3 of 99

by Mary Grundy

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I purchased my first home in the middle of February 1995 in northern Canada. As you would expect the yard was buried under several feet of snow. I didn't really begin to consider the gardening possibilities or the toil that lay under the white stuff, until sometime in late April as it began to recede with the spring sun and rain.

Gardening had always been something that was relaxing and somewhat spiritual in my imagination. A gardener was an older lady wearing a sun hat, toting a basket of tools, and lovingly tending roses or begonias. Gardening was easy; my gran had made it look that way with her outrageously beautiful balcony garden. My mom had done all the gardening work in our family home, so that definitely looked easy to me. That first summer of home (and garden) ownership I would learn that everything I thought I knew was utter myth, and I would learn it the hard way.

What the thaw finally revealed was a novice's complete nightmare. The "garden" consisted of dead grass, three trees, two of which were infested with carpenter ants, and no flowerbeds. Not one. Green thumbs must be genetic, I thought, so faith in my family tree inspired me to get busy.

Lesson number one seemed simple enough to master; a garden needs a good lawn. Dead, grey grass is no complement to flowers and shrubs. So I set about trying to make grass grow. Luckily for me, my neighbour and good friend had a lush lawn and was happy to dispense advice and some equipment. I used her mower to mulch and remove the dead stuff. I bought some fertilizer on her recommendation get the one with the highest first number. Not sure what that meant, I did as instructed and used her spreader to feed the grass. I watered all night and hoped for the best.

Soon enough, I found out that you need to cut grass a lot, especially grass that's been heavily watered and loaded with nitrogen. Lesson number two was a bit more difficult; gardens require more than just some tools in a basket. Not feeling comfortable borrowing my friend's mower all summer, I made the trip to the local hardware shops to buy my own. You know when you say, I only need a basic model, no one believes you? And worse, you start to get convinced that bells and whistles make the machine. You never need just the one bit of equipment you set out to buy, either. Never. Turns out, I absolutely had to have a trimmer. More than $500 lighter, I had only just begun to spend.

Now, to be fair, the mower was a great investment, and it lasted longer than my ten-year residence in that house. I discovered that I liked cutting grass and that I was pretty good at it. The lawn was lovely after a short while, but then came time for colour. The problem, or challenge as I prefer to call it, was that I didn't have any prepared beds for planting and the choices were endless. The yard was a huge, blank canvas.

Standing at the edge of my property I decided I'd get the most impact if I put some flowers on either side of the front steps. Lesson number three was a hard one; gardening is far more grueling than my grandmother let on. My newly revived lawn needed dug up. This didn't upset me in principle, so I got a spade and began trying to extract a small rectangle of grass from the right side of the steps. Ten minutes later, I was sweating, blistered, frustrated, and no further ahead. Jumping on the spade only seemed to make it, and me bounce off the sod. It looked a bit like a poor woman's pogo stick.

Not to be deterred, I got a kitchen knife and began slicing into the ground. That worked, but only in two-inch increments. An hour later, the shapes were laid out, but weren't budging from their earthly stronghold. Another light bulb moment led me to get the ice chopper from the garage. This worked a treat to make the cuts deeper and wider and enabled me to work the spade under the grass. Now after three hours, I had the flowerbeds I wanted. I also had blisters, sunburn, mosquito bites, sore muscles and an aching back.

Lesson number four followed soon after; soil is not the same as dirt. Under the sod lay sand and clay. It certainly wasn't anything like the black soil I'd pictured flowers growing in, and after all that effort, I wanted flowerbeds that would support plants. No problem, I thought. It was just a matter of picking up a couple of bags of soil at the greenhouse when I bought my flowers.

Lesson number five came as a shock; flowers and dirt cost more than mowers. Enthusiasm may have killed my pocketbook as much as the price of greenhouse plants grown in or shipped to a harsh climate, but to be fair, it was my first garden. I wanted colour, so I got some hanging baskets, fuchsia, to put up on either side of the door, directly above the newly fashioned beds. I thought these would look lost on their own, so I got two big planters filled with geraniums, supertunias, and other brightly coloured annuals, one for either side of the porch.

Not forgetting the soil, I bought two bags and proceeded to buy enough perennials and annuals to fill two flowerbeds, one and half feet by three feet. I thought a small shrub for the back of each would fill the space and cut the cost of buying plants each year. Total bill - $350.00. That was just my first trip. By the time I'd finished correcting mistakes and the greenhouse had closed for the season, I'd bought another $250 worth of other plants and paraphernalia.

Lesson number six was one I really should have seen coming; it's hard to tend a flower garden if you are terrified of bees. Pulling up weeds and deadheading annuals requires you to get up close and personal with your flowers. Bees love flowers. I hate bees. No, that's not true. I hold no malice towards bees, but they scare me witless. Besides, I'd planted annuals at the foot of the front steps, placed two huge planters at the top, and hung baskets by the door. It was like running a bee-lined gauntlet to get inside. A bit of foresight might have helped. Certainly the "gardening is relaxing" myth was dispelled. My adrenalin was on high half the time.

Lesson number seven was not one I'd anticipated; gardens require a bit of knowledge to maintain properly. Wasn't gardening meant to be easy? Don't plants grow in the wild without an expert to tend them? My flowerbeds actually did well and my lawn started to fill out and look great even though I had to cut it twice a week. However, the fuchsias had somehow morphed into baskets of sticks. Apparently they do better in shade. My front steps sat in the full sun. Some flowers in the pots went to seed after I'd neglected to deadhead them. As they began to look a little thin, I headed back to the garden centre for more fillers. I really had to get some expert advice and my mom was more than happy to oblige. Don't parents wait for that moment when their children admit they may know something after all? My $600.00 didn't go to total waste. My mom helped me keep the rest of my flowers alive until first frost, and they did look great.

Autumn came and I was at least $1100 poorer. My hands were calloused and my nails had no hope of pulling off a French manicure. I had a yard full of green grass and two tiny spots of colour beside the front steps. Now, here came lesson number eight; gardening is addictive. Despite the cost, the fear, the failures, and the pain, I was hooked.

That fall, I surveyed my yard, and in my mind's eye, I was cutting up more lawn for beds near the front. I planned some shrubs, some trees and more perennials. Money was no object, pain no barrier. I wanted more. And over the years, I got it. By the time I moved, I had three more huge flowerbeds, five trees, and about a dozen shrubs. My gran would have loved it. I certainly did. Even though I've since sold the house, I still feel that the garden is mine. My blood, sweat and tears (and cold, hard cash) went into it. I've not seen my garden since I left Canada four years ago, and maybe that's a good thing. The current homeowners may not appreciate me digging up their grass.

Learn more about this author, Mary Grundy.

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