For the first time in a long time, I find myself without any sort of garden of my own, and, at least in the foreseeable future, without any hope of having one. There are different ways to garden (and at some point I'm sure I'll harp on about my dislike of "Home Depot Gardening"), but my practice has always been to think about the long-term.
If you don't appreciate the present, you can't enjoy the best moments of a garden: the fresh green of trees when they first leaf out in early spring; the fingerlike stalks of daffodils or hosta or peonies pushing out through the soil; the blowsy indiscretion of cherry blossoms in bloom, before their petals fade to muddy pink; those two glorious weeks in April when the lilacs can overwhelm you even at 25 yards' distance; the three-week span from when the peony buds emerge, fat and ripe, to the moment when their heavy heads hang defeated, long petals shredded on the ground; a redbud sketched delicate and black against the autumn sky, its shape revealed as the wind strips away the bright yellow leaves.
And yet, for all that I enjoy the present in a garden, the future is never far from my thoughts. For me, gardening is not about plunking down $10 for a plastic flat of annuals that I will toss out three months later. The joy comes from imagining what my garden will look like in a different season, in a year, in five or ten years' time. How tall will this tree grow? What sort of color will this shrub provide in the winter? What will this wall look like when it's all filled in with climbing hydrangea? And I'm at my most optimistic in the garden: after all, you plant most bulbs when the coldest, darkest months of the year still lie ahead, in the faith that, in six months, the ugly, gnarled little object in your hand will flower. Indeed, imagining what a plant or garden will look like is what makes tolerable the bleakness of a northeastern winter.
When I was younger, I had always imagined that this would be the year when I would cast aside the relatively impermanent gardens I had cultivated - on a variety of terraces, in a number of rental apartments, in several different cities - for the garden that would be my life's project. For the first time in my adult life, I would plant trees in my own garden - a pleasure generally denied to those who garden on city roofs. I knew, too, the very first thing I would plant in this garden: a copper beech. I'd be an old lady by the time it reached any sort of height, and that comforted me: this year, I would start the garden that would grow with me through my life. And so, it is somehow fitting that I find myself gardenless, because I've no idea at all what my life will look like in a season, or a year, or a decade. For the first time in my adult life, I am rootless.
If you don't appreciate the present, you can't enjoy the best moments of a garden: the fresh green of trees when they first leaf out in early spring; the fingerlike stalks of daffodils or hosta or peonies pushing out through the soil; the blowsy indiscretion of cherry blossoms in bloom, before their petals fade to muddy pink; those two glorious weeks in April when the lilacs can overwhelm you even at 25 yards' distance; the three-week span from when the peony buds emerge, fat and ripe, to the moment when their heavy heads hang defeated, long petals shredded on the ground; a redbud sketched delicate and black against the autumn sky, its shape revealed as the wind strips away the bright yellow leaves.
And yet, for all that I enjoy the present in a garden, the future is never far from my thoughts. For me, gardening is not about plunking down $10 for a plastic flat of annuals that I will toss out three months later. The joy comes from imagining what my garden will look like in a different season, in a year, in five or ten years' time. How tall will this tree grow? What sort of color will this shrub provide in the winter? What will this wall look like when it's all filled in with climbing hydrangea? And I'm at my most optimistic in the garden: after all, you plant most bulbs when the coldest, darkest months of the year still lie ahead, in the faith that, in six months, the ugly, gnarled little object in your hand will flower. Indeed, imagining what a plant or garden will look like is what makes tolerable the bleakness of a northeastern winter.
When I was younger, I had always imagined that this would be the year when I would cast aside the relatively impermanent gardens I had cultivated - on a variety of terraces, in a number of rental apartments, in several different cities - for the garden that would be my life's project. For the first time in my adult life, I would plant trees in my own garden - a pleasure generally denied to those who garden on city roofs. I knew, too, the very first thing I would plant in this garden: a copper beech. I'd be an old lady by the time it reached any sort of height, and that comforted me: this year, I would start the garden that would grow with me through my life. And so, it is somehow fitting that I find myself gardenless, because I've no idea at all what my life will look like in a season, or a year, or a decade. For the first time in my adult life, I am rootless.
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