WHY DO YOU GARDEN? I keep asking myself daily as I risk sunstroke to mow and weed and drag hoses round the place. And why do you garden? Some of you have told us, I know, but yesterday when I was in for my third cold shower between rounds, I thought, “Why do I do this?” and figured maybe some of you were wondering exactly the same thing about yourselves.
I garden because I cannot help myself.
I garden because I cannot look out the window and see the shaggy bits any longer, and have to go “fix it” (as if it will ever be “fixed”).
I garden because I do not know what my life would be without plants, truth be told. They speak to me at some level I can’t explain, each one in a slightly different voice.
I garden because it’s the only place (other than on some shrink’s couch, maybe, which would probably be cheaper) that I can be myself, completely and absolutely.
I garden because it’s the only place I don’t feel I have to wear mascara.
I garden because it makes me feel connected. Today, for instance, not long after Shower #3, I finally keyed out a bird who’s been flitting from the big rhodie out back to a pear and a lilac not far apart, a blue-gray and yellow warbler I simply could not ID. Finally, an illustrated guidebook in my filthy, manicure-less hand, it struck me: She is the girlfriend of the American redstart male I saw the other day, the flashy little black, white and orange guy who was in the spruce maybe 15 feet away. They could not look more different.
Actually, as it turns out, she may be one of two girlfriends. Seems the dandy redstart is a playboy (and a land baron, too). The Cornell Lab of Ornithology says he is “occasionally is polygynous, having two mates at the same time.” As if that’s not bold enough, he keeps them in different territories, up to 500 meters apart, unlike other polygynous birds, and waits till female #1 is incubating her egg before he runs off with #2. (I will reserve comment on that behavior, or almost.)
I would never have know this (or counted birds each winter for various citizen science projects) if not for my gardening. Like I said, it makes me feel connected.
I garden because I like Italian-style green beans, the ones called ‘Romano’ or flat-podded, the ones I had for dinner last night.
I garden because when I brush up against the tomato foliage, it smells like…well, you all know that tomato-foliage smell, and the inky green juice the bruised foliage leaves on your trousers and skin.
I garden, as I say, because I cannot help myself. And so out I go again, now, but not before asking: Why do you garden?
Welcome, Ann….to the blog, and to the fold. I love that even though you say that you are new to it, you finish your comments by saying you “have sent it to my fellow gardeners.” You know you’re hooked, and that you’re one of us.
I garden because it gives me hope and joy (even if I’m covered in sweat and dirt).
I garden because creating a diverse wildlife habitat where there was once nothing but lawn, has given us experiences.
Watching a red-spotted purple butterfly puddling where I just watered this morning, seeing the fledgling brown thrashers learn to forage, watching the goldfinches glean seeds from the front meadow — all of this is magic, in a place that we’ve planted and continue to help steward back to something better.
Harvesting tomatoes and squash from the kitchen garden, digging in homemade compost, harvesting blueberries, dumping my coffee grounds in the compost pail, cooking from the garden, learning interesting things about what I’m planting — the whole process help connect me to what sustains us through growing some of our own food.
Most of all, I garden because I love to be in my garden, and enjoy caring for it, with another unexpected joy to have pleasure writing about it!
Lisa
It was a virus my parents gave me. . . . and I love bumblebees
because i have the privilege to garden, even in williamsburg, brooklyn. For the joy and flavor of home grown food, for cut flowers, for the bees and bugs and birds who have so little left in urban settings. And, most poignantly, to stop thinking too much and become depressed. Somehow I am able to quiet my mind and just garden, an difficult exercise elsewhere. I hope one day I won’t NEED to garden to be happy, but simply be happy and garden, too.
Welcome, Carol. Ah! You are claiming the inherited-trait defense, huh? Glad to see you here and hope you will come again soon. As for the bumblebees, aren’t they amazing? So fat and fuzzy.
All of the above. I garden as counterpoint to a bookish, sedentary life. I have lived and worked very happily among books, students, words and ideas all my life. So, I garden because it’s both physical and it’s outdoors! Like everyone else, I sweat, get dirty, ache and curse the crabgrass. What joy!
Oh, and I garden because I can go barefoot (sometimes), go bra-less (always) and go sit in the shade of my tulip tree with a cold drink whenever I want.
Love your blog.
Amazing to read quite a few replies that take the words right out of my mouth and even more amazing, some of the same dear thoughts right out of my memories! I love reading them all. Thanks again and again Margaret.
Margaret, What a question! I have no easy answer; neither of my parents were gardeners (they were golfers) and neither of my children are (one’s a fisherman, the other is a golfer – this gene must skip a generation). I am the odd member of the family who is, and always was, out in the garden.
Today, my two sisters were visiting me at my cottage in Columbia County, on a very hot and humid day. One sister called out from the screen porch: “Bob, stop working in the garden, it is too hot. Take a nap; relax!” I told her: “‘Relax’ is not a word in my vocabulary.”
I laughed to read your comment about looking out the window, and seeing some ‘shaggy thing’, and not being able to help yourself, you had to go out and ‘fix it’. Sounds just like me. When I told one local tree man up this way that seeing the dead lower branches in the sixty foot tall Norway Spruce on my property drove me crazy, his response was: “Then don’t look up.” Not possible.
Welcome Sun Moon Lake, and Cat. Good new reasons, respectively: To stop thinking too much; to be less bookish (and braless!). Thank you both.
Welcome, also, to Bob. The “Relax!” part made me squeal because it’s something I don’t “get,” either. Thanks to you, too.
Hope that all of you will visit again soon.
I started gardening when I was 7 or 8 (I am now close to 50). As the oldest of seven children, I was put in charge of the flower and vegetable gardens. It was the one chore I loved, even at such an early age, partly because it was time spent alone – a commodity that was rare while I was growing up – and partly from the sheer wonderment and satisfaction of watching everything grow. I credit my mother for awakening that spark. I can’t even imagine a life without gardening.
Four years ago, when I met my husband, he told me how much he loved gardening, so much so, that he had thought about joining a gardening club to meet women with the same love. My heart melted. We married a year later and have spent every day working in our gardens, planning new ones, and enjoying them together.
I am truly blessed.
I ask myself this questions often, recently. We’ve moved into a new home with a, roughly, 10,000 sq. ft. lot (huge by Southern California standards) containing too much lawn (ANY is too much for me), sorry shrubbery and trees in the wrong spots. I’ve been doing a lot of clearing and not much planting, other than a hill of lavendar with a couple of Italian Cypruss in a section of the front. This past weekend, while spending my 12th hour digging out the stump of a 10 year old Mangnolia tree, I asked the question, again. It was answered 10 minutes later, when the stump gave up the battle and I rolled it (after three attempts) out of the hole hot, sweaty, cut and sore. An honest days work is good for the soul.
Welcome, Suzie, with your tender tale of love (of the garden, and of your gardener husband). Perhaps I need to get me to a garden club??? :)
And hello, Turling. Love this part: “An honest day’s work is good for the soul.” Thanks.
I garden because it is the one activity that actually brings my family together with unexpected happiness all around. I get to make the plans and select the plants; my spouse likes to do a lot of the dirty work, though I do my fair share of digging, and our young daughter (age 6) pitches in with either real assistance (bring us rakes and trowels, et cetera) or with her observations—in between bike rides or petting the cats, she points out which flowers are blooming, which blossoms attract the most butterflies or bees or whatever, et cetera. Gardening together is wonderfully peaceful, even though all we’ve really done is build raised beds that seem to be half-weed and half-flowers most of the time.
LOL … I didn’t mean the only thing we do that brings happiness! Just one thing that brings extraordinary union and sympathy to us all, all at the same time …
No worry, An Aesthete’s Lament…I immediately saw a picture of happiness both in and out of the garden when I read your comment. Nice to think of the three of you, and that your daughter is getting the connection so early.
I garden in part to honor the memory of my beloved Papaw..who taught and loved me well…I garden so my boys will feel comfortable and interested in this life changing hobby…I garden to see that proud smile on my wifes face that says well done my lover ….. but wow is this an expensive hobby..I garden because I love dirt and those ugly looking Monday morning nails…I garden because I’m odd and a bit strange…and enjoy being left alone for hours at a time…I garden because I ABSOLUTELY 110 percent LOVE IT….and because this passion introduced me to the one who brings us all here…the Divine Ms. Roach…eg
@Eddie: There you go again, being nice to me. You know how I feel about that kind of behavior. :)
Really, though, I love the part about your wife’s face saying “well done my lover” when you complete a garden project and that you “love being left alone for hours.” Great sharing, as ever.
For me, the question is probably more like, “Why WILL I garden?” I don’t have any land to sow yet, but I am designed, wired and predestined to sow some land, somewhere, some day. It’s one of those things I feel in my bones. It has me thinking about genetics, too. My paternal grandfather and my maternal grandmother are both born gardeners…and the results were spectacular. My father, too, is a happy toiler in the soil. But when a man without land finds himself sketching gardens, tip-toeing up driveways to snap photos of other people’s plants and turning his balcony into a mini jungle, you know that it’s only a matter of time before he calls himself a gardener. You’re a great guide and example, Margaret, for the late-bloomers among us.
margaret,
no, i don’t garden because I “have to” or because I need to “fix something.” i garden because it is fun! when else can you get dirty, eat, not be bothered by teenage children and play with plants?? (not necessarily in that order)
laura
I garden because I don’t know how not to garden; I’ve been doing it for 39 of my 50 years. Gardening is what I do best. I do it because it makes me feel alive in the world. When I’m in my garden I’m not just IN the world, I’m OF the world, I AM the world.
I garden so that I can play house outside, and stay out till dark, and get up at the crack of dawn and do it all over again. And never get enough.
I garden because when I”m old, and nearing the end of my trail, I’ll know that I followed my heart and did what I was born to do. I garden so that I’ll keep meeting people like you, Margaret.
I garden because I love zinnias and so did my mother.
Gardening is about the only thing I do in my life that is purely for myself. My job is about kids, all of my other hobbies (cooking and crafting) usually end up benefiting someone else. It may sound selfish but I love to go into a nursery and buy something I love bring it home and put it where I want it and not have to worry about anyone else. It gives me peace. I have also made many great garden friends online and through my garden club.
Cheers,
I must have been born with a shovel in my mitts. Why do I garden… love being outside, digging in the dirt… I’m reminded of a Chinese Proverb:
When the sun rises, I go to work.
When the sun goes down, I take my rest.
I dig the well from which I drink.
I farm the soil which yields my food.
I share creation.
Kings can do no more
Welcome, Borntodig. I guess we didn’t even need your answer, just your nickname, huh? Thanks for the poem, and come back soon.
Here’s to finding one’s garden (Andrew); to fun (Laura); to BEING the world (Dean); to cherishing something of one’s own, and peace (Nichole). All well-said.
When I was 5 or 6 years old my parents gave me a tiny section of their vegetable garden that was my own space…I grew carrots I think. 40+ years later I can still remember the feeling I got from growing something from a seed into something I could eat. I have had the soul of a gardener ever since, and I would never need to pose the question “why do you garden?”… for me the biggest mystery is those who don’t.
Welcome, Chris. Love that you have characterized “those who don’t” as the real mysterious ones! Come again soon.
I’ve pondered this question on my knees in my garden since you posted it. I’ve come to the conclusion that I garden because it’s an acceptable outlet for my adult onset ADD. Deadhead here for a while, on the way to the compost realize that there are weeds to be pulled there, why not add them to the dead headed pile and take it all to the compost corner? And doesn’t that compost need a little attention too? By the time I’m done wandering around my garden, my mind’s quieter and I can see progress. It drives me back the next day to do it all again.
Welcome, Anna. “Adult-onset ADD.” Yes! I have it. I call it “puttering,” or “grazing,” to try to make it sound less troubling, but it’s exactly what you describe. Come back soon (when you are finished wandering around out there).
The best therapy on the planet!
The magic of nature’s energy – healing, joyful, always there for me!
See “Healing Fuschia Reflections” at:
http://debracortese.com/blog/
Welcome, Debra, and yes: “The best therapy on the planet.” Thanks.
I garden because I like makeovers, or transformations. In creating two gardens (don’t know if I’d have the energy for a third one), we first turned an ugly city property into something beautiful. Then when we moved to the country, we did the same with a badly neglected 10-acre parcel of land. (Not being able to afford already-gorgeous houses when we were younger meant that we got into the habit of buying fixer-upper houses with grounds that needed lots of TLC.)
For me, the transformation part of gardening is exciting and challenging, but I have to admit that the day-to-day maintenance is a grind. However, that stuff is crucial because gardening consists of controlling and shaping growth, and responding to change (growth, both wanted and unwanted).
During the winter months I press my forehead against cold window panes to stare down at the garden. It must be an act of conjuring because before long, mounds of big root geranium, ligularia, heuchera, and an immense chartreuse hosta glowing against deep purple oxalis reappear in all their full fleshy, summer magnificence. As I continue to scan the empty beds, lilies, the pineapple kind and day lily black emanuelle appear in magical 6:30 pm light. And so it goes. In this way the entire garden is resurrected, reworked, perfected. These are private, potentially embarrassing moments because I would be hard pressed to offer a rational explanation for the obsession and longing displayed in this behavior. It’s enough to say that the memories of what was and the anticipation of what eventually will come again is why I garden.
Welcome, Sydney, and thank you for your private confessional made public. Memories and dreams: the stuff of gardens and gardeners. Do visit again soon.
Gardening makes me happy. It releases me from the confines of my city existence. It reminds my of my grandmother. It tires my body and energizes my mind. It helps me breathe.
Welcome, Martha (and you know, I have a soft spot for people named Martha). For many years it released me, too, from the confines of my city life…and then I broke free recently!
I am not a “real” gardener, but I play one on TV. In my amateurish garden, I make a lot of mistakes out of ignorance. I cannot resist getting a little dirty every now and then.
Recently, I have practiced being “at one” with the weeds. MAYBE it is time to hire a professional landscaper to take care of the routine work. Then, I will have more time to do what I really love–just playing in the dirt. (Got soap?)
@Allen: We are all playing in the dirt, and all happiest there, I agree. Pulling weeds…well, I have made it a meditation but that took decades of practice. Good thing there are always more weeds to practice on, huh?
I can’t say why I garden, exactly, but I can tell you when I don’t, I have a heaviness in my chest that almost makes my breathing difficult. When I don’t garden, I feel as though my entire weekend was unproductive and I have an overwhelming since of urgency to get things planted, weeded and dead headed. When I don’t garden, my peace mind is interrupted with thoughts of work, concerns about the future and insufficient finances (caused primarily by my irresistible urges to create a garden paradise). I guess I garden because all the things listed above are replaced by a state of reverence and it is at that point I am truly Randy and all the chaos of everyday life seems to be carried away on the wings of bees and butterflies.
i garden for the love the relaxtion and even the stress. i garden to make things beautiful which in return stimulates my mind. i garden to make a mess and have to start all over again. i garden to give the rabbits a place to hide and the moles and voles a place to destroy. i garden because it gets me out of my head and the anxiety that i create for myself. i garden because i love hydrangea , boxwoods, and hollywood junipers. i garden to learn patients. i garden to give me perspective that life can be simple and still rewarding. i garden because crab grass haunts me in my dreams. i garden so i can hang at the nurseries and harass the employees with questions. i garden because my neighbors think i am crazy and my friends don’t understand. i garden so one day a long time from now my grandchildren will have tree house in one of these walnut seedlings.
Welcome, TM. What a great response…from the crabgrass nightmares to the tree house, all of it. I hope to see you here soon again.
I was introduced to gardening by my mother who had a few philodendron in the house and a bed of beautiful flowers, like lilies of the valley, and roses in the back yard. She would tend her plants until her asthma got worse. My grandmother who lived with us always had something blooming on the table in the kitchen. It could be a bunch of violets, or a lily of the violet and of course the roses. Later because of my mother’s asthma that stopped too. I started enjoying my own yard by then and would dig up some of Momma’s plants and replant them in my yard. I even have a sprig of the philodendron from Momma. I gave a sprig to my daughter in law also. I’ve had some problems with my plants recently since I moved to Fl. I brought many plants with me and they did wonderfully. Then, we had a hurricane and I lost quite a few of them going back and forth to a temporary stay at inlaws, rental house, and then back to the restored house. They have been replaced with others that I get from friends and they are doing well also. I’m looking forward to the day when I will have a yard again so that some of them will be in the yard and I can watch the birds and squirrels like I used to, eat and cook outside, and just enjoy being in such wonder of God’s.
My earliest memory of gardening is as a child, squatting down next to my Grandfather’s knee as he plunged a large fork into a mound lifting the buried treasure, a clump of golden potatoes. Watching as he moved in his slow, melodic pace, the absence of rushing,the patience of the plants knowing he would make his way to each one in his own time, the energy was magical. That is why I garden, to be present in the peaceful, magical energy which is unique to the garden.
Welcome, Pranamama, and thank you for recalling that vivid memory. Being present, and for the magic: two good reasons to garden indeed.
I garden because in the evening my whole body aches after having worked all day in my garden. Don’t need any kind of pills. I shower, pray, and sleep like a gardner.
Welcome, Del. I love how you explain the way gardening fits right in with daily living, your spiritual practice…and your dreams. Thanks.
Thanks so much Margaret for your wonderful, recently discovered treasure of a web site and for these words from margarets friends and fans! I feel much less isolated and crazy to read similar tales of gardening obsession. I find much to identify with in the various responses to this question and others and have lamented being alone in the extremity of my compulsion to garden. The first thing I would do if I won the lottery is to buy a space to garden (rather like yours in your photos Margaret!) I also garden for reasons similar to those for loving my dog! For the uncomplicated,rewarding, unalloyed joy and pleasure. When my work of helping victims of violence feels overwheming, the act of tending growing things helps connect me with peaceful aspects of creation. For this respite and renewal I am always grateful. On this cold fall day (here in Nova Scotia anyway!)I am already dreading the coming of winter and the withdrawal from my garden. Already looking forward to spring while still enjoying the beauty of late fall. Thanks again for all the inspiration
Welcome, Liz, and I hope you buy that winning Lottery ticket in time for next spring. Blessings to you for the special work you do, and I wish you those uncomplicated moments of respite, lots of them.
I love, love, love this question. In fact, I’ve daydreamed about writing a book on this question. (Maybe there’s one out there…)
and what wonderful answers! All of the above, for me, but also…
it gives me an excuse to have short stubby fingernails…
I adore sweet surprises and my garden always gives them to me….
I like to catch up on gossip with the lizards….
my husband loves to make fresh pesto…
BIRDS, BIRDS, BIRDS, BIRDS, BIRDS, BIRDS…
Welcome, Anne. And what, dare I ask, do lizards gossip about? I didn’t even know they were vocal types. :) See you again soon.
well, they don’t exactly talk, but they do scratch out letters…
:>>>/,,,XXXX = = \
translates to “The praying mantis ate all of the ladybugs that you put under the roses last night…”
My garden is my zen place. If I didn’t garden, I would spend way more on anti-depressants and therapy:-)