Before I was a gardener I was the daughter of a gardener.  A gardener who grew up on a timber farm in a remote part of Norway where everything she ate was home-grown. Wild blueberries grew outside the door. The land was familiar to her. Its produce sustained her when World War 2 made everything bleak. Living on that land meant endless toil.

I grew up in quite a different environment. To me, earth was just dirt. Boring, dry dirt.

I’d read and enjoyed The Secret Garden. I’d also read a delightful book, Mandy, by Julie Andrews about an orphan girl who secretly tended a garden on an abandoned property. I read those books over and over. But my thoughts about dirt didn’t change.

My mother, having been transplanted from Norway to Texas, really loved to plant, to mulch, to go to the garden center, to harvest, to weed, to cut blossoms. Finally she could dig in the dirt for pleasure. Sometimes she’d send me to harvest green beans for dinner. Harvesting in Texas meant sweat, bugs, heat. That vegetable garden was situated in the sunniest, hottest part of the backyard. I was such a grumpy harvester.

When I became a mother myself I felt small inward tugs to garden but had no clue where to start. We lived for years in a rented duplex owned by a gruff, old man who really loved gardening and was very skilled at it. Picture Farmer McGreggor, in blue overalls, and add a big belly.  He tended our yard as well as his own home not far away and he took pride in both places.

Red oxblood lilies would come up in early fall like little red soldiers. I’d snip some, bring them inside thinking “What in the world are these magical flowers?” Out in the back pale yellow Lady Banks roses covered the fence. There was a prolific fig tree in the back too. I had no idea what to do with a fig and never got close to it.

Our first spring in that home I saw wild stalky things coming up in the grass out in front.  What is that growing IN the grass?  I thought, “These are so so scruffy, they must be weeds.”  What did I know?  So I pulled them up, doing my part to keep the property nice.

Well, no.

Our landlord, of course, noticed the missing plants, knocked on the door, wanting to know what happened. I had to tell him “Well, I pulled them up, I thought they were weeds.”  OOO, he was mad. I mean, he really let me have it. “Didn’t I know anything? Those were the stems of larkspur flowers and he was very attached to larkspur”. Oh no. I had a college degree but not in botany. or agriculture…or common sense. I felt so dumb and he kept yelling.  There was me, the larkspur murderer, pregnant at the time, which didn’t help. I started to sob right there and could’t stop.  Later that night he called and apologized. I think his wife made him do it. But the gardener in me today understands how hurt and upset he must have been with me. He was protective over the work of his hands.

It took decades for me to eventually try to grow anything.  Friends who succeeded amazed me. How did they do it?  Was it as simple as: get a pot, dig up some dirt, stick in a plant and water? (no, because I had tried that once)

All the rules about sun, shade, part shade, annual, perennial, confused me. There was so much to know.  Plants seemed to have so many names. It took a long time for me to understand the language.

But learn it I did, once we bought our first home. In that home I became an expert weed puller because we had an abundance. I spent hours filling bags with all the weeds. And I kind of enjoyed it.  Every week I listened to a radio program on organic gardening and through it I found my place in the gardening world. After a while, I made an important decision: I would be an organic gardener. I slowly tried things. I planted 2 rose bushes. I wasn’t sure how to fertilize but I knew I must. I began throwing dry molasses, corn gluten meal, lava sand and green sand on everything. How wonderful. How satisfying. We had an arched iron arbor framing our front porch and I learned to sprout morning glory seeds in a little bit of water on my kitchen counter and then stick them in the ground.  They grew and covered that arbor with blooms.  Who knew that sometimes gardening could be so easy?

Then one year we had a professional landscaper come and re-do that front yard. Oh my goodness. When the truck came, filled with all our new plants…I felt like a little girl on Christmas morning. The landscaper ripped out most of our old plants and brought in boulders, interesting shrubs, a Japanese Maple, flagstones, hydrangeas, stone lined beds, knock-out roses, hostas and annuals.  I was in heaven, let me tell you. Nothing, horticulturally, had been as exciting than to take care of that front yard.  I learned so much. My favorite gardening day came every fall when I shopped for and planted pansies. Many years I planted 100 pansies out there.  I’d go out in the evening and make the rounds, checking on everything, watering, dead-heading, pulling, noting what was needed.  I loved it. What a place for soul restoration.

Working in the garden is one of the best therapies, don’t you agree? Digging in the dirt, finding life all over.

Dirt isn’t boring at all! Dirt is the most important part of a garden. Life and nourishment happens there. Earthworms, beneficial microbes all work together to make the dirt happy – which makes the plants happy – which makes me happy.

Today I planted. I dug holes in the dirt, found a fat earthworm (happiness). I planted 3 pink periwinkle, 2 purple angelonia, 5 pink and red begonias and one dark pink crown of thorns. We’ve had lots of rain lately and the ground smells moist and musty.  After today I’m pretty much finished with all my summer planting.  Now, every day, I get to watch over and celebrate the excitement of my garden, surely one of the purest pleasures one can experience.

I will have to write more about gardening. There’s just so much adventure in the dirt.

I realize I’ve become just like my mother and my old landlord:  a delirious gardening addict, protective of and dedicated to the beautiful bounty.

the flowers above:

#1 –  Crown of Thorns. I love this plant. It’s actually a succulent with thick, tear-shaped leaves, on stems with long thorns.This plant thrives in hot temperatures. I’ve never had one last through the cold. This winter I might try to bring it inside and see if I can keep it going.

#2 – Calibrochoa “Double Blue”, which I always thought looked like little petunias.  This one seems to be happy in a hanging basket.  I deadhead old blooms though it might be self-cleaning. I hope it lasts through the heat that’s coming.

#3 – Calibrochoa again.  This has become one of my favorite plants because I think it’s so pretty and it lasted through our hot summer last year and our winter and came back for me this spring, strong and just as hardy as before. This one never requires dead-heading.

#4 – Thunbergia, nickname: “Black-Eyed Susan vine” I’ve been a big fan of this summer vine since I first saw it 3 years ago.  I noticed online that it comes in other colors but I like the orange with the deep dark center, the only color my garden center ever has.