"In search of my mother's garden, I found my own...." -Alice Walker
The first garden I ever planted was at the MQ at CFB Petawawa, in 1988. I ripped up grass, plopped some dirt on top of the worms , shoved in as many annuals as I could muster and hoped it would grow. It managed okay, till I had to weed it. And that hot summer sun fried everything....
We moved a lot. In Fredericton, N.B. 1994, I decided the front yard needed an overhaul. So, once again, I ripped up grass, plopped on some dirt, Got a whole bunch of blooms and stuck them in. Lasted okay, till I had to weed it.........
We moved a few more times, till we came to St. Albert, AB, 1996, by then I was a little more jaded. I still dug up the grass, plopped on the dirt, stuck in some plants; waited to see what would happen. Well, it snowed, May long weekend. Killed most of the annuals......But at least I didn't have to weed it.....
By the time we reached White Rock, B.C.in 2000, I was into my rock phase. paving stones, gravel, a few established beds. Some grass to dig up, existing beds made wider. By then I had learned to get truckloads of soil. Dig. Dig. Still some weeds. But more gravel. More paving stones.
Cranesbill
And then we were here. 2006 In Campbell River, B.C. The garden was tidier. No paving stones. No gravel. Lots and lots of dirt. I liked that. But too organized. So I started ripping out things. I planted one native Cranesbill in a pot. By the benches. Now by 2019, the garden has taken on a new look.
That one pot of Native Cranesbill has wonderfully spread all over. Where ever I find it, I move it to another bed, another spot to be prolific.I've taken out bushes, added clematis, roses and roses and more roses....
Sweet peas I grow in as many places as possible. I no longer dig out clods of grass, I added hanging baskets, troughs stuffed with sweet pea seeds, and the hill of dirt in the far corner, fairly marches with them.
Years ago, when I was growing up, I remember my mother digging up clods of grass.....
All around the house, as far as she could go. She loved to wear bright caftans, her hair piled in a beehive on top of her head, curved glasses perched on her nose. She always dressed like that to dig up grass. And rubber boots to wear.
I can still see her in that bright orange caftan, wafting around her feet as she stood on a spade and dug up the grass.
The grass would give a satisfying PLOP as it fell back.
My job was to take the grass clods and throw them into the forest behind us. I liked that part. I felt like I was tossing a caber.
She'd take a couple of bags of soil and spread it along the furrow she'd created at the side of the house, and beside the old porch.
Then we'd plant sweet peas in the rows of dirt. Nasturtums by the porch. Every year we planted them.
Some years she had to re-dig the rows of dirt, after winter, and she'd be there in her caftan, and her shovel, digging away. Squishing in stakes and string for the sweet peas to grow up on.Every year, we'd plant sweet peas and naturtums. My mother would plant nasturtums in the mud by the porch, and the garter snakes loved to hide in their blooms.
And those sweet peas would grow up and up those stakes, higher and brighter than the year before. And she would stand there, in her caftan and marvel at it all. Marvel at the fact that her garden required no weeding......But next year, she mused, she'd have to dig out more grass and make the furrows wider to plant more seeds.......there was always next year.
The year that she was gone, when I went to the house, and saw she had started to dig out the troughs at one time. But never finished. The shovel, covered with dried mud, was in the basement. So having time on my hands,I finished off the trough she started. I didn't have any seeds ,but the row was ready. Just in case. With no weeding required.............
"Give me odorous at sunrise,a garden of beautiful flowers, where I can walk undisturbed...." -Walt Whitman
Photographs 2019
Cranesbill
