A gardener's confession: It's not only me any more
1:16 PM Sun, Aug 17, 2008 | Permalink
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If you are, like me, a person with a full-time job (or equivalent to a full-time job), with very active social and family commitments, and still having to take many trips away from home and garden, you will inevitably feel tremendous guilt when you are not able to tend to the garden's, plants' and flowers' needs. The automatic sprinkler 3 or 4 times a week can only do so much. You hope for some soaking rain once or twice while you're away, even when that translates to healthy and rapidly growing weeds. Most of us, I believe, have just ourselves (no spouse, no children and of course no crew or staff to work around the clock) to help with the time-consuming and often 'hard- labor' garden work. Approaching my 73rd birthday and with many planned and unplanned trips, I was able to find a 'Liz Downing' (she did most of the labor on my Zen Garden) via the nice people at the GOODEARTH Organic Garden Center to help me with some planting, weeding, staking, etc. especially during an extended absence. Accepting help and needing help is tough for someone who has always been fiercely independent and self-sufficient. Even with occasional help, I still have so much work to do in the garden -- almost constant deadheading, weeding, pruning, trimming, watering, fertilizing. As you should all know, a gardener's work is never done -- it goes on and on from season to season, year to year (like a mother's job). I will try to work hard to assuage my guilt. I will take more pleasure in photographing and looking at the beauty around me. I will bring the beauty to others as I did this past week when I brought beautiful gladiolas, arranged in a huge vase, several times to the nursing station at the Miriam Hospital. ... and now I have to get back to my garden, my flowers are calling. 
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.. Hopefully you will spend time in the garden and enjoy its beauty and fragrance and work as a labor of love. I tell everyone who comes into the greenhouses and admires our work that it is not work at all - but therapy. It is a place I lose all negativity that touches me and I find amazing joy in the colors and fragrances that surround me and also attract the most beautiful butterflies and hummingbirds. Occasionally I am really lucky and one will brush my face or hand. I can hear the tiny wren feet tapping on the black weed block as they scamper past to help us with “bug patrol”.
So please do enjoy there is no guilt to assuage, just a wonderful place to re-charge your spirit and senses. We do miss your flower blogs. So glad to see you back. Love, Barbara
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Hi, Pat,
From someone setting up my 50th year high school reunion -
Every day you wake up on this side of the grass is a good day :-)
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Yes - that's right.
Well - Tasha Tudor, the legendary gardener lived until the age of 92 and did her garden the old fashioned way, "by hand".
It's nice to see your name again. I started to wonder where you've been.
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Thanks, Pat. I was in a snit for awhile, at the All Hillary All the Time stuff on a couple of projo blogs which shall be nameless, and no pro-Obama comments allowed through.
Actually, with the new system that lets through unmoderated comments, there were three comments on Harrop's article a day or two ago, and then they disappeared :-) Let's see if this one survives.
Obama's winning the nomination makes this small potatoes, however.
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I run into the same problem, if only there were 30 hours in a day! We can't guilt too much about it because other things to take priority, just don't forget about the garden
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Thanks for the great information - just bookmarked your website.
Visit us at Garden Flags
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