the perennials like the rosebush and the strawberry plants by watering when needed, and learned to my relief that not having gutters on the roof meant rainwater should be sufficient. Bulbs could be planted in the limited garden space in front of the house. So long as I went slowly, I could distinguish between weeds and flowers by touch.
Annuals, such as the potted tomato plant Carolyn gave me, weren’t coming back–water it, eat what grows, and that’s it. I was not sure if having to be told these things or my not doing them was more painful.
The real challenge was pruning the rosebushes, which I learned had to be done to save the budding flowers. A few encounters with thorns–which might be a god way to notate curse words in Braille–nearly nearly put me on e-Bay seeking a riot glove and machete. But Carolyn showed me gardening gloves, pruning shears, and how to use a tarp to wrap and haul away the cut brush for dumping.
Closer in, the swag of ivy that buffed faces going through my back door could be tamed by feeling for the vines, pulling them away from the brick and cutting, dropping the strands into a leaf-bag.
For the inside of my house, Carolyn recommended a wandering Jew or Swedish ivy, more robust plants that were easier to maintain. I could tell from the feel of the dirt rather than the look of the plant if water was needed. I had kept a philodendron, a housewarming gift, alive for more than two years, but I never felt it was breathing on its own.
Even though what I’d learned was minimal for anyone who has ever gardened, I felt I was on the path, at least as far as taking stock of what was around me, maintaining a lifecycle, and above all, to participate in to nature more mindfully, however slightly.
A more positive turning point–from responsibility to possibility–came when Carolyn and I went on our neighborhood’s garden tour. I was able to experience an astounding variety of cultivated beauty: the smells of many flowers, the mollifying trickle of fountains, the construction of perfect paths and stone walls, the pleasing mixture of sun and shade that all made me wonder, just a little bit, anyway, what I could do with my precious plot.
“I have begun to plant thee and will labor to make thee full of growing,” Duncan tells Macbeth. That’s about as poetic as I’ll wax on my gardening skills. If a plant can enter my home and last a little longer than Duncan, and Birnam Wood stays out of my yard, I’ll feel connected.
Print This Page
