Reciprocal Tending

As kids we played outside, digging holes and pinching herbs from the neighbor’s garden, a meal consisting of chives and rhubarb. In pursuit of pie, I carved trails in the blackberry underbrush. In truth, I inflicted a fair amount of havoc on the landscape, stripping the leaves of the cotoneaster for confetti and digging up my dad’s tidy lawn for a fleeting interest in growing corn.

Pleasantly tired and thoroughly filthy, I fought off dusk and parental calls to come indoors at the end of the day for a bath and bed, begging for just a few more minutes in the outdoor kingdom that was my neighborhood. It should be noted that the only screens were the ones slamming on backdoors.

Today my garden remains a place of relative freedom provided I don’t try to resist zonal realities, or start too many seedlings in the rush of spring, or install a thirsty plant in my sandy soil, or... or... or... It’s a place where I can play with color, choreograph blooms, capture light in waving grasses, and even conjure food—although that last item is presently out for review.

At times, responsibilities and deadlines barely leave time for keeping up with basic garden maintenance, like weeding or pruning the pleached crabapple hedge (again). I don’t really mind weeding, except for that red clover-like plant that loves to colonize beds and gravel pathways. But managing the shape of those crabapples is boring and tedious — I might as well be dusting or vacuuming.

I routinely fret about a planet on fire, poisons leaching into our water system, and waste — so much waste. When was the last time you tallied all those plastic pots our beloved plants are sold in. Or wondered what to do when yet another hose springs a leak and must be replaced. You can only patch a leaky hose so many times before your patches have patches.

Don’t even get me started on a world in which a new shovel costs less than the replacement handle for the one I already have. I know what you’re thinking: Upgrade the quality of your tools fair gardener and maybe they’ll last longer. It's true, but—waste. So, I stick to my trusted battery of old digging and raking implements. Although, fed up with constantly losing hand tools, this year I splurged on a swanky leather holster that probably cost as much as replacing my favorite Felcos.

I tell myself that my garden needs me, at least my platonic idea of a pleached hedge needs me— apparently at the top of a ladder wielding clippers. But more accurately, I need my garden. My garden reminds me to stop and pay attention. It gives me moments of beauty and a way to actively support the wellbeing of the environment around me. My garden wears me out, which is a signal to rest. The tending is reciprocal.