The lost garden
I once had a garden. This is the queen of my garden, the only photo I have left, sadly enough. I’ve lost the name of it too. I can still remember the lovely smell from it.
When we moved there I was absolutely thrilled, this was a totally fresh garden, because the house were just built. I had waited for a long time to have a garden. My already great interest for gardening bloomed out completely.
Oh, how I planned the garden carefully. I read tons of garden books and magazines. I wrote down facts about plants I were interested in, which could fit in to MY garden. I had to think about the frost we get over here too and choose plants that could survive.
I really fronted it as a professional scientist ;-). I knew everything, well, not really everything, but I sure hunted up all information I could. I was very effective. I had a lot of different, interesting plants. Sorry I can’t name them here, I can’t translate them and I don’t remember all the names either.
On top of that: the house were located as a neighbour to the plant school - could you imagine something more idyllic? I could actually stand on the second floor in our house and look down at the plant schools all plants, so I had first knowledge over all the new plants they brought in for sale.
Need I say that I was a very regular customer of theirs? That they shouted good morning or hello to me all over the neighbourhood every day they spotted me in my garden? Or that the owner always were joking with me? Or that I sometimes had special deliverys over the fence and could pay afterwards?
There were other features that came with the closeness to the plant school, such as a lot of beautiful butterflies and never have to worry about fertilizing the plants, because there were always the opposite sex of the plants on the other side of the fence. There were also a bee keeping in the fields nearby. Very practical, except one day when the bees did swarm in a tree nearby and I had to take cover indoors….
My garden were growing, but there were several mishaps of course, it was after all my first and only garden. I learned that it’s a lot of things to think about when gardening AND that sometimes the nature has it’s part in it too. There are illnesses, different soil, different ways to handle plants, the early spring sun can be a threat - a lot of things that can destroy a plant.
Even a male cat who had decided that this was his private territory and it’s best to mark that out very carefully by spraying all plants and the garden furniture too and to be even more sure, even the outdoor grill…. Not even the high and dense hedge we planted seemed to stop him. OK, I confess, I did spray back on him a couple of times - with water. I love cats so I didn’t want to hurt him, but that actually helped a little.
Anyway, I had a lot of fun working in the garden. I really find garden work relaxing - if you don’t do too much on the same day, which very often just happened. It’s difficult to stop when you’re having fun isn’t it?
We even installed a very small pond with a fountain. That was fun to watch, because the birds actually were standing in a line to take their morning bath in there. The pond were so small so they didn’t want to bath at the same time. It just looked so funny. Especially one of the Black Birds were always taking time with his bath, so the other birds got impatient and a bit quarrel could occur. But I was glad to have them there, because they entertained me with such beautiful concerts in the mornings and evenings. They are my favorite birds.
Other visitor to the pond - or maybe it was the rocks around it, were spiders, lots of them. If you went near the pond early in the spring, the whole lawn suddenly moved! Hundreds of small spider kids trying not to get mashed! And we did have a frog that came and visited. I love frogs. Especially if they turns out to be a prince. No, I didn’t kiss him ;-)
Well, this is not a tale, so we didn’t live happily ever after, my garden and I….
After 4 years of hard work with it and it was beginning to look the way I wanted it, I damaged my back severe when lifting a computer at work. I knew I shouldn’t have done that, but I’m stubborn “this girl can manage herself”. So I had to pay for it. It’s probably gone chronic, I’m not well even after this 5 years that have passed.
No more garden work, not even if sitting down, it was the garden death sentence. Somehow it even was the death sentence for me and my ex-man, which I’m thankful for today, because I would never have met Mr Lifecruiser otherwise!
I don’t dare to challenge my back with garden work, I don’t want it to become worse again. It was a living hell for about 1 year and after that it’s only driving me crazy, so now you know why I’m crazy ;-).
So that’s how I lost my lifes garden…
Re-tired gardeners whisper: So that’s why I’ve joined the Green Thumb Sunday. That’s a kind of garden work that I can do. I’m the virtual gardener in the blogosphere, yeeeah :-)
