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Thoughts From a Grateful Gardener
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16564 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
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11 / 1989 |
1,472 Words |
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Virginia Greiner
Virginia Greiner writes a weekly gardening column for the
Washington Times. |
Now, while many gardens are asleep under the frost, let's give thanks for the pleasures they gave thoughout the year--beauty, repose, satisfaction, hope, vitality, fragrance, memories, and a hundred other earthly delights.
Contentment is the greatest gift of a pleasure garden. It's hard to carry a grudge when children are skittering across the lawn under the sprinkler, or when old friends stop by to inspect this year's crop of roses. There's peace when we dig alone and companionship when we share the garden's beauty with others.
We also find a sense of permanence in a garden. "I plant the thorn and kiss the rose, but they will grow when I am dead," the poet Anne Spencer noted. Lilacs bloom for generations, peonies can live for half a century, and tulip trees and boxwood hedges can outlast a stone house.
One of the nicest things to do for a new house or to mark special occasions like births, weddings, anniversaries, and even deaths, is to plant a tree. There's something comforting about knowing the oak you plant will be offering shade for someone well into the next century.
A Drunkenness Of Scents
Fragrance is another great gift form the garden, which offers up "a drunkenness of scents," as Vita Sackville-West wrote. One whiff of a beloved flower in a winter-weary room can awaken memories more quickly than photographs in a yellowing album. We may forget familiar faces and names, dates may evade us, events may blur in our mind's eyes, but the
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