Planting the seeds of hope

Poised at the commencement of this new year, the ambition is strong to make a swarm of resolutions to make life better. Naturally, when it comes to gardening, I usually draw up some resolutions, but they don’t really come to me until April or so, when life begins to emerge from the earth and that primal scent wafts from the soil and stirs the genetic memory into action.

The generations of farmers and gardeners before me must have stood in this same sort of place and dreamed of what the ground would bring forth in the new year. And although their dreams must have had more of a survivalist slant, like us today they must have resolved to do things differently, to improve, to learn and to be more grateful for what the earth gives.

When the earth is resting, my reflections and ambitions outweigh any reason and transcend anything that lends itself to resolution. I have to say, my garden owns me. I’m not an indentured slave to my garden or my garden ideas. No, I’m willingly captivated.

During these winter months when the garden is at times blanketed with deep snow and at other times frozen in space and time, my thoughts run wild with what I could do, what is possible, what is probable, and inevitably, what is unrealistic, yet desperately wanted. I need 20 more gardeners to accomplish what I want to do.

I want a garden that’s neither timid nor tame. I don’t want to see neat rows of plants or garden beds laid out just so, I want a garden that never ends. I want a garden that starts as soon as I step out the door and I don’t even want it only to end when it reaches the edge of the woods. I want it to make me want to linger where I am and draw me to the other side at the same time.

I want masses of flowers and luscious vegetables all growing together. I want my garden to have hallways, doors and secret passageways shaped with shrubs, arbors and lanky old-fashioned flowers that bloom from base to tip and have the sweetest, most delicate fragrance imaginable.

I want a garden I can, on occasion, wander through at night and mingle with the stars. I want the moon to shine down on morning glories that spread the news of life, fanning out over a cedar arbor, climbing feathery cosmos and creeping through wild roses. I want the dewy essence of nectar to seep through the night and make me feel timeless.

Oh, certainly, this all sounds so very romantic. You’ll notice I left out the black flies that plague and test one’s sanity, and the zippy moths that buzz your head when you’re outdoors at night … but in my mind it has to be kept perfect or I might lose my drive.

In reality, it’s likely that the fantastic transformation of my garden space will evolve at a very slow rate: I am only one. But I continue to dream. If we hold back on what we dream, we’ll never become what we might. And this thought of someday filling the vast open space around my home with dreamy gardens keeps my knees dirty, my fingernails soiled and my back yearning for refuge in a hammock that doesn’t yet exist. What I dream about may someday be, and at this moment that notion itself transcends the need for a defined resolution.

I wish you all the very best for this new year. As we all look forward to spring’s warmth to wash away the chill of winter, I hope you are blessed with an abundance of beauty around you.

Diana George Chapin is the NEWS garden columnist. Send horticulture questions to Gardening Questions, RR1, Box 2120, Montville 04941, or e-mail them to dianagc@ctel.net.