On “An Old Lady Hobbling About Blissfully Doing The Work Of The Garden…”

I bring this quote back every year here. Elizabeth Lawrence was considered the garden maven of the south and she wrote many books, all of which I adored, although my favorite was and still is Gardening for Love: The Market Bulletins, a book I first read more than 30 years ago, and which, when I reread it to this day, creates such a sense of longing and nostalgia I have had tears in my eyes reading it because, as far as I know, that world doesn’t exist anymore. It was a time when rural farm women and home gardeners sold, very cheaply, or traded plants and seeds through the states farm bulletins and women made lifelong friends with longstanding correspondences about their gardens, and they got to know one another, their lives, while selling things from their gardens to either help support their families or attain new plants for their gardens. I would so love to be a part of such a thing today.

And Miss Lawrence wrote in another of my favorite of her books, “A Southern Garden,” one of the most important pieces of garden advice I have ever received in over 40 years of gardening. She wrote, “I do not believe in pampering plants. If they are miffy, let them go.” The whole point of this quote, as she continued on, was about the fact that so many gardeners try mightily (and often spend a lot of money doing so) to grow things in their gardens that are just never going to go. They don’t fit their garden zone, climate, locale, and yet people want them so badly year after year they will keep on trying to no avail and often much heartache. I have done that many years ago, but I have learned. She says that there are so very many plants, beautiful plants, that will do well in our garden zone that we should let go of the “miffy” plants that, if they come up at all will be small and straggly and die out quickly. And still people are determined. When I read that phrase, “If they are miffy, let them go,” the thing I was most struck by is that it is not only true of gardening but about life. What are you holding onto in your life that was just never going to go but you don’t let go, won’t give up, perhaps suffer terribly over it, and all to no avail. Imagine all the space that would open up for other wonderful things if you just let that person/place/thing go? I now follow that sage advice in my garden, and in my life, and yet…

The one thing I am deeply fascinated by and have studied for decades, even to the point of actually being able to grow some things that really weren’t supposed to grow in whatever gardening zone I was then living in, is microclimates. Now you can’t stray too far from your gardening zone but give or take, a little on each side, if you study your piece of property carefully, something that will not, say, take the dead on heat of the south but in which if you have a shaded woodsy area might just yield plants that really shouldn’t go but do, at least for a little while, because while most of your property is true to your zone an area that is shaded and a bit cooler might just allow it. Of course the one thing that is my dream flower, and that I haven’t a chance of ever being able to grow here in Zone 8a in Wilmington, NC, is the plant I dream about. The absolutely breathtaking Himalayan Blue Poppy… sigh…

I still do buy the seeds every now and again wondering if maybe, just maybe, if I planted it just right, late fall or early winter, if I might get a few? That is the one bit of foolishness I will allow myself in the garden. I grow all kinds of poppies successfully but this, like most true blue flowers (And why is that?) prefer cool climates. I even wondered — don’t laugh, I know it’s ridiculous — if I could trick them into growing inside on a windowsill. You see it’s nearly summer here so the air conditioning is on. I wonder. I just wonder. But in the main I sensibly stick to things that flower beautifully in my southern garden. And oh my, things are starting to bloom everywhere. Last night I took a stroll around the garden after going out for the mail. This is one little corner on the far side of the garden…

This is two sides of the same area. It goes around a corner and to the gate going into the backyard. The front facing the street has Zelda, the Zebra in it, and the back, secret part of the garden is where Bessie the cow lives. Just look at the red echinacea blooming beside her! And the lilies are opening up everywhere. I adore lilies and every year, which is about now, when you can buy lily bulbs 70-80% off with free shipping I buy a number of bulbs to add to the garden. I have always loved oriental lilies but last year I began a love affair with tiger lilies in several colors. You will see them very soon because that’s what the colorful buds about to open by the birdbath are and I planted them all the way around the big old pine tree. And all kinds of lilies are sprouting up all throughout the garden.

As I strolled slowly around the garden, with my cane, being very mindful of every step so as not to fall as I am at risk of doing (which is why I have to wear this lovely (!!!) pendant to call for help if I do). 2 years ago I fell and laid in the dirt in the garden for over half an hour before help arrived. That’s when I could no longer put it off — the embarrassing “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” pendant. When I was young I laughed at that commercial, not because the poor soul had fallen down but the commercial was just so poorly made it made you laugh. Guess who’s not laughing anymore? But at 67 with feet that just don’t work in a sensible way, little tricksters, gardening has to be done much more slowly, and with a little help. Without my dear Eleanor who helps me once a month to do some of the chores I can no longer get to, I’d be lost. But still I can putter, moving slowly, planting seeds and bulbs, watering, and dreaming. Last night as I was making notes of all there is to do just now I was also imagining ways I could do things, very carefully, using my cane, to get a little more done without risking breaking my neck or falling flat in the middle of the tiger lilies. That just wouldn’t do.

Elizabeth Lawrence’s dictum, “Never let yourself be deceived about the work,” is something to take seriously. I have made very large gardens in my life which I can no longer do, and yet the cottage garden that goes all the way around the front and sides of my cottage is pretty sizable for an old gal like me, and there are several wildflower areas in my back yard, my truly secret garden, all growing from seed, that need care too, and the pots on the deck bring me great joy and must be tended, as everything does. And the thing is it can be very hard for me at times, but it is exactly what I need or I wouldn’t be moving this old body of mine at all. So I go slow, and my, what gifts there are in going so slowly. I think, after all of the gardens I have created in my life, this one is my favorite. I see it, I really see it, in ways I think I never did my earlier gardens which were beautiful and which I dearly loved because I do have to go so slow. And so I hobble around, I use my cane, I bend over carefully to do a little weeding or deadheading, and then I just stand there and breathe it all in. And it is a glory, an absolute glory.

I have long said that I didn’t know how anyone could live without an animal companion. I really don’t understand people who don’t have a dog or cat to cuddle, snuggle, and be always at your side, especially if you live alone. I realize now that I also don’t know how anyone could live without being surrounded by living, growing things. I know everybody can’t have a garden, but even in an apartment, if you’re lucky enough to have a little patio or balcony, or even indoor plants, you can have something, and the tending of living, growing things helps keep us in touch with the cycles of life, and the miracles that exist. These are the things that matter to me as I have grown older — my animal companions and my garden are what I get up for each morning. They need me and I need them. They support everything else that I do. So onward I go, blissfully hobbling about, planting things and doing the garden chores, more slowly, but still, slow is good for an old lady, in more ways than one.