GARDEN GRATIFICATION
Like many gardeners, I like to start planning (even if it’s
just in my mind) my summer vegetable/flower gardens in the coolness of winter.
Watching seedlings sprout somehow brings a sense of expectation; a hope that
Spring and warmer weather is just around the bend. Yet, after the danger of
frost, transplanting those seedlings is when the real work begins: digging,
pruning, weeding, watering, and guarding against pests large and small;
cultivating a garden is a lot of work.
For example, weeds. We don’t like ‘em. We don’t want ‘em.
But they are always there. In fact, sometimes they grow taller, stronger and
fiercer than the actual crop we want to reap. Being the controlling type, I’ve learned
early on that you simply cannot control a garden; it controls you. If it rains
for a week and the sun suddenly shines, you run to tend it. If little insects
or chipmunks try to take possession, you lovingly screen it. If there is a
drought, you’ll stand for hours with the water hose tangled around your ankles,
no problem. A garden is a bit like having children; it forces you to reorganize
your life. But, after a crazy, nerve-racking day at the office, nothing soothes
the mind more than working the soil and breathing in the solitude. As a result,
I’ve come to look at those weeds as survivors and as I pluck them from my
garden, I envision the idea they are just trying to find their way into the
world of horticulture. After all, with all that attention, who wouldn’t want to
be in a small plot of Utopia?
When you garden, you leave behind all technology (Facebook!
Email! Instagram!) and learn to converse with the simple pleasure of listening
to bird song, feeling air movement and smelling outdoors fragrance. Yes,
pandemonium and clatter are replaced with hushed, tranquil quietness. The
garden becomes a small bit of area that only the care taker occupies; a selfish
sense of space. Why do I say selfish? Because once you have found this, it is a
pleasure you don’t readily share with others for fear everyone will want to do
it and then it will be all commotion and hullabaloo. Yes, once discovered what
contented peace a plot of growing vegetation can bring, even the glimpse of an
aircraft disturbing airspace solitude can cause a frown of irritation.
Aside from ascetics and the consumption of produce, there is
a deeper, more gratifying reason to wanting a green thumb. According to research, black hands can increase your serotonin levels; contact with soil and a specific soil bacteria, Mycobacterium vaccae, triggers the release of serotonin in our brain and we all know the lack of serotonin causes depression. Getting your hands dirty is emotional, physical and mental therapy! Not to mention sunlight (vitamin D) and fresh air (mood booster)!
The only problem is, once committed to a garden one does not
easily retreat back to the noise of Life. I often have to be called several
times into the house from my garden, begrudgingly, leaving all that isolated
seclusion behind. Yet, it’s nice to I know I have a special place I can go to
where the sights, the smells and the sounds bring relaxation and reduce stress.
So the next time you stop to uproot that obstinate weed,
indulge it a gentle tug, you can’t blame it for wanting a piece of all those
benefits.
The creation of a
thousand forests is in one acorn
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
