Year Start to End
Despite a very long and cold winter that had many of us bemoaning life in the northeast, the first six months weren’t so bad. In February I celebrated 15 years publishing this website. It still shocks me to think that so much time has passed. I organized my massive seed collection (no small feat. It took an entire day!), giving myself the jumpstart I needed to push my brain out of the winter doldrums and into planning the forthcoming growing season. In late March we were FINALLY rewarded with the first signs of spring.
From the moment the first green things started poking up though the soil, I went a little mental. I gardened hard. I gardened like I had never gardened before, and that’s saying a lot since I’m no stranger to overdoing it. I cut into the already dwindled pathways even more. I bought at least 30 more pots and stuffed them into every nook and made space where there was none. I dug up a patch of my neighbour’s yard that was generously offered up by her and I planted over there too. After a long, painful winter I just needed to be out there. I needed the soil in my hands. I needed to see, smell, touch, and breath in living green things.
And then things took a terrible turn.
I became very ill at the end of June and spent the rest of the year focussing on my health. For that reason gardening had to take a back seat, as did a lot of other things. 2015 was the toughest year of my adult life. I have faced my own mortality in a new and very visceral way. I feel like I lost the last shreds of innocence, denial, or whatever it is that keeps us all going without the paralysis that can come when we step into the full awareness that our lives can be cut short at any moment. I’m not dying, but there were some scary times when I thought that I was, and because I am still fighting to regain my health, I no longer feel certain about my future in the way I once did. That is jarring.
Favourite Story of 2015
The following two pieces were the most defining of the year, but also some of the best that I wrote:
- Gardening Mad: I wrote this in the frenzy of the gardening season, just a few weeks before I became ill. It proved to be somewhat prophetic.
- The Gardener is Sick: 4 months after first becoming ill I wrote this piece about how the inability to get out into the garden at the height of the gardening season had affected me.
These others were also important to me because they tell of the trajectory I was on before I got sick and they speak to the direction I will continue to take moving forward:
- The Lost Language of Plants: To sum it up, this one is about connection and how we can find it in the garden.
- Gardening Without a Garden: “That someone could put so much into a space that may be pulled out from underneath them at any moment seems improbable. And yet here we are, growing where we’re not supposed to and doing it in what seems (at least from the outside) on an illogical scale.”
Some of my favourite photos of the year were images of the tomatoes I grew. Here is a sampling. You can see more at my Etsy shop, where I am selling some homegrown tomato seeds.
Favourite Plant of the Year
I torture myself with this question each year. Choosing favourites is tough when there are so many that brighten my life in their unique way. I also managed to introduce several new plants into the garden this year so there were even more to consider.
Favourite Garden Visited
For the first time since I can remember, I didn’t visit any new gardens within the calendar year.
Favourite Picture Posted in 2015
I took some photos this year that I am very proud of; however, they have yet to make it to this site. That said, there are a few images on the site that I like, including these that I took of my garden in late July/early August. My other favourites were posted for the series I started about the trip to the Caribbean that I took six years ago. They were posted in 2015, but the photos were taken in 2009 so I’m not sure that they count.
Looking Forward
This year I can’t know what the spring will hold and the lack of certainty has forced me to shift expectations and learn to be more accepting of what comes. I just don’t know if I will have the energy or ability to garden full throttle as I have in the past. I will be able to again, but perhaps not this year. Furthermore, I have changed how I see the garden and what I want from the experience. This mental evolution/revolution was already in motion well before I became ill. I’ve mentioned before that over the last several years I have been exploring the gifts that gardening brings that lay far beyond aesthetic perfection, productivity, and accomplishment. For me, the garden has become less a space in which I can stand back and say to myself, “Look at what I have done“, and instead is becoming a place just to look and BE. It is a little piece of earth for me to explore, discover, and appreciate the natural world that exists right here, right now. It is also where I find perspective, find out about myself, and find my place in the world. It is, quite literally, my grounding.
For that reason, and because my mindset was already evolving towards a different less machismo way of gardening, my goals for the coming year have nothing to do with accomplishment or kicking ass. All I want is to be healthy and strong enough to get out there everyday and take in whatever the garden brings. Since moving to this space in late 2010, I have become increasingly interested in learning about and observing the ever-increasing range of pollinators that have visited the garden. This year I hope to be able to dive into that headlong by spending more time observing them and their patterns within the space. Who is visiting my garden? Where did they come from? Which plants do they prefer best (I already have observations on this)? What improvements can I make to better serve their needs?
Everything else that comes from the growing year is anyone’s guess. It will happen as it happens.
What do you hope to achieve/experience during the 2016 gardening year?
That turquoise chamomile picture is GORGEOUS.
There’s a new book that came out this year that’s getting good reviews… Good Bug – Bad Bug. It’s on my list too, as I want to know all about my garden visitors. This year I will have a new greenhouse to work with, so that’s what I’ll also be concentrating on learning about. Honestly, I think I’ll be happy just sitting inside it with tea and some classical music, but I’m hoping for some growing success too :)
You’re gonna have a great time with that new greenhouse.
Oh, Gayla. The last few paragraphs are so beautiful I had to print them out and paste them into my journal. They’re where my head is at too, although I didn’t suffer an illness such as yours. But I similarly feel that need to slow down, be grounded, be present, instead of the machismo attitude of “how much can I produce rah rah”…
Thank you for these words.
I am really touched that you would print my words out and paste them into your journal. Such a nice thing to hear. Thank you.
Hi, have you ever hooked up with Shawna Coronado in chicago? She is a gardener and writer as well, and became ill this year as well and had to scale waaay back on gardening. …maybe you guys can exchange ideas? Just a thought ….. take care and i’m praying for the best in 2016 for all of us!!
Gayla, this is a very beautiful and honest post. Your writing is rich and enlightening. Often in life it takes something drastic to happen to us in order to become wiser and a bit more tranquil in our endeavors. You have that gifted ability to express yourself clearly and beautifully because you have very strong feelings not only about gardening but about life in general. There’s a book in you just waiting to be written. I wish you all the best for 2016 and I will come back often this year to read this post again because it will be my grounding. Thank you!
Thank you.
I don’t know you, but we’ve shared so much in what 2015 held for us. Severe illness, loss, figuring out who we are when our body doesn’t let us be who we were. I’m so glad you’re feeling stronger, and I wish you continued healing and a much, much better 2016.
I garden these days at a much slower pace, and in a much smaller space. At times I have felt guilty that I can no longer manage a huge country garden with the accompanying marathons of planting and weeding, freezing and canning. My city back yard has a thriving, rather naturalized herb garden, a wee veggie garden, a tiny pond, a small greenhouse (a never ending adventure for me…) and lots of overgrown perennials. It has become more of a meditation as well, and I am as thrilled about seeing my first praying mantis and hummingbird moth, and the fact that my grandkids watch for the metallic green sweat bees, as I used to be by the bushels of produce our garden produced. My children and grandchildren love nature, and I am growing gardeners…Wishing you joy in the journey in 2016 and happy gardening…
Nothing to feel guilty about there. A small city garden is as beneficial to all of the little critters you mentioned as a big one. Probably needed even more-so!
I so enjoy reading your recorded thoughts. We have a lot in common.
A poem to ponder…
Life
A crust of bread and a corner to sleep in,
A minute to smile and an hour to weep in,
A pint of joy to a peck of trouble,
And never a laugh but the moans come double;
And that is life!
A crust and a corner that love makes precious,
With a smile to warm and the tears to refresh us;
And joy seems sweeter when cares come after,
And a moan is the finest of foils for laughter;
And that is life!
Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1872-1905
Paul Laurence Dunbar was the first African-American poet to garner national critical acclaim. Born in Dayton, Ohio, in 1872, Dunbar penned a large body of dialect poems, standard English poems, essays, novels and short stories before he died at the age of 33. His work often addressed the difficulties encountered by members of his race and the efforts of African-Americans to achieve equality in America. He was praised both by the prominent literary critics of his time and his literary contemporaries.
Thank you for this Beverly
I”m sorry. For someone as active as your are that must be hell and not to be able to garden..the lowest level of hell. I’ve had a couple of years of unexpected illness and it does change you and how you think about yourself and you life. You’re strong and have a great partner – you will find a way through it all.
Thanks Kath. It’s been pretty brutal and I’m just hoping that I’ll be in shape to garden again come spring.
I happened on your blog today, and the first thing I noticed was that your name is Gayla, just like my sister! Then I saw this post, and it hit me where I live. I’ve been an avid gardener, and a master gardener, but 2015 was also a low point for me garden-wise. I simply couldn’t do what I used to do, and it was beyond frustrating. I could convince dear hubby to pick up the slack, but it just wasn’t the same as doing it myself. But at the end of the year, I finally got a new knee, and though the recovery was brutal, I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m feeling better every day. Will 2016 see a return to the garden for me, and for you? Only time will tell. May you continue to heal!
It’s shocking to me how many have said that 2015 was a terrible year for them. Glad to hear that you’re coming back around.
So glad to hear you are healing. 2015 was not a good year for me, either. I broke my foot, didn’t listen to the doctor, and wound up wearing my boot for much longer than expected…the entire summer. Meanwhile my yard got beyond me. I live in South Florida, so summer is the time one especially needs to keep up on things. Well, the experience was one to last a lifetime. It certainly gave me a chance to be realistic, and let go of many things. It has been difficult, but good at the same time. Wishing you an improved 2016, light, and peace.
Wishing you good health and speedy recovery as well. But please take it slowly and take care too. And even it’s late wishing you for a better healthy year 2016