Growing things and taking care of plants has brought me a lot of joy in my life. It’s also broken my heart on more than one occasion. Gardening is not for the weak. Taking care of something only for it to eventually die can easily trigger an existential crisis. Where did I go wrong? What could I have done differently? Why is life so fragile? Soon you come to realize the excessive cruelty that lies in nature–from disastrous and unbearable weather conditions to ruthless animals destroying the very things you hold dear.
Gardening and even taking care of houseplants can be one of those hobbies that seems really romantic, and it can be, but it can also be tough. At one professional gardening company I worked for, someone had quit their office job to be a full-time estate gardener. Once the reality and the hard labor set in, he snuck off during his lunch break to never be seen again. Growing things at home is much more gratifying than doing it professionally, to me at least, but still, have you ever crawled around on the ground pulling out weeds in the dead of summer? It’s not exactly fun. Satisfying, maybe, but grueling.
Other than working as a gardener professionally, I’ve also worked on farms, and even now that I have a desk job, I still have a healthy amount of house plants and several gardens I tend to around my house. I’ve become very familiar with the dirt underneath my fingernails, and watching everything come up in Spring is one of my favorite moments each year. Growing perennials allows you to see plants coming back from the dead–an entire life cycle, death and rebirth and oftentimes, change. Bulbs will multiply, seeds will spread to other corners of the garden, bushes will grow back bigger and wilder, and everything becomes more harmonious.
This year, 2022, was not so kind to me. A little vole infestation had caused my bulbs to cease to exist, leaving patches of emptiness where my big, leafy canna lilies used to thrive. My beautiful, spiky, purple liatris, that I waited an entire year to flower the first time–gone. My peach-colored rose bush that I planted just at the end of last year–dead. My kale, my radishes, pepper plants, and even my marigolds, the flowers I’d planted to keep the animals away, decimated. My tomatoes survived only to be severely munched on by tomato hornworms and birds and something else unidentifiable.
My garden looks like shit this year. Every time I’m watering the mess, I can only reassure myself that I’ll do better next summer. Things have to be moved around to better fill up space, new bulbs have to be bought, and more soil has to be added to fill up the vole tunnels and the gaps where water escapes and things dry up faster. I have to cut everything back to keep critters from becoming too comfortable in my garden over winter and to ensure that the perennials grow back green and beautiful and budding. I should probably also mulch again for the first time in two years. It’s a lot of work for a hobby, but I like to see life, and I still like to see things grow, even after all the disappointment.
It hasn’t been all bad, though. The cool thing is that the birds, the bees, and the hummingbird moths don’t know that my garden looks like a garbage pile. If it has flowers and seeds and bugs, they still show up. It’s kind of amazing when you have a small ecosystem in your yard–an entire city of pill bugs, ants, spiders, worms, and various feathered, furry, and webbed things. I complain about the animals eating my stuff, but then I also welcome them in. My roommate and I realized that some mice had been playing around in our recycling, so what did we do? We built them a house out of cardboard. I can’t complain too much if I’m not exactly kicking anyone out, can I? We’re all just trying to live, and those mice have probably made friends with the voles and that weird brown rat I see from time to time. What can I say? It’s a community here.
We’re living in some weird times, and while it feels like the world is falling apart around me, I’ve been able to find comfort in growing things. I feel lucky to be around my plants and the creatures that are drawn to them. This is my version of an extreme sport. I’ve been poked and cut and stung and jabbed by all kinds of things, but I still return. Is it risky business? Sure? Am I continually setting myself up for disappointment? Sometimes. Can it be hard work that I don’t feel like doing at the end of a long day? Yeah, absolutely. But do I ever get tired of seeing a seed sprout, a zinnia bloom, or seeing a fern poke through the soil and unfurl itself in the Spring? Never.
All photos taken by Leigh Ferrier
