A Buried Gardener

I didn’t know a gardener lay dormant inside of me until I moved to the mountain town of Asheville, North Carolina. During previous years I was busy with a demanding career across various cities: mostly New York, mostly single, definitely single-minded.

I’d always loved plants, especially herbs. Every year I strived to keep a scraggly rosemary or basil plant alive on my smog and siren-filled windowsill.

Very little light got in my door; and growth needs light.

Then my husband and I relocated with our young daughter, purchasing the first home of our lives. Nature-starved from city life, we agreed the backyard was our top priority. We hired a landscape designer; I distinctly remember her pointed question, “How much time will you spend gardening?” Probably none, I replied.

I had no inkling what a rich vein of gold lay nestled in our dense clay earth. 

I noticed, surprised, that I was researching plants online a lot, studying gardening articles, hoarding horticultural videos late at night while my family was asleep. I never had a scientific bent, yet here I was obsessed with soil chemistry and light levels.

I felt drawn toward nurseries with magnetic insistence: communing with plants, absorbing their particularities. Mostly, I was plunging my bare hands into the earth like a traveler dying of thirst.

What in the world was happening to me?

For the first time in my life I was happy to spend hours alone, gardening. Absorbed in the buzzing life all around me, I could suddenly see in color. And I want to thank these old mountains for their gift of sight.

Working with plants tapped into something I needed; creativity without consequence, an intensity of innovation in nature that challenged me, a feeling of awe at what sprang from even my lightest touch.

Gardening is a soulful act; it’s been sweetly called the slowest of the performing arts. If you are lucky enough that it beckons to you, answer it.