There’s no other way to describe yesterday than glorious. It was sunny and in the seventies, and there was that unmistakable feeling in the air. It’s Spring. I had the day off, and went to my garden in the Fenway to survey the scene. I got the garden late in the season last year, and still have a lot to do as far as mapping it out and hardscaping it, but it’s coming along.

There are few things over the past three or four years that have given me as much pure, giddy pleasure as gardening. I came to it during my dad’s illness, when I took over his garden. And making order out of the chaos in our lives at that time was a kind of affirmation of life in the face of death. The joy that it brought the both of us in his last months has stuck with me.

There are some very simple but profound reminders about the cycles of life that you get from gardening. We know these things instinctively, of course, but we need reminding. And during the course of an always too short season, you get to experience all the emotions of a full and well-lived life. The wonder of new life, the excitement of nursing it along to maturity, the satisfaction of its coming to fruition (literally), the pride and pleasure of sharing it with others, and the sweet melancholy of its passing.

In the words of one gardener: “In gardens… the main business is sex and death.” As in life, more or less.

But besides all that, there’s the mere challenge of putting it together and pulling it off, of course. Right now it looks pretty daunting, but I feel up to the challenge.

Categories: gardening philosophy