I’ll admit, I’ve never really been an avid gardener. Sticking the plants in the ground is fun, and watching them grow and bloom is a great reward, but the in-between squatting in the noon-day sun tediously pulling weeds has never appealed to me. Nevertheless, after a long, stressful week there’s something therapeutic in sticking my spotless hands into the ground, getting dirt under my nails, sweat on my brow, and a golden brown tan on the back of my neck.
For me, gardening is reminiscent of my childhood. Freshly watered plants absorb the water until the clay reminds me of mud pies I labored over years ago. The simple act of gardening reminds me of Saturdays when my mom would employ the entire family in gardening tasks, and then the Sundays spent lounging and admiring our work and the plants, my mom’s pride.
I cannot remember a summer without a full garden growing up right along with me. My parents’ house has a hedge instead of the fences their neighbors opted for. Walking around the house is an obstacle course of camellia bushes, dogwood trees, Japanese maples, and an assortment of flowers and vegetation. From my old bedroom window, I have a perfect view of the densely planted part of the yard, the place where something is always blooming.
When I was little, the view from that bedroom window was very different. The myrtle bush wasn’t there, neither were the two lilac trees one white, one violet. The rose bush had not yet covered the railing up to the side door, and the lilies weren’t dominating the entire flowerbed. The key piece of this part of the garden stretched up to my second-floor window and bloomed with petite bursts of white flowers with pink dashes of color on every-other petal.
I don’t know when this apple tree was planted, or even if my mom was the one who stuck it in the ground. It may have simply been inherited with the purchase of the house. I only remember it standing there stately, in the middle of the yard, its branches occasionally poking my window. The tree’s tall, straight trunk didn’t have any branches low enough for climbing, and it didn’t bear much fruit. In the summer I would sit in its shade and read a book, or look out my window and daydream as I stared at the blooms.
The final summer the apple tree stood in the yard was a confusing one. The summer was especially hot and humid; the grass burned and only the bugs enjoyed the yard. There were no blooms on the tree that year; in June, it had brown leaves
