10 of 99

by Will Kester

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What has gardening taught me? Patience, lots and lots of patience; that's what gardening has taught me. I'm not sure about reincarnation, but a friend of mine who is certain we are reincarnated, says we have to learn a lesson while here, and if he's right, mine is patience. I want it and I want it right now. In a garden, it doesn't happen that way.

Many years ago, I lived where I had a vegetable garden. It was frustrating to plant one day and go out to see how they were doing the next morning and nothing had happened. Gradually, I learned to be patient, not very patient, but a bit. I was learning.

In most endeavors in life, I learned too quickly, wanting something really, really badly was the key to success. The more you wanted it, the harder you worked; the harder you worked, the faster it happened. It fed my concept of how the world should be. I rose in the corporate world. I rose in financial prosperity. I wanted it all and wanted it, right now.

My vegetable garden didn't understand the rules, my rules. Giving them extra fertilizer and water didn't speed up their growth a bit. Standing there, with my hands on my hips, looking crossly at the bare plowed ground didn't help, either. The bare soil just looked back at me and said, "Wait; it will be worth it."

The little green shoots eventually popped from their beds and smiled to the sun and me. I ran into the house and woke up the family. "Come look!" I said. For some reason, they weren't as impressed as I was. They rubbed the sleep from their eyes and said things like, "Yeah, whatever." I was ecstatic. The patience was worth it, what little I had shown.

Fast forward to today. I now live in the city and don't have a huge vegetable garden, but I have a nice little yard with roses and huge shade trees. I bought the house, pruned some existing, unkempt roses, and began to make plans for improvements. Not having much patience, still, I began with annuals to dress up the place as quickly as possible. Sparkling little bright yellow pansies and petunias helped some, but it needed more. I planted bulbs.

Now, I had learned from the past that gardening takes time, and bulbs take a winter to produce. I now had enough patience to endure a long cold winter in anticipation of the coming Spring's blooms, just barely. I put in crocus, tulips, and iris. I waited for Spring, pacing the floor in front of the fireplace, waiting for the sun to come back and bring forth my precious bulbs. The crocus peaked through the snow and I woke the family, saying, "Come look!" They had now learned to feign excitement.

The tulips came and the iris. I was so happy, but it needed more green, I decided. "I think I'll put in some ivy," I said. "Won't that be nice? It will grow on the fences and add a nice green background to highlight the colors."

I planted some ivy, and waited for it to spread. I planted more roses. I waited some more. Months later, the ivy hadn't covered the fence, and I was back to standing with my hands on my hips, scowling at the ivy. I planted peonies and purple sage and butterfly bush and still the ivy hadn't covered the fence; it wasn't anywhere close to covering the fence. So, I planted Virginia creeper.

If you're not familiar with Virginia creeper, it's quite prolific and will cover anything near it in a couple of years. A friend was at my house and asked what he might plant that would cover his fence and I suggested Virginia creeper. "It will cover the entire fence in a couple of years," I said.

"I don't want to wait that long," he responded. And I thought I was short on patience!

Within three years, almost all my fences, the arbor, the house, the yard, the rose beds, the fruit trees were all covered with Virginia creeper. I pruned it back constantly and watched out for the creeping into the fruit trees. I cut it out of the eaves of the house and let it cover the bay window on one side. In the summer, it looks like green stained glass as the sun shines through the leaves into the den.

I had found my plant; Virginia creeper was for impatient gardeners, like me. It now frames the waterfall painting behind the hot tub, it covers the arbor and I even found a shoot that had managed to sneak around the corner into the utility room and up the wall.

I mentioned that it covered almost all the fence. Underneath the shade of the patio area, where the waterfall and pond are, there isn't enough sunshine for Virginia creeper. So, it looked bare. Twelve years later, the ivy that I planted there has covered the area around the waterfall and pond, the bare bed where there is little sunshine, and the rest of the fence. I even found a vine trying to sneak up into my hammock this week.

It just took twelve years. "What's the rush?" the ivy asked.

Patience, lots and lots of patience; that's what gardening is teaching me, gradually, but not nearly fast enough to suit me.

Learn more about this author, Will Kester.

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