{"id":58,"date":"2009-11-28T17:38:14","date_gmt":"2009-11-29T00:38:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.2soar.info\/word\/?p=58"},"modified":"2009-11-28T17:38:14","modified_gmt":"2009-11-29T00:38:14","slug":"9600-and-the-kindness-of-gardeners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/2009\/11\/28\/9600-and-the-kindness-of-gardeners\/","title":{"rendered":"$96.00 and the Kindness of Gardeners"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I moved into my condo I left behind a beautiful garden.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>It was one of the hardest things I\u2019ve ever done.\u00a0 <\/span>I sometimes think I mourned my garden more than I did my marriage.\u00a0 <\/span>I worked hard in that garden in an effort to alleviate my pain and isolation. \u00a0<\/span>I left behind gallons of sweat and tears, many an aching back, buried dog bones and a therapeutic wonderland. Mostly I left behind gifts from gardeners who touched my life.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen it over the\u00a0past year and it\u2019s trying to live up to its surrogate gardener but it misses me. \u00a0<\/span>You are never alone in a garden, there is always a conversation going on between the gardener and the plants, the soil, the weather, the tools, or God.\u00a0 <\/span>I had just started to convert that garden over to one that I could manage as I got older and it was becoming magnificent.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

So now, I\u2019ve spent the last year watching a shady little patch of land behind my condo.\u00a0 <\/span>I watched the amount of sun, the way the sprinklers hit, the way the landscapers treated this backyard and the number of dogs that\u00a0found the area \u201cattractive\u201d.\u00a0 <\/span>Finally in late September I was ready to plant.<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t have a lot of discretionary income so I would once again have to rely on the kindness of gardeners if I was going to begin again.\u00a0 <\/span>What a wonderful predicament to find yourself in.\u00a0 <\/span>There are no kinder people than gardeners.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I began my venture at Willow Run.\u00a0 <\/span>This nursery was a second home to me not long ago but I\u2019d been gone a year and was actually anxious about returning.\u00a0 <\/span>September is a gardener\u2019s delight if you love perennials.\u00a0 <\/span>The plants are all half price and the clearance corner is stocked with some of the most waiflike orphans with huge potential you\u2019ll ever see.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I had $100.00 to spend and an L shaped area 6\u2019 by 12\u2019 to accommodate.\u00a0 <\/span>I pulled shrubs and perennials into the walkways and arranged my garden near the nursery\u2019s parking lot.\u00a0 <\/span>I put plants back, I pulled more plants in, I put plants back\u2026well you get the picture.\u00a0 <\/span>All the while I was adding and subtracting in my head the amount I was spending.\u00a0 <\/span>One of the owners watched me work but didn\u2019t say anything until I was considering a Smoke Bush and tears came to my eyes.\u00a0 <\/span>He walked up beside me and just waited.\u00a0 <\/span>Finally I showed him my potential garden near his parking lot and said, I\u2019ve got\u00a0 <\/span>$100.00 and a deeply shaded patch of land about 6\u2019 x 12\u2019 am I good with that?\u00a0 <\/span>He put his arm around me and confirmed I would be fine<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 <\/span>My bill came to $96.00.<\/span><\/p>\n

My friend Muriel met me at my car when I arrived home and helped me lug my treasures to the back of the condo.\u00a0 <\/span>She later told me that as soon as she saw the dirt on my shirt she knew every one of those plants would be in that day.\u00a0 <\/span>She was right.\u00a0 <\/span>I dug and removed rocks, and dug some more.\u00a0 <\/span>I broke a shovel and nearly broke a second one.\u00a0 <\/span>I mulched and amended soil with bags of \u201cgood stuff\u201d I had squirreled away in my basement storage area.\u00a0 <\/span>I was sweating and filthy and happy about all of it.<\/span><\/p>\n

It had begun.\u00a0 <\/span>The kindness continued on my vacation to the Cape.\u00a0 <\/span>My dear friend Trudi sent me home with Gay Feather and Black Eyed Susie.\u00a0 <\/span>Then to my old garden and Mickey\u2019s assurance that these plants were mine for the taking.\u00a0 <\/span>I took some of Florence\u2019s Hosta, Jeanette\u2019s Chameleon, Harumi\u2019s Lady\u2019s Mantle, Roger\u2019s mother\u2019s sedum.\u00a0 <\/span>Bits and pieces that had built my original garden would come home to a new garden, a new start. <\/span><\/p>\n

It is now mid November and I\u2019ve put the garden to bed.\u00a0 <\/span>Historically putting the garden to bed has made me very sad because I\u2019d have no outlet for my misery.\u00a0 <\/span>Now putting the garden to bed is just a transition to a winter of nights by the fire, slow cooking and reading books I couldn\u2019t get to.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>More importantly, I once again have the promise of an upcoming spring filled with shoots, digging, sharing and hope.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>All for $96.00 and the kindness of gardeners.\"dsc_2571\"<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I moved into my condo I left behind a beautiful garden.\u00a0 \u00a0It was one of the hardest things I\u2019ve ever done.\u00a0 I sometimes think I mourned my garden more than I did my marriage.\u00a0 I worked hard in that … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-company-of-women-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p27hQ5-W","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}