My Sanctuary
I haven’t always been a gardener. For the first thirty-five years of my life, I killed everything in my path. Even foolproof plants like aloe and mother-in-law’s tongue didn’t stand a chance with me around. Flowers were nice, but what was the point?
So that’s why, when my friend gave me a ginormous pile of irises and said “Here. Plant these.” I asked, “Are you nuts?! Are you intentionally trying to kill them?! Why don’t you save them from a slow, painful death, and give them to somebody else.”
But (thank God!), she wouldn’t take no for an answer. And, holy shit, they lived! Thrived, even. And, an obsession was born. After that, I wanted them ALL, but my favorites were the perennials. One, they were free (I couldn’t believe it when my friends told me they had so many, they had to get rid of them!), and two, they came back every year. (And did I mention, free?)
When I couldn’t be outside digging or moving or planting or smelling (!) flowers, I was dreamily looking through seed catalogs, gardening books, landscaping magazines…anything I could get my hands on so I could plan my next bed (or, if we are being completely honest, so I could redesign the entire yard to, you know, add “contrasting textures, shapes and colors”).
And if I had to go anywhere, my eyes were always peeled for blooms, garden beds, trellises. Man, I wanted a pergola (hell, until I discovered gardening, or should I say gardening discovered me, I didn’t even know what a pergola was), and a gazebo. Definitely a gazebo.
And then, the bomb dropped (too early to think of a good gardening analogy). My landlord told us we had to move! It seems his 30 something-year-old son got arrested for drunk driving, and they could think of no better punishment than to kick him out of their house…into ours!
What?! But what about my yard?! (Note: Never become attached to a yard while renting.) I was stunned! I was still a full-time student, Kevin was working, but not making a lot, and we were homeless. And yardless! But Kev hugged me, and told me that whatever happened, it was going to be for the better. I don’t think I believed him, but I knew, as long as we’d been together, everything had always worked out okay.
But he hugged me, and told me that whatever happened, it was going to be for the better.
So,we looked around (and around), and were even pre-approved for a small mortgage in the event we could actually find a habitable house in that ridiculously low price range. Some of the ones we looked at were just plain scary. But then one day, we needed a break, so we took a cruise in the country…and suddenly Kev slammed on the brakes! “I got it!”
Apparently, it’s against the law to have two houses on one property in our county, and there was a new house going up on a lot where an old one already stood. “We could move that house!,” he said, and I’m sure I looked at him like he was from outer space…just like his dad did later that evening when he asked if he could buy a small piece of (unusable) farm land from him. But, the homeowners agreed to sell it to us (for $1500! They were going to have to tear it down, anyway), and after Kevin did the math involved in moving a house, building a foundation, digging a well and septic, having power poles moved during the move, getting power to the house, etc., his dad took the crazy plan seriously and gave us a little more than three acres!
I started working on the yard long before the house ever made it here. I really wanted to dig up all the plants I had so lovingly planted at the rental, but decided it was kind of tacky, so I started over. Kind of. Every day I’d discover something already there. A creek, honeysuckle, wild blackberry, elderberry, wild asparagus, flowering crab apple trees. (Not to mention poison ivy and poison hemlock, but I quickly became pretty good at finding those before they found me). And, thankfully, the friends who had shared perennials before, happily dug up more for my new landscape. I was going to be living in a gardener’s paradise!
So, I cleared and I trimmed and I dug and I mowed and I planted the rest of that gardening season away, along with helping on the foundation, but it wasn’t until that December, just before Christmas, that the house finally made it home (I found out later, this was the third time it had been moved). It was slow going, and kind of scary when we almost slid it into a telephone pole, but we did it!
Later that winter , when we were finally settled in, besides scouring my now-huge gardening book collection, I’d walk from window to window imagining the views I was going to create. I put up bird feeders and bird houses everywhere so I could see them from inside.
Since then, Kev’s dad has given us about five more acres, and many, many wonderful things have happened here. Our wedding, my daughter’s 8th grade and high school graduation parties, our fortieth and fiftieth birthday bashes, numerous bonfires, and even a few music festivals…so many beautiful memories.
I am so blessed to be a caretaker of this property. It might sound crazy, but I think it was meant to be. It gives me everything I need…nature, beauty, space, exercise, a creative outlet. It’s my therapy, and when I’m feeling down, or stressed, or need to be closer to God, all I have to do is open my door and walk through, and I immediately feel better.
