Growing with My Garden

Still, not every plant needs to be a superstar. Most will be practical workhorses.
Unlike my indoor living room, the breeze flows and the walls shimmy. My Outdoor Living Room is literally alive with the sights, scents, and sounds of Hashem’s living world (Photos: Naomi Elbinger)
For some people, a successful garden is lush and manicured, admired by the neighbors for its symmetry, worthy of a magazine cover. They have my blessing (and their well-employed gardener’s).
But I’ll be honest: My garden is miles from manicured, nor is it pedicured. It will never appear in any magazine — except, apparently, the one you’re holding in your hands.
I have no such aspirations, either.
For me, the measure of garden success is simply how much time we spend out there enjoying it. When I have a hot drink there on Shabbos afternoon with a friend who can’t contain her amazement that our eight-foot wall of vibrant orange nasturtiums grew out of a single punnet-sized seedling planted five months earlier, that’s success. When my kids eat their mac and cheese dinner during a midsummer’s dusk while excitedly pointing out the butterflies, that’s success. When I host my niece’s bas mitzvah and the guests are captivated by the intoxicating scents in the air, that’s success.
Ordinary life events take on magical qualities when they take place in a beautiful garden.
I’m not alone in these feelings. Due to my reputation as a gardening enthusiast, neighbors and friends often confess that they also long to turn their porch or yard into a green haven.
Unfortunately, they’re usually frustrated:
“I planted 40 pansies but they all got eaten by snails.”
“The beautiful plum tree in our garden died. I think I murdered it.”
“I put carrot seeds in the ground with my kids but they never even sprouted.”
I love these conversations and I’m always happy to dispense helpful advice. How did I gain my wisdom? The hard way, of course.
Let me tell you about my first garden.
Garden Confessions
Before we bought our first home as newlyweds, both my husband and the real estate agent noted that the garden was huge and unwieldy.
The steep lower half was overgrown with wattle trees (enemy number one, if you have allergies) and a towering pine tree that blocked the light and coated the ground in needles. The upper half was an expanse of geraniums lovingly propagated and hand-watered daily by the babushka of the Russian family who was selling the place.
I chose to ignore their concerns.
Oops! We could not locate your form.