Somedays a walk around the garden is no different than that horrid little COVID news slider at the bottom of your TV screen. Number of new infections (e.g. mites, bag worms, mold), number of growth spurts, and number of deaths. This is the state of gardening in a climate crisis. Punishing hail and destruction-bent winds. We aim for survival. Each bloom is a miracle. We let go of the notion of thriving and put it away in a box with the fancy shoes we have no where to wear now. Thriving belongs to those gatherings and experiences that have been erased from our calendars and our lives. Perhaps not forever, but at least for a while.
Gardens require consistency and planning. And adapting when plans fail. The best gardeners are control freaks. I used to be one of them. Now I am a ponderer. COVID has been the final nail in the coffin of my attempts to control outcomes large and small. I struggle with routines. My mind is always elsewhere, most likely filled with thoughts and words that will eventually find their way here. And as a writer, this may not be such a bad thing. I’ve loosed up my gardening grip. I refuse to poison my beds with toxins just to avoid having to remove weeds (or decide not to remove weeds.). Weeding can be therapeutic. But it is also a form of control. A death sentence. A not-so Sophie’s choice that is made over and over again. And besides, dandelions are weeds, and dandelions puffs are childhood magic.
Left to right/top to bottom: ghost plant, weed, “intentional plant.” Who’s to say which is which? But who wins the care and feeding?
Just as with people, all flora are not treated equally. We destroy weeds because they siphon resources away from our more valued, intentionally cultivated plants. But weeds have the last laugh. They have grit and they are resilient, adaptable, and sometimes even resistant. They will outlive us and reign beside the roaches. Outside of the garden, weeds are our dark secrets, bad habits, and our nightly bouts of 4 a.m. doom scrolling. They are a waste of energy, but these days we don’t have the energy to fight them. Besides, most weeds are shallow and can be pulled with no more than the yank of a bare hand. Problem temporarily solved.
The more significant threat stems from something not jokingly referred to as a ghost plant. The earth remembers. It holds the history of each planting and pruning. Each relocation and removal. Every heart given. Every love lost. Ghost plants walk between two worlds. They cross the veil between the past and the present. They can emerge yards away from where they once resided. A novice gardener may unknowingly plant a row of hydrangeas inside a wind tunnel and discovering this at some inconvenient hour frantically relocate them to a seemingly safer home where they will die of blight, root congestion, or shock and homesickness. The gardener will mourn the loss of a favorite plant, or the idea of it, and curse the time and money lost. Within the week, after consulting an expert, new plants will be selected and more carefully established. And just like we are no longer #teamhydrangea. We are #goseedum #rideordie #teamheartystonecrop #seeyadelicateflowers. We are moving forward. We have moved on. But the hydrangeas haven’t. The ghostly shreds of their roots waiting beneath the topsoil until the time is right. Occasionally sending out feelers to get the current lay of the land. Warmth. Nutrition. Moisture. Space. Opportunity.
But as all fans of the supernatural genre know, resurrection is a messy business. What returns is not always what was lost. Inside the garden, this could mean a visible mutation of leaf structure. Outside the garden, it gets more complicated. When, as during these COVID times, there are empty spaces in our days, our lives, and our hearts; ghosts of past careers, surrendered avocations, and lost loves, attempt to take root. When we see what we have let go of through rose colored glasses, we nourish those ghosts. When we smooth over the painfully learned lessons, we relegate ourselves to the past. Learning to be okay with emptiness is hard. But if we give into the need “for something, anything” we diminish ourselves. The season for new growth may not come for a while. So in the meantime, be vigilant. Bust those ghosts. Prepare your soil well for the cold and quiet season. Nourish your foundation so that when the growing season comes you can sow your seeds with clarity, intention, and maybe even, hope.
Photos by Debra Domal