Once upon a time there was an above ground pool in my backyard.
The kids and I gloried in that pool! It took up the whole of the space. A few clumps of grass grew up around the edges, but between deck and pool, most of the yard was taken.
The kids would jump in after football practice (not soccer, American football) to cool off, and calm down. The pool served as a poor woman’s air conditioner on hot nights as we’d pile in before bed, washing away the sweat of the day and softening into the evening. It was one of my favourite things about this house we’d purchased, laying down new roots here in Ottawa in the early days of my divorce recovery years.
While it can be hot here in Canada in the summer, humid in eastern Ontario where we live, the winters are notoriously cold. By January, the pool was frozen solid. Five feet deep and 24 feet across, it was one big ice cube. And no, we couldn’t skate on it for fear of nicking the lining. The pool stood silent sentry as the days passed till I could open it again in early May.
One winter, our third in this house now turned home, snow piled higher than ever on our yard, straining and ultimately breaking the metal arms holding the giant ice cube aloft. With the warming of spring, the water seeped, then flowed out of the pool, leaving us with a torn liner and the metal sides all crumpled and broken.
It took the kids and me some time to get the bits all dealt with – we cut the liner off and folded it for garbage, and then together, we rolled the metal sides into a ball that was taller than me and then deposited the lot at the end of the driveway for the metal recycler to fetch.
Sigh. No more pool.
And then, three more years of the saucer of sand in the backyard. A 24-foot diameter circle in which nothing could grow. Finally, my mother showed up at my house with a few perennial plants from her garden. Perennials, for those of you who don’t know, are plants, often flowers, that come back each year. When they get too big, they need to be cut in half or more for the continued good health of the plant. It’s a process called “splitting.” She had a few hosta and sedum for me that she’d split and wanted me to plant in the sandy, barren soil.
“Just dig a hole, stick in some garden soil and water it all down. Then place the plant in, with more soil on top. Push it down to help it get settled. And then let nature take over,” she advised me. And so began my reluctant journey into gardening.
“Don’t be too gentle, just handle the plant firmly and get the job done.” Advice I hear in my heart and ear every time I take a spade to my plants.
My mom was a lovely person, with a deeply competitive streak. I knew that gardening was her thing, and I dipped my toe into it gingerly, careful to preserve her position as wisdom-giver. As a result, I developed the idea that I hold to even now, 20 years later: I am a gardener of “benign neglect.” Dig the hole, put the plant in, tend to it without holding on to the outcome too tightly. In this way, and with a lot of pine mulch for soil development, I now have a thriving garden that lives in the whole of my backyard. An oasis of life offering a different kind of cool, one that changes through the seasons. And a wonderful reminder of my lovely mum.
This attitude of benign neglect has served me well in the garden, and in my life. Set your course, tend to it as needed, don’t hold on too tightly to outcomes, and be ready to shift as events dictate.
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