kalanchoe, variegated coleus, rhododendron, geranium, alyssum, verbena, bromeliad, succulent… the latinate language of music to a frustrated gardener.

since sprouting marigolds in paper cups as a little girl, i’ve loved growing things. my mother’s own enthusiasm for amateur botany was woven through the tapestry of my childhood memories – forest walks spent exploring the hidden life of the undergrowth, the overexuberant vegetable garden in the backyard, the patiently rooted cuttings with their delicate tendrils perpetually on the windowsills, waiting to be gently transplanted into pots. and she loved teaching me the names – identifying well known species aloud, looking the unfamiliar up in reference guides, fostering curiousity, honoring nature.

yet it’s only recently that i’ve begun to recognise the roots of that same affection within myself. moving back to boston in my late twenties was the first time i began to cultivate it – i had just moved into the first floor of a two family house, and was still idly looking for a job, when i began to try to tame the vast overgrowth of my new backyard. pretty soon, i found myself esconced in an old neglected corner plot of the yard, just aching to be renewed and replanted. i spent hours in the springtime muck, excavating thick weeds and wild grasses, hacking away dead vines and old stumps, combing through stones and preparing the beds. after investing so much energy in the preparation, i set out a diagram of vegetables and flowers – that first spring i installed tomatoes, beans, sunflowers, daylilies, basil, snapdragons and daisies. every afternoon that summer, i would come home from work, carefully search out any weeds, attach the hose to the sprinkler, and sit in the sun with a beer and the paper while the plants drank deeply from the soil.

still, it took me by surprise when it happened. under my watchful, industrious care, things actually began to grow. tiny bipalmate shoots emerging from a single seed. fragile roots multiplying and strengthening. stretching upward, gaining height every day. flowering, pollenating, fruiting. it fascinated me as nothing short of miraculous, like one of those time-lapse nature specials unfurling in real time right before my eyes. from nothing to something to abundance. the worms as allies, the bees as guardians.

i became a gardner in earnest. i pruned and mowed and tended that yard with such devotion. i carefully sculpted the old rhododendron back into shape, untangled the surprising grape vines covering the fence, sewed up the gaps of lawn with green, and ruthlessly executed any interloper weeds with the vengeance of a woman possesed. i created a small herb plot full of fresh thyme and rosemary. i cordoned off a large wildflower patch, strewn with poppies, columbine and nasturtium. i barbequed at weekends, gathered fresh bouquets of blooms, and watched the dog roll around in the grass with abandon. i pinched back even when i hated to, fertilised prudently, set out booby-traps for slugs. i dragged out the mower every summer, and stored the hose away every winter. i filled the birdfeeders religiously. i sat on my porch and watched the grass grow with a patience i didn’t know i had.

and even after i left that apartment behind, the garden still grew in my thoughts. i wondered if the bulbs had come up that spring. if the new occupants were tending the perennials, if they’d turned over the topsoil and planted new sprouts early enough in the season. if they’d protected the hydrangeas from frost.

since leaving that apartment, my nurturing instinct has been restricted, restrained. curtailed within the square confines of balconies and windowboxes. pot-bound, coiled in on itself, like the roots of a plant with noplace left to grow. i try still, seeding my energy in small containers of green longing, straining through glass-filtered sun. and there are some small successes – some hardy souls which flourish in spite of the crowding and smog.

and there’s me – still trying like hell to bloom where i’m planted. and if you look closely, some small encouraging shoots of growth, pushing up through thin soil towards the sky.

the youngbloods – sunlight

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