The Obsessive Neurotic Gardener

Posted on by Posted in Garden memoir .

I had one simple task to tend to. I assigned it a duration length of three minutes on my “Daily Tasks” spreadsheet. It fit beautifully between “replace the light bulb in the bathroom” and “find my W2 form”. It was this:

Carry the recently cut branches of the Ninebark to the woods and deposit them there.

The spreadsheet entry looked like this: rmv 9 brnchs

Yes I frown upon vowels with my abbreviating.

This was to be a simple dump and run. One task out of many for the day. A mindless job that would get my lazy butt outdoors. An easy one to remove from the list.

It all went spectacularly wrong.

I made the mistake of looking to my left as I approached the woods. I knew better than that. Never ever allow the eyes to wander when outside in the yard this time of year. A glance toward the garden in winter never turns out well. It’s always devastating. With all of the storms we’ve suffered through the past few weeks, it was even more of a reason to do nothing but stare straight ahead.

It was not the time to speculate on plant damage.

That could be done another day, after I’d had enough time to prep myself emotionally.

But I couldn’t un-see this.

Or this.

All of which then sent me down a path of pacing. That annual dread-filled pacing in the garden. Dread-filled pacing that on this day, went on for twenty three sad minutes where I compiled a full assessment of all that had gone wrong.

The light bulb would have to wait.

That witch hazel planted in fall? Deader than dead.

The ‘Wichita Blue’ juniper that anchored this corner? Split in half from the ice and winds.

And these were only the easily visible victims. The list goes on.

Winter, you are not and will never be my friend.

After the inventory and mourning was complete, I stepped back inside, blew my nose and returned to the couch where I could reflect and stew. I was 51% sad and 49% pissed off. All of those years tending to these plants went for naught. All of the design decisions were an exercise in futility. All of the blood and sweat could have been funneled elsewhere.

I know gardening isn’t a life or death thing. I understand it’s just a fun little hobby. I’m fully aware that I require a perspective adjustment. But fuck, I take the failures personally. I question my past judgment, believing it had a hand in the plants’ demise.

I consider giving up. I scream, flail and shed a tear.

This malaise typically sticks around for a lot longer than I’d like to admit. It takes weeks before it even starts to dissipate in the slightest.

Once the weather warms up, greenery arrives and a few flowers reveal themselves, I push forward like a man possessed. I become nothing but task-oriented as I try to replace what has perished and get my garden back to a point where it looks presentable again.

The labor keeps my mind occupied.
It’s exhausting but necessary.
It’s all consuming.

I miss out on the joys of spring while I’m lamenting the pains of winter.

By summer I’ve finally moved on and I’m not sure if I’ve had one moment of true happiness in the garden.

Rinse and repeat.

For those of you who don’t know, I recently finished writing my second book. It’s tentatively titled:

Seed, Grow, Love, Write
One man’s slow journey to fulfillment

Another big thank-you to all who offered up title suggestions. We’ll see if this one actually sticks.

The book is a series of short stories that cover the entirety of my life from childhood to current day. It’s memoir-like, but I refuse to call it a memoir. I’m not that interesting.

I like to think of it as a look back on how I discovered my love of gardening which ultimately led me to my true (and I hate to use the word but here it goes) passion, which is writing. The stories are small in a purposeful way. Stories that we all can relate to without any huge “A Ha” moments.

I discovered more about myself as I was writing this book than I could’ve ever imagined. The journey made more sense as I pieced it all together.

My hope is that readers will relate and maybe grab even the slightest bit of inspiration with their own lives.

But enough romanticizing about the book. The full-court sales push will come at a later date (May?). You’ve been warned.

My point is this:

A good portion of the stories in the book focus on gardening:
The early years outside with my dad.
The first garden at our first home.
The discovery of ornamental grasses.
Planting minutes after getting stitches in my arm.
Transplanting using my car’s headlights.

After writing and editing them all, I came to realize that all of the stories share a common thread.

They all reveal the joy of the journey.

I honestly look back fondly on all of the struggles and all of the mistakes. I wouldn’t change a thing if I could go back in time.

I’d still welcome the deer.
I’d still battle the poor draining soil.
I’d still make the same mistakes.

The book has changed my perspective on my garden. I no longer have dreams of creating anywhere near the perfect garden. I’ve given up on ever hosting tour through my impeccably maintained landscape.

I’m comfortable being freakishly organized in my life and with my plants and also realizing that it can’t be sustained.

I’m good with complaining incessantly one day and then living in the moment the next day.

The garden, she is my muse.

I can post pretty pictures along the way and I can educate readers as best I can, but the joy comes in the writing. The joy comes in the sharing. The joy comes in the creating. The joy comes in getting lost for hours as I dig, as I plant and as I write.

And this garden, she’ll be my muse for a lifetime.

That is so freeing.

I didn’t say I’ll be 100% chill overnight. As you can see from the beginning of this story, I still lost it the other day when confronting destruction in my garden.

But I allowed myself to get angry.
I allowed myself to be sad.
I allowed myself to question my abilities.

That’s the journey.

As is the calm me who has since moved on and is writing this right now.

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24 Responses

  3. I agree, sometimes looking too closely at my garden at this time of year can be depressing. I try to remind myself that some dismal specimens have revived with consistent warmth and sunshine. We are far from either of those amenities here in the Hudson Valley. So… I try to stay out of the garden and look at “perfect” gardens from my garden book library.

    • You are so right Mary. Part of the reason why I don’t want to look. It’s still too early and cold to determine what survived and what didn’t.

  4. Oh my gosh, I sooooo can relate! One of my cherished Eastern Red Cedars literally came up out of the ground! When my husband and I went out to appraise it, all I could do was swear like a roofer who had just finished a six pack on a 90 degree day!!! He was like, “Why must you use that word”??? What other word am I going to use? The blood, sweat, and tears, let alone my singing to it, talking to it, telling it that winter was approaching, telling it how proud of was of it! Thanks for sharing that you are crazy like me!!! Love it!

    • Always good to know I’m not alone in my worry. And maybe I should start talking to my plants too. It can only help, right?

  5. Well. That’s some real melodrama right there. Given all else you have going on in your garden, this seems like a whole lotta teeth gnashing over a few damaged shrubs. We’ve all been there. We’ll all be there again. Take heart. Life’s good. (Chill, dude!)

  6. Look on the bright side. When one plant leaves, it opens the door for another. Start planning now.

  7. John, after reading “The Journey,” I’m 100% sure you and I are brother and sister from a previous life. Everything… from that one simple task, to never ever allowing the eyes to wander when outside in the yard this time of year, to the twenty-three minutes of dread-filled pacing, all the way to the screaming, flailing and shedding of a tear, is EXACTLY what I experience every single year! Yep, we are definitely kindred spirits. All these years, I thought it was just me. Now I don’t feel alone in my gardening adventure (nightmare??) anymore. Wow.

    • We’re a wacky bunch ain’t we Cate? Glad to know you’re right there with me. We can all support each other. Ha.

  8. Every fall in my clients yards I wrap their evergreens with bird netting to keep that awful heavy wet snow from tearing them apart and it also keeps the deer and rabbits from eating them bare. I use white cable ties to keep the bird netting together ( hard to see black) and it has never failed me.

    • Thanks Kay. I know I should do it but I get lazy in the fall. Note to self for next year … I hope.

  9. Oh, John. You have a spreadsheet for your daily activities? You would shudder at my lack of organization…a plastic bag of garden tags. Perhaps it would make you even lose sleep?
    I am sorry for your garden losses. Mourn them, then start planning their replacements.
    BTW, I got to go along with Grace Peterson, garden blogger, to a wholesale nursery here in Oregon called Little Prince of Oregon who invited bloggers to tour and buy plants. 70 greenhouses. Excellent prices for the group. I don’t take it for granted how great our choices are here in Oregon. Now of course I just need decent weather to plant.

    • Organized in theory, yes. Execution, not so much. If I could choose one place to garden it would be in the PNW. I’m very jealous. My MIL lives in Oregon and we’re due for a visit soon. I’ll need to shop and ship stuff back home while there.

  10. I’m with Jeff. Look at it as an opportunity. I have been surveying my yard all winter and there’s a couple of shrubs that are not going to make it and will need to go. I think my dog Harry killed one with his incessant peeing. So I’ve been considering new plants to replace them with. I recently picked up a globe blue spruce, a few junipers and two bird’s nest spruces to be planted. Can’t wait for spring to actually arrive. These nor’easters have been ridiculous.

    • You’re right Jerry. It always feels like one step forward and two steps back. But we know that going in so just need to keep moving. You know it’s been a bad winter when you have a “Four’Easter”.

  11. I get discouraged with my garden, too. Every year I think, “I’m tired of gardening – it’s too much.” Then I get into it, and I’m obsessed again. And in bliss.

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