Princess Pumpkin and A year of Gardening

pooja sagar
Nov 2 · 8 min read

“Mommy, I want Pumpkin to sleep next to me”.

We are talking about a 2-kilo pumpkin-colored pumpkin. We bought him to make a Jack-O-Lantern. I was, as usual, unsure of the size and number and ended up picking a couple of pumpkins instead of one. Unni chose the bigger one to carve, leaving this baby with Leela.

Leela is five and a few months old now. She identifies herself as a girl, in fact, makes a strong member of the girl team, which includes her, me and our female cat Jelly. Daddy is excluded, often rejected except when she wants him for tasks that mommy would refuse to do. Still groggy from sleep, she would try to find me to cuddle up, completely ignoring Unni in the morning, even if he’s got his arms out to hug her My brothers’ joke about how I was neither a girl nor a mommy’s girl and how to everyone’s surprise, Leela grew up with an intense affection towards me. And she’s shameless about it.

My little chook compensates for my selective coldness towards this whole mothering persona by being mindful. She would come back from school with little surprises for me that she would exclaim, “will make you so happy”. Sunflower seeds ( they were the seeds from the Gulmohar tree in their schoolyard), smooth rocks, sand and soil, feathers, dandelions, foliage, etc along with numerous drawings in which she claims that she loves me. Come to think about it, all her little gifts to me, which with immaculate consideration, involves foraging from nature. Recently, she got me a handful of moth caterpillars which I had to go and return to where it belonged.

Leela notices that I am a gardener. She sees me watching Gardener’s World on Sundays, or consume copious amounts of Monty Don, read the Gardener’s Year or Beatrice Potter. I potter around in my 6*4 balcony, surveying my pots and plants, sighing for a larger piece of land where I could dig up the earth and grow things. For what I have, I’m a pretty good gardener. As Monty often says, a small garden should not stop you from enjoying the pleasures of gardening. The activity is cerebral as much as it is physical that I offered a course this year on the politics of gardens, which I called Parterre. I read this piece aloud to my class one day.

While one is in the prime of youth one thinks that a flower is what one carries in a buttonhole, or presents to a girl; one somehow does not rightly understand that a flower is something which hibernates, which is dug round and manured, watered and transplanted, divided and trimmed, tied up, freed from weeds, and cleared of seeds, dead leaves, aphis, mildew; instead of digging the garden one runs after girls, satisfies one’s ambition, eats the fruit of life which one has not produced oneself, and on the whole, behaves destructively. A certain maturity, or let us say paternity, is necessary for a man to become an amateur gardener. Besides, you must have your own garden. Usually you have it laid out by an expert, and you think that you will go and look at it when the days’s work is over, and enjoy the flowers, and listen to the chirping of the birds. One day you may plant one little plant, one little flower with your own hand; I planted a house-leek. Perhaps a bit of soil will get into your body through the quick, or in some other way, and cause blood poisoning or inflammation. One claw and the whole bird is caught. Another time you may catch it from your neighbour’s garden, and you say: “By Jove! Why shouldn’t it grow in mine as well? I’m blessed if I can’t do better than that.” From such beginnings the gardener yields more and more to this newly awakened passion, which is nourished by repeated success and spurred on by each new failure; the passion of the collector bursts out in him, driving his to raise everything according to the alphabet from Acaena to Zauschneria; then a craze for specialization breaks out in him, which makes of a hitherto normal being a rose- dahlia- or in some other sort of exalted maniac. Other’s fall victims to an artisitic passion, and continually alter and rearrage their beds, devise colour schemes, move shrubs, and rearrange their beds and change whatever stands or grows, urged on by a creative discontent. Let no one think that real gardening is a bucolic and meditative occupation. It is an insatiable passion, like everything else to which a man gives his heart.

How a Man Becomes a Gardener. Karel Capek ( pronounced Chop uk)

Let’s not ignore the sexism in ‘Man’ becoming a gardener, for he too believed that ‘man’ stood for man, woman, and all others; a woman can do pretty well too. I was a collector even before reading Capek. For a long time, I was searching for the elusive Hosta with soft leathery leaves that thrive in bogs. Nowhere, not in nurseries, local or online could I find the one I was looking for. Eventually, I found one in the oddest of the places. Back in Kerala, in my very own neighborhood, there is a lone house that cries for some care. I am the only person who is incredibly happy to see this house remain just the way it is, for over 30 years. There, I spotted glorious cup-shaped foliage, a horde of hostas, gigantic, thriving in the swamp that makes up for the garden at present. I waded into the dirt. I came back with my precious, thick veined rippled dark blue-green Komodo Dragon.

Komodo Dragon
Bringing home the bougainvilleas

Leela and Unni are part of my schemes. Once, we rescued two mature bougainvillea trees that were left on the pavement. Hot. Spring colors. We’ve gathered water plants. Admittedly, she’s often bored with my frequent garden center stops. Yet, she’s kind enough to bring me a cutting that our community gardener would discard.

I remember how my mother used to locate cowpat on her way back from work. We would go with a chatti(pot) and mammatty(hoe) to collect them. Even if other things were neglected around the house, my mother always kept a lush garden. She comes from Kottayam, the land of estates, where a large number of houses kept ornamental gardens and the YMCA gave out prizes to the best gardens each year. If you put your mind to it, you could win the best orchid or a
rose. If you ever want to see a Bottle Brush or a fig tree with intricate branches, exquisitely grafted Adeniums or flaming red Rhododendrons, look no further, every village in Kottayam will have it. Mother was the best collector in town. She gathered moss, maidenhair fern and spotted colocasia when they were still regarded as useless undergrowth. Now, they have disappeared.

The Wardian Case. Image courtesy: An Analysis of the British Ferns and their Allies. WELLCOME IMAGES, LONDON/ CC BY 4.0. From How the Victorian Fern Craze Led to Adventure, Romance and Crime, Atlas Obscura.

The Victorians came down with “fern fever” in the 19th century. Special glass cases called the Wardian cases were designed by Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward to transport and keep them alive from across the world. The story of the origins of fern fever is legendary. Botanist George Loddiges needed to hype ferns to bring visitors to his garden. Our deepest and often unaccomplished desires are sexual. What better rumor could bring him more visitors than the one about ferns improving one’s virility and intelligence by its mere presence. His neighbor, Edward Newman, another botanist, supported Loddiges’ claims in the book that he published- A History of British Ferns. The aristocracy encouraged the poor and the mentally ill to take up the hobby of cultivating ferns while themselves finding newer opportunities to grow this plant that was otherwise associated with magic and the more primeval aspects of nature. What started as a collection soon became a craze. Fern motifs were found on most household items during the Victorian period. Fern hunting became a respectable vocation, there were fern crimes involving the theft of ferns or the Wardian cases which by then became insanely expensive. Moreover, botany became an accepted adventure for young women who set out to discover new species.

I began to garden with the hope that there will be joy in watching something grow. Indeed, there is. A garden is a piece that documents change. There is year-round interest in a plant that grows- the tender leaves, the flowers, the bud, occasional diseases that you have to treat with care. It doesn’t demand anything but your time. You willingly devote to it. You discover that in your hands something can grow, perhaps thrive. You embrace the slowness when the world spins around you. It demands no felt or fairy dust. When you are as old as me, you begin to count your pickings. You determine your worth in a flower or a fallen leaf.

And you say, “you must come to see my garden. Come along, I’ll show you my peperomia, and my hydrangea that just bloomed. The pennyworts have taken over the trough, it’s a sight to see.”

After 5 years of living in this apartment, a tiny sparrow is now a frequent visitor. She comes every day around noon to pick grass for her nest. It makes me happy.

Leela made a bed for her pumpkin, and gently swaddled him in a soft muslin shawl. She went to sleep with her arms around the pumpkin.

I love that she is mad about a pumpkin. I adore that she observes life and does not limit her vision to the human world. She’s a pumpkin princess today, maybe a cowpat collector tomorrow. Either way, she will grow up to show empathy. I hope she makes the world better because of that.

PS- from Leela,

i love pmkn pie

i love jacko lantrn

pooja sagar

Written by

Personal Essayist and Educator. Currently accepting all recommendations to get rid of slime and fairy dust from all her personal belongings.