Gardening Is Like Writing

I worked a little and weeded a lot. 

Weeds would hungrily take over our gardens here, crowding out the peony, choking the dahlias, even infiltrating the hydrangeas, if we don’t get tough.

There’s something rewarding about pruning roses and dead-heading pansies. The more you edit, the better the fresher, tighter blooms look. It’s not unlike trimming an essay or article and cutting the dead ends, the words that trail off and go nowhere, or the ones that withered on the vine. What remains is full of promise and reaching toward the sun. The flowers/words are no longer surrounded by dry old growth or things that feed and multiply anywhere, no tending required.

Even with weeding a lot, there is much more to go--in the side gardens and backyard. It is hard to keep up and requires slipping out of my Tory Burch sandals with heels and into my sneakers. My fingernails get dirty, because I’m too lazy--or eager--to look for the mismatched cotton garden gloves.

I prefer container gardening--no room for weeds to multiply. But we have both grounds and planters.

As I pull and loosen the tangles, shaking off the dirt, I think often of that famous verse from the poem by Dorothy Frances Gurney:

One is nearer God’s heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth.

I loved watching a slender little bird enter the birdhouse out front. I hope his young family likes the delphiniums I planted nearby.

Good night to you.