I wasn’t aware of this
until we bought our first house, but I was born with not just a brown thumb,
but with all my fingers brown, both on my hands and on my feet (technically
called ‘toes’).
Within the first
year of the purchase we killed just about every plant on our property.
Mostly through dumb ignorance resulting in abject neglect, but during that time
I also discovered that it is possible to kill by caring too much. Too much weeding,
too much water, fertilizer, pesticide… you name it, we did it. We’d sunken a fortune
into our front yard, only to watch it go down the drain – literally. We became known
as neighborhood serial plant killers. My experience taught me that gardening is
rocket science par excellence and I am not a rocket scientist.
Still, if there was any
hope for our yard, any hope at all, we needed a rocket scientist or gardener,
or both.
Not a lawn mowing
service that rolls around once a week, makes a lot of noise and leaves after 30
or so minutes.
And not purveyors of
unsolicited gardening advice – God knows we had plenty of those but the only
good they taught us was never to trust gardeners with manicured hands.
I looked closely to the
right and to the left, but there was no one in sight. Finally it dawned on me that
there was one thing that remained. A long
shot and rather foolish one, but at this point I had nothing to lose. So I took
a deep breath and exhaled a foolish, impossible prayer.
God, you who created
this world out of NOTHING, make me a gardener.
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