by Melissa Bagley

Created on: May 27, 2008   Last Updated: June 09, 2008

I had my first real garden when I was about eighteen. We had a massive yard when I was growing up and my Dad had always planted all sorts of flowers and vegetables. I wanted a spot all my own so he let me have a place under an old mesquite tree at the end of the yard. I wasn't sure what I wanted out there, but I had always been drawn to the more unusual side of things. It was natural for me to decide to plant what most people considered "weeds" in what I would eventually name Faith Garden.In those days, I had also considered myself kind of like a weed too. I planted iris and Cannes first because there was an abundance of them. I moved onto dandelions and baby's' breath. I brought in all sorts of rocks and I outlined the whole place with them. It was so full of color and each piece of it just fit together. I would go out into fields and find plants that I thought were beautiful and different. I was able to really express myself in this place. Here I could be myself. I turned an empty place that nothing would grow in, into a haven for forgotten plants.

I had a special place I called "The Mountain" that I loved to go to get away from my problems. I spent one whole afternoon with buckets and a spade transporting plants from there to my garden. It was a way to bring a piece of my hiding place home to where I lived.

I can remember my Dad shaking his head in wonder at the fact that I had turned it into what he considered nothing worth having. But to me, it was the most beautiful place in the world. In Faith Garden, the weeds of the world were special and important. He loved me, but he did not share my enthusiasm for weeds. I kept them anyway and sometimes he would water them for me when I was away at college.

I would get married about five years after I started this journey of gardening. It was much to my grief to find out that a few days after my wedding my Dad went out and plowed up everything I planted. I never could understand why he did that. But I'll never forget the memories of watching things grow and bloom. And sometimes when I drive by the old place, I see a sunflower out there. It is a testament to what a little love, water and work will do. Faith is something that you can't really plow up.

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