This is one of the things I am going to miss most. And the thought of not having my garden around me is so painful, I almost can't face it at all.
Since the kids came along, I admit I haven't had the time to devote to it that I once did, but this has probably made me healthier since I wasn't obsessing about every blip and burble of change. But not slaving over it and not caring about it are not the same thing.
I realize with a whole new clarity how much I need to see those first shoots poking out of the earth in spring, how necessary to my psyche are those little buds forming on the rose canes, the first flash of blue when the cranesbills bloom, the cheery, nodding heads of the daffodils, the clouds of crabapple blossoms raining onto the green, green grass.
I am in mourning.
Yes, I can probably make a new garden. It might even be a better garden in some respects, but it will never be this garden again. And I have no assurance than anyone moving in will care two straws for what I've created here. In fact, the reverse is more likely. When my grandma's house was sold, her huge, beautiful flowerbed was tilled under by the new owner. Twenty-five years of work and love and creativity, gone under the plow blade. Henry Mitchell was all too right when he said the garden rarely outlives the gardener.
I will make a new garden -- how can I not? -- but this one, this first garden, the one that has given me so much joy in the design and planting, this one will be imprinted on my heart.
Since the kids came along, I admit I haven't had the time to devote to it that I once did, but this has probably made me healthier since I wasn't obsessing about every blip and burble of change. But not slaving over it and not caring about it are not the same thing.
I realize with a whole new clarity how much I need to see those first shoots poking out of the earth in spring, how necessary to my psyche are those little buds forming on the rose canes, the first flash of blue when the cranesbills bloom, the cheery, nodding heads of the daffodils, the clouds of crabapple blossoms raining onto the green, green grass.
I am in mourning.
Yes, I can probably make a new garden. It might even be a better garden in some respects, but it will never be this garden again. And I have no assurance than anyone moving in will care two straws for what I've created here. In fact, the reverse is more likely. When my grandma's house was sold, her huge, beautiful flowerbed was tilled under by the new owner. Twenty-five years of work and love and creativity, gone under the plow blade. Henry Mitchell was all too right when he said the garden rarely outlives the gardener.
I will make a new garden -- how can I not? -- but this one, this first garden, the one that has given me so much joy in the design and planting, this one will be imprinted on my heart.
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