Category: plants

My father had a huge vegetable garden. He grew everything: corn, peppers, tomatoes, pumpkins, beans. Our yard was full of fruit trees and berries, too. The entire backyard, from end to end, was bordered in daffodils of every color combination, and it was impressive to see and to smell. I used to kneel down beside that wall of daffodils, lightly touching the fascinating cup of the flower, breathing in its unique scent.

Is it any wonder I ended up loving plants and being outdoors? Everywhere I have lived, even the tiniest rental, with or without an actual yard, I have had flowers and plants. If my garden was simply a plastic pot outside my door, then so be it. But I had to have it.

I don’t pretend to enjoy hot, humid afternoons, being roasted to a crisp under the southern sun, plastering on sunscreen in hopes of protecting my poor, vampire-toned skin. But I do it anyway, weekend after weekend, because I feel drawn to be outside, my hands in the dirt, my face streaked with mud, my gloved fingers trimming, snipping, weeding, digging, bringing to life an image in my head. I end up in a rhythm, just me and the plants, and even with sweat pouring off my forehead and gluing my shirt to my back, it’s therapeutic as hell.

I can’t help but think of my father when I am covered in dirt, teasing apart roots of a pot-bound plant, or dropping breathlessly into a chair with cold water for a much-needed break, when my sunburned mind wanders without restraint. I never worked alongside my father in his garden, because there was always an impenetrable distance between us, a wall that I couldn’t reach through, and admittedly I didn’t try very hard.

But I remember sitting on the grass beside the strawberry patch, admiring the long row of berry-dotted plants, and the perfect, sweet taste of those little strawberries. I remember wondrous excitement as the pumpkins grew, hefting them and laughing at their weight. They were enormous to a child. I remember eating peppers right off the plant, holding them like apples, and to this day, I liberally salt my sliced tomatoes just like my father did, sitting at the dining room table with a satisfied smile, like he had a five-star chef prepare that plate for him.

I have been gardening for years, decades even. But every year, I am excited at the season’s opening day, slipping on my gloves and diving into the dirt. I get giddy as I browse the garden center, arranging the plants a million different ways in my head before taking my new little potted friends to the register. I get excited about every seedling breaking ground, each new bud, every newly opened flower.

My father was gone before we could figure out a way to bridge the distance between us. I’ve now been alive longer without him than I was with him. The “what if” and “what could have been” tortures me. It’s best to just not think about it much.

But in his memory, yellow daffodils make a brief appearance in our front yard each spring, if the winter was cold enough. My next yard project is likely going to be a vegetable garden. Maybe I will take on humongous pumpkins like he did. And someday soon, I want to take a cutting from my father’s ivy that my mother has tried so hard to banish from the yard, unsuccessfully, and I want to let it grow with abandon in our yard, loved again.