by Jennifer Bunn

Created on: August 26, 2008   Last Updated: September 21, 2008

Every year I venture down to our local greenhouse to peruse the hundreds of annuals and perennials waiting like puppies in a pet store for someone to pick them out and take them home. And every year, the owner of the greenhouse eyes me coming through the entrance with a mixture of confusion and laughter on her face.Every year I come, and every year I fail.

You see, it is my deepest desire to become a gardener. And not just any gardener. I want people to look at the outside of my home with envy and wonder. But it never happens. Instead, by August, the flowers I so proudly planted in June are wilted, stunted, and dead.

I was born with a congenital black thumb. My mother had the curse too. It is a family trait, passed down on the maternal side of my family. My daughters are similarly cursed. All three of them have brought home a seed that was planted in class, and that flourished for a short while on the windowsill at school, only to die an ugly death on our windowsill at home.

My husband occasionally buys me flowers. I am not sure if he does this to show his deep, abiding love for me or simply to torment me. I truly mourn every plant or flower that I inadvertently kill, either by neglect when I forget to water, or by overwatering. A pot full of greenery makes my heart leap with joy but causes some anxiety, as I begin to worry about when my poisonous attention (or lack thereof) will take its toll, and the leaves will fall off, reminding me yet again that I am a menace to all plant life.

Yet I never give up. Spring brings with it my wild desire to create something beautiful. Digging in the dirt makes me happy and feeds my creative soul. Perhaps that is the magic of gardening, that pride you take in seeing something you have created come to life. The magic doesn't last very long at my house, yet still I persevere.

Next year, when June rolls around and the air warms and smells of growing grass, I will put on my old clothes and I will go to the greenhouse, and the owner will once again eye me with amusement. But I won't care, because I am a gardener.

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