Growing a Garden

michaelgcasey Uncategorized 18/03/2019 3 Minutes

Growing a Garden©
By
Michael Casey

Well I wondered what to say today, then I thought I’ve just been planting some seeds, so I’ll try that. I did look to see if I’d written about gardens before and found something from 2013, so 6 years later here’s something else on gardens. We have moved house, and we had a nice bush separating us from the neighbour, but he wanted a wall. So my bush took a fall for the wall. However it gave me a chance to plant a garden our side of the wall up to the house. So that is what I’ve been doing these past few weeks.

The bush has been drastically cut back, but it will grow again, but only on our side of the wall. At its base I’ve planted colourful flowers, yellow, purple and orange. Don’t ask me for the names, who do you think I am? I’m not my mum or my brother, he has inherited her green fingers up to the elbow. Mum used to dive into a bush and get a cutting from Municipal Gardens while on holiday, she’d sprinkle water on it and wrap it in a bit of plastic bag. Then 2 weeks later back home in Birmingham she’d plant it and it would grow for her.

My daughter had Valentine flowers so after we had them in water for 2 weeks and were fading I decided to copy my mother. So I have removed all the petals and chopped the stems, these I have planted in our front garden. In theory we will have red roses, if they grow. I checked them as I planted today’s microscopic seeds, and my rose stems seem not to have died. Though that does not mean they will grow, but we will see. If they do grow this will mean I have green fingers up to my smelly armpits, and I will be so proud.

I have moved some Shamrock from the old house to the new one, I don’t know will it flourish like it did before by the kitchen garden wall. A splash of colour is a great thing. If things go well I will attack the borders in the back garden. That’ll be my achievement, stories galore with colours galore in the gardens.

People are like gardens too they have to be fed and watered, and nourished with love. Prince Charles talks to his plants, as we all should, God created them, so HE will accept conversation that way. Though pets in the borders might offend God, shades of “garde de l’eau”. A new friendship might start will a beer down the pub, or an overpriced Latte. Buy a jar of instant and have 100 cups of coffee together, the friendship will be much more productive.

We all know the Parable of the Sower, where seeds land on rocky land and die, or they are planted in good earth and grow, not forgetting where they grow fast and die. Seeds have to be tended. Otherwise they are like a One Night Stand, they might be pleasurable but risks of disease and shame can be attached. So it is with friendships and love. If you don’t water the friendship it dies, if you are too busy to meet or even call or face-time then a friendship or love dies. So you have to make the effort.

A plant can get all overgrown, like a man’s beard, or a woman’s legs, so you need to take time for personal grooming. A plant needs to be rotated to get more sun or it will just grow lopsided, or if in the garden it needs to be trained to grow up the wall. So it is with friendship, not that I’m saying a woman needs to be trained to grow up a man, nor a  man needs more composting, maybe just a bit of trimming.

Plants grow and are a thing of beauty, they are pleasing to the eye, like a workman’s bum in chocolate adverts on tv. Plants are restful after a hard day at work, they revive us, they relax us. Tending to a plant takes our mind off the days events, if you don’t have a pet then a plant can be a 2^nd best option. Our friendships are like our plants, they bear fruit.

Jake will always be there for you, he’ll carry the shopping up the stairs when the lifts break down again, and he knows his onions. He grows them in his window box and when you laughed at him he invited you to taste them with his fancy cooking. And that was the start of a new friendship.

Water, grown, trim, direct and harvest. These are things we do with our plants in the garden or in our window box. We need to do that with our friendships too, for Love Grows Where my Rosemary Goes.