Eva Antonel
There's nothing like the first signs of
spring to nudge your thoughts toward
gardening. Because I've seen more than my
share of gardens, I can say with certainty that
some speak to the soul louder than others.
My earliest memories of noticing plants in
their natural environment take me back to
my childhood. The solution to city dwellers
in need of exercising their green thumb in
post-war Poland was allotments of land
outside the city limits called dzialki. In fac,t
they are still the mainstay of many urbanites
today.
City dwellers lucky enough to have a
small parcel of soil at their disposal would use
it to grow vegetables and fruit which were
often only found in state-run shops
sporadically. While I'm sure my family grew
lots of produce that I consumed with
indifference as a child, my memories focus on
apple trees whose fruit I devoured well before
its time. The apples were sour and gnarled
but tasted like manna from heaven.
Such memories contrast sharply with
later ones of my mother's front garden. The
flowers she planted there every spring grew
with abandon and in a riot of colour, as if they
had chosen to come to the party themselves.
Peonies mingled with irises and gave way to
sedum closer to fall. No consideration for the
necessities of life here. Just an expression of
joy and pleasure in tending a living thing.
Neither garden would hardly have been
considered a work of art, but each served the
needs of those who nurtured it and gave them
much pleasure. Countless books have been
written about garden design and aesthetics,
In the spring, at the
end of the day, you
should smell like dirt.
~Margaret Atwood
and while it's true that a well-planned garden
often shows and performs better than a
poorly thought-out one, many textbook
examples lack the soul of one that has been
lovingly put together. The bedraggled
seedling chosen by a child at a roadside stand
or a shared perennial offered by a neighbour
often don't fit into the planned arrangement
but enrich it hundredfold because of what
they represent. Like my mother-in-law, who
can tell you which plant was given to her by
whom and for what occasion, tending such
treasures regardless of their aesthetic value
often rewards us with so much more than a
well-executed, professionally designed plan.
After countless hours of research and
planning, the gardener needs to pick up a
shovel and dig a hole. It's inevitable that just
the right plant will find its way into it. Part of
the fun is being surprised by what decides to
make a home there. Trusting your instinct
and giving new ideas a chance may just
reward you with a new obsession. Who would
have thought that planting cucumbers next
to raspberry bushes would give the cucumber
vines something to cling to or that planting
herbs around the tomatoes would provide a
one-stop station for a salad garden? Throw
caution to the wind and let the plant tell you
where it'd like to live. The worse that can
happen is that you'll need to stop at your local
farmers’ market to pick up the slack. The best
that can happen is that you'll be digging soil
from under your fingernails and wiping
raspberry juice from your lips all summer
long.
Want to win a basket of gardening
goodies? Simply share the April
issue of The Hub on your Facebook
page and your name will be entered
into the draw. Happy garden
planning!
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April 2015 - The HUB 9