It’s that time of year when the final flush of summer blooms give way to autumn mums and the breathtaking colors of fall leaves. For gardeners, it is also the time to deadhead spent flowers and prepare our gardens for the transition to fall and winter. While I love being outdoors, I must admit, fall cleanup is not always my favorite activity. I have a ton of perennials which need haircuts, trees and bushes which need pruning, and a zillion fall bulbs which need to be planted before first frost if I hope to see their blooms next spring (I’m planting daffodils, allium, and hyacinths and praying that these varieties truly are deer resistant).
Of course, I am my own worst enemy. I could have opted for a small container or balcony garden but being the obsessed passionate gardener and nature lover that I am, I instead chose to create a series of mixed beds which wind their way around 3.5 acres.
I never said I was smart.
But truth be told, I love the size and layout of our greenspaces. It brings Marty and me immeasurable happiness and they have proven to be a cornucopia of food, water, and protection for birds, bees, butterflies, and countless other creatures that swim, crawl, burrow, walk, hop, and fly. Therefore, despite not looking forward to some serious physical work – and knowing that in a few hours I would feel the angry angst from muscle groups I never knew existed – I decided to tackle the task ahead with a positive attitude. So, I loaded my electric golf cart (my indispensable workhorse) with all the necessary garden tools, plenty of cool drinks, some great tunes, and set out to tackle the task at hand.
I won’t lie. The first hour or so was not fun. I was sweating, hot, dirty, and my hip – which is still recovering from hip replacement surgery six weeks earlier – was sore.
But then something happened.
As I was reaching over to deadhead some milkweed plants (Asclepias tuberosa), I saw 8 monarch butterfly larvae still feasting on its leaves. Knowing that monarchs can ONLY feed on milkweed plants, I immediately stopped trimming, took a step back – and watched. For all my talk about encouraging others to slow down, get outside, and experience the beauty of nature, I had not heeded my own advice. I was so intent on completing the task of preparing my garden for fall, I had failed to appreciate the miracle of life which surrounded me.
And what happened next was transformational.
I continued to toil away, but as I worked, I also took the time to smell the lavender and the roses. I listened to the killdeer, the geese, and the blue jays as they flew overhead. I took off my gloves and touched the furry stems of the echinacea and the soft leaves of the metasequoia, and I watched the hundreds (thousands? millions?) of butterflies, bees, and other insects which were finding nourishment and safety in our garden. I no longer felt like I was working. Instead, by immersing myself in the garden, I felt I had become an integral part of it, a part of nature, and my role within it was one of caretaker and nurturer. My task was to ensure the garden remained healthy and strong so that it could continue to support the myriad ecosystems which depend on it. And my reward is to see it thrive and flourish, season after season, year after year, with its abundance of plants and animals which never fail to bring me incredible joy.
I’m not certain I will always feel such anticipatory bliss when I am faced with physically demanding garden chores in the future. However, when I am in the garden – or out and about anywhere in nature – I will remind myself to slow down, look around, take a deep breath, and appreciate the richness, the beauty, and the multitude of life affirming miracles which surround us. We may be human, but we are also nevertheless a part of nature.
