Gardening

A garden can be created in a 12-inch pot.

The point of gardening is gardening. It is practice. Design a space for the garden. Plant seeds or seedlings. Tend them. Meditate upon them. Watch them flourish. Watch them mature. Watch them die back in Winter.

The garden is a simple and accessible lesson about life on Earth. The good gardener holds the precious understanding of happy labor, beauty, ecology and the transitory nature of all life.

Beauty

The nature of beauty is subjective and random. One day, something may attract, and, on another day, the same thing may repulse. Novelty enhances superficial beauty. Experience enhances appreciation of deeper beauty. I spent a part of today working in my garden. There I learned some things about beauty, time and labor. Try it.

Life

I am a gardener of very modest talents, though many of my ancestors were serfs and farmers. My garden is 100 square feet, a small patch behind a picket fence. Very New England. In that tiny patch, life is teeming. There are probably close to 100 different species of plants, many planted by me, but most native to the ground here. I am not a compulsive weeder. I find great joy in watching strange green things rise from the earth. Sometimes they are winners; sometimes they are a pain in the ass, like the morning glory vines which try to choke just about anything they can get their tendrils wrapped around. There are about 10 different kinds of bees who pass through regularly. Fat ones, wasps, little ones, all on urgent missions of their own. I saw a particularly cute tiny green grasshopper today next to the boxwood. The grasshopper really showed up all those big black ants who insist on visiting me indoors. Last year I even had a beautiful garter snake, who slept in the morning sun by the garden gate for a week in May. The snails are fun to watch, or rather observe, from day to day, since they are really too slow to watch. There is so much life in my garden that I often lose scores of minutes just staring at it. The neighbors, I am sure, think me insane, or simple or just a garden nerd, I suppose. It never occurs to me what they think when I am absorbed in all that buzzing and growing life out there. And, if I do notice a neighbor passing by, I notice they are most often smiling as they look at my flowers. To be happily absorbed with life, as it simply is, is a great healing blessing. Part of my daily practice has been my garden and its joys.

Weeds

I did some weeding in my garden today. I was fascinated to find that a certain grass has developed an affinity for my impatiens plants. The grass weaves itself between the leaves of the flowering plant. The grass roots were sucking all the moisture from the roots of the impatiens. Exploitive vegetation. All beings must face scarcity and competition on this planet in some form. Learning not to exploit is a major evolutionary leap in a lifetime.

Lily

The lilies are blooming in my front garden. Pink, cream, orange, burgundy red. Their beauty is so casual, so nonchalant. Their scent is alluring. We all come from the earth, like the lilies. It is part of my practice to take a lesson from their graceful short lives.

Trellis

I am building a small trellis for my patio. Actually, I am building it for red bean vine and morning glory vine, which are impatiently growing by the inch in pots. So, though I was inspired by the practical advantages of the plants' beauty and a privacy barrier between my property and the one next door, I am really working for the plants. They will be able to fulfill their natural urges to climb, produce seeds and propagate their species. Birds and bees will also be well served. (I am hoping for a hummingbird.) What a wonderful illustration of ecology in the human-dominated urban world.

Pruning

I like to prune plants in my garden. In fact, in order to maintain a natural look, I must restrain myself from pruning too precisely and too often. I am not aiming for topiary bunny rabbits. I will leave that to Ms. Stewart. I find pruning satisfying, because I often feel the plants are better for my attention. I feel the act of pruning, during which I caress stems and leaves and dead flowers, is a time of connection with the living beings in my garden, whose lives are so different from mine. I once conversed with a spirit about plants through a medium. Many years ago. The spirit spoke of having lived in one incarnation as a tree for over two hundred years in a forest where he never saw a human being. I have always remembered that conversation and the awe it inspired in me. I know gardeners who are shy of pruning. In my experience, they have been people who are themselves very afraid of loss. I have lost enough to see loss as a part of the cycles of life, along with gain and death. So, pruning is part of my meditative practice, and I am grateful for this chance to be happy in a garden where I belong.

Flowers

My new bulb garden is in bloom. I had forgotten how exciting a bulb garden can be. Suspense and wonder, as things come up. The pictures in the catalogue have faded in memory. The planting map is lost in the file cabinet. Every morning I look forward to stepping out onto my stoop, two feet above the garden. I peer through the lattice of the small front porch. Anything new? These days the answer is always "yes". I open the picket fence's gate and step onto the paving stones I laid in late Summer. Hyacinths (grape and miniature), tulips, Grecian wild flowers, daffodils, crocus. I confess to having planted the bulbs a bit too neatly. My pattern is all too obvious, but I am very happy with it. My Chinese-American neighbors are tending their jasmine vines and peach tree with heavy doses of lethal insecticide. My neighbor across the lane sits on his stoop to admire the new leaves sprouting on his ornamental dwarf apple. Spring is bringing us out and bringing us together. And the flowers, always shining and always dying at the same time, bring us a common joy.

Snake

Yesterday morning, a garter snake lounged in a loose bundle under a leaf of a lily plant in my garden. The snake had chosen the brightest corner of the small garden plot. It stayed there all morning, despite my tidying up around it. I am about as uncomfortable with snakes as the next human, but I felt honored by this snake's choice of my newly blooming flower bed. And I sincerely hope it stays nearby all season. There are many insects to be eaten. I realize my practice has helped me to appreciate life on small scale. That appreciation is its own reward and has its own special kind of healing power.

Crocus

A yellow crocus blossom opened in my garden today. It was very small and quite timid, since the morning was brisk and gray. As my life ripens to its conclusion, I find that these small signs of the planet's life affect me more profoundly each season. In these small plants, I see my own lifespan in accelerated miniature. The sheer brevity of life is so obvious. Its beauty is so fleeting. Its end so unavoidable and final. I am looking forward to watching my garden. It will continue to teach me many things. It is part of my practice to learn from every experience of my being in every moment of mindfulness.

Squirrels

A squirrel ate one of my prized Spring bulbs yesterday. I was quite put out. In my Buddhist mind, I know I did not really possess the bulb or the soil it is in. The bulb had a life of its own. The soil was there before I was born and will be there after I am dead. The squirrel lives in a natural universe, where ownership outside his own little nest of leaves is meaningless. Food is scarce or plentiful. When it's scarce, he may have to eat sprouting tulip bulbs. No biggie. But, in my materialistic mind, the mind overtaken by desire and fear of loss, I dream of squirrel burgers.