My Roots

Going back to my roots, to the first thing I need to make a home, to be happy, to feel loved - that very first thing is a garden.

My first job was tending the produce of a local farmer. Weeding. Picking fruit. Fertilizing the trees. Stringing the tomatoes so that they wouldn't sprawl out of their rows.

In college, I kept four young oak trees that I sprouted myself from their acorns. Also, a plum tree named Christie after the friend who saved the pit for me when she saw that it was viable and an aloe named Charis after the graduate who gave it to me as she left. None of those plants survived when I went back to Michigan, to my great disappointment, although that hardly seems unexpected when you're living with toddlers.

I did, however, tend my parents' apple orchard, at least one year. After watching the harvest go entirely to waste (and after all my devoted labor too!), I tried to convince them to downsize. That was the end of me tending the orchard, because my parents decided they couldn't trust me not to kill the trees instead. We had maybe eighty trees, far too many to tend in the two or three weeks of peak yield, but one has to prune and spray ALL of them if the apples are to be worm-free. I don't see why we couldn't have been better served with just twenty well-kept trees instead of eighty half-wild ones.

Never mind.

Since returning to NOVA, I've kept up a constant garden of cacti, succulents, and other exotic plants. Most of these have been rotated in and out as they don't all survive the various moves or my uncertain care. This is my second Sago Palm, as I never figured out the right combination of sun and water for the first one's needs. The taller palm, however, seems impossible to kill. The bonsai (wish I knew better what type it is) has held on for quite some time in less than ideal conditions, but it went wild with the light in my new bedroom.

I learn so much from my plants. They are patient and kind tutors. Oh, the cacti bite, to be sure, but only when they're provoked. Granted, they feel provoked by transplanting, even when I explain why it's necessary and good for them, but they forgive me and go back to growing and being the best plants they can just as soon as they can. None of them scold me for my failures with the first Sago Palm, none of them demand to know when, if ever, I'll settle down. They don't ask me why I can't keep friends (which is ridiculous; those fights only happen with that one circle).

And they don't fail to tell me when something is wrong. If I haven't watered them, they turn brown. If I've overwatered them, they go limp. If they need more sun, they stop growing. If I'm doing everything right, they thrive. I might not always know what specifically is causing their problems, but they don't hide their leaves or insist that they're okay when they obviously aren't.

They don't tell me I'm crazy or say that I cause them stress. It's always "I need" and never "you fool!"

And they're always fascinating.