GARDENING FOR A CHANGE, PART 3


Another amazing weekend in the 'hood, thanks to my garden...

The unseasonably warm weather this weekend allowed me to do something I'd been procrastinating about for a while -- plant my spring bulbs. Aside from having a whole lot of other things I wanted to do (plus dealing with an increase in my pain), my summer flowers -- impatiens, petunias, nasturtiums, nicotiana, chrysanthemums -- were still bursting with color well into the first week of November. Very unusual for Rochester. And of course, I would have had to dig them up in order to make room to plant the bulbs. Didn't have the heart to do that.

Last week we finally had a real frost, and most of the flowers are now gone. The nasturtiums are still doing well, but I had to cut them back a bit to make room, or I would have bare spots come spring. I still have a few petunias in pots. Amazing, so late in the season. Naturally, the mums will be around quite a bit longer.

But it would soon be too late for the spring bulbs, so yesterday and today I planted a total of 63 tulips (pink, deep purple, yellow, and a yellow-red mix) and 35 purple irises. These will bloom sometime in April or May -- possibly June if we have a cold spring.

It will be a startling burst of color for my neighbors, who are not used to seeing flowers. It is a poor neighborhood, mostly renters, and few who have experience with gardening. My downstairs neighbor thought I was crazy for planting in November. She thought the flowers would die in the snow. She didn't know that you plant spring bulbs in the fall.

Yesterday and today my reasons for all this work -- aside from the joy I feel when I see the flowers -- were reinforced several times over.

While I was working yesterday an elderly gentleman stopped to tell me how much he had enjoyed my garden throughout the summer. He said that, no matter how badly he was feeling, when he walked by and saw the flowers, his spirits were uplifted. He told me that when he was a child an elderly woman in his neighborhood hired him to tend her rose garden. It was hard work, he said, but the roses were so beautiful, that made it all worthwhile. We spent about a half hour talking about gardening. I told him that knowing how much the flowers meant to my neighbors was reason enough for me to do it all.

Today two neighborhood children -- my pal Ruben and his friend Anthony -- offered to help me finish cleaning up the leaves. We had a grand time. Each time we filled a bag, I said it was play time. We would toss the full bag around to each other until it started to get a hole, and then we would fill another. I also let them rake up a big pile and throw themselves on it. Then we would get back to work. The three of us together made short shrift of the job.

Anthony said, "Thank you for letting us help you."

He also said, "You're a funny lady."

I loved that. I said, "I like to have fun, don't you?"

Of course he did.

While we work working on the leaves, a couple of Anthony's friends of came by and wanted him to toss a football around with them. They thought he was crazy for choosing to do yard work with me instead. It's YARD WORK! they said. Anthony wouldn't budge.

Later Ruben's sister Takishia came over and the four of us tossed a ball around. I decided it was time to bring out my big ball (the core stability ball I use for exercise), and I let them make up games to play with it. Anthony got really good at staying on top of the ball, "walking" it with his knees. They all figured out how to use it to turn front and back flips. Takishia needed a little help and would get embarrassed, but I reassured her all she had to do was practice, and she got better at it, so she could feel proud.

It was warm enough today to be out without even a sweater. When the air turned cooler late in the afternoon, I started wearing out, so I had to bring an end to our play. We'll do it again, I promised.

Later I was thinking, how wonderful it is to be able to find so much joy in something as simple as planting flowers...or playing with children. There was a time in my life when I could not do that. Today I am blessed beyond measure.

Posted: Sun - November 13, 2005 at 10:20 AM          

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