Gardening for a Change


Today, for the first time in seven years -- since the summer before I lost my house in the 19th Ward to foreclosure -- I planted flowers.

I did it. For the first time in years -- since the summer before I lost my house in the 19th Ward to foreclosure, I planted flowers.

Nothing fancy. Just a big flat of impatiens.

After nearly six years of living in this apartment building I decided it was time to add my own bit of color. It's a bit of a problem because, although there is a huge back yard, it is shaded by a giant maple with very shallow roots. The maple is actually not in the yard, but behind the fence separating the building's property from the Delta Sonic car wash and gas station. But most of the shade from the tree is in our back yard.

Now, I love that tree -- as well as the trees that line the south side of the building -- in the summer. As far as I'm concerned, the shade of a good tree is far better (and, of course, a heck of a lot cheaper) than air conditioning.

But all that shade makes growing things a bit problematic.

I've been meaning to try a little gardening again for a very long time. Time was I grew tomatoes (very well...except for our short growing season, which left me with a huge lot of green tomatoes come September's first frost), carrots and squash (not so well -- except for the mutant squash that came out looking, well, a little obscene, and I couldn't eat it...too much fun to embarrass people with it on my desk, until it rotted of course), a huge swath of nasturtiums that kept their color near to the end of October. And gladioli. How I loved those gladioli. What a perfect name, shortened to glads. But then I lost the house. Couldn't pay the mortgage because I was too sick to work.

And for a long time, too depressed, really, to try my hand again here. Oh, each summer that came I'd think about it, think about how much better the place would look with a spot of color. But never got around to it. Until today.

Part of my inspiration is my new friend Megan, who, like me, is often crippled by her multiple disabilities, including fibromyalgia and Sjogren's. We met in January through the Ai Chi class we both take.

Despite her pain she has been working on this wonderful garden in a huge sloping yard she has with her house in Pittsford. Megan isn't really a gardener...she's more an artist working outdoors in stone and plants. That's how I see her work anyway. Like me, Megan has a bit of a problem with sleep. You may find her out working in her garden at three in the morning. She will be huffing and groaning with pain, but she will keep going. And little by little, the garden takes shape.

I have a few photos I took in early May, when I stayed with her after my appendectomy. I was going to post them, but looking at them now, in comparison to what I saw when I visited her just yesterday, well, I have to go back and take some more because it all looks quite different now.

For Megan, gardening is spiritual. It's what makes all that pain bearable.

So today, I planted flowers.

And something wonderful happened. My little pals Ruben and Takishia -- kids who live in an apartment building across the street -- saw me getting the soil and plants out of the car and asked if they could help. Well, of course!

So I showed them how to pull the weeds and till the soil and space the little plants out so they had room to grow. The three of us together made short shrift of the project, even through a short drizzle of rain. And I found a couple of old pots in the basement, left behind by a previous tenant, and put some of the extras in so they could take them home.

I said next week I was thinking they could help me plant in another area -- it's right across from their building and they would be able look out their windows and see the flowers growing. They were thrilled with the idea.

Children and growing things belong together.

Posted: Sun - May 29, 2005 at 04:24 PM          

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