After Jeff died, I did many things that ordinarily I wouldn’t have done, such as taking dance classes and joining a hiking club, because I worried that otherwise I’d stagnate, that I’d become the crazy cat lady sans cats, the one who was so alone that she’d be dead a week before anyone ever noticed she was gone.
Even after I moved here, I kept up with socializing, and I did rather well for a year until The Bob came and changed everything. Now I spend most of my time by myself, with only my job, a weekly visit to the library, and a monthly get together with the art guild to take me out of myself.
Perhaps I am on the way to stagnation as I feared, but the one saving grace is my interest in gardening, which means I won’t be the catless cat lady, I’ll be that old lady who is only seen when she is outside working on her garden. There are people around who, I am sure, would make sure I don’t devolve into that woman, but more to the point, there will be the garden.
I’m still such a neophyte that no matter what I do, a percentage of what I plant ends up dead, but that is not discouraging me. In fact, just today, I received a mailer from a plant company for things to plant this fall. Cold hardy hibiscus. Carpet phlox. Oriental poppies. Shade loving astilbe. Even the names are evocative! My ability to keep plants alive in both the burning heat of mid-summer and the bitter cold of mid-winter isn’t what I would like it to be, though I wonder at times if the problem is solely with me and if perhaps the soil, the plants themselves, or the seller share some of the blame. There’s only one company I ever purchased plants from who sent plants that are all still alive a year later. The plants from other companies don’t fare as well; in fact, all but two of the plants I got from a company that specializes in prairie plants never made it through the winter.
Still, I try. It seems to me as if my gardening expertise is a lesson in hope over reality. But I continue to dream anyway. And as long as I can dream, even if it is only dreaming a garden, I won’t stagnate. Oh, I might well become the neighborhood crazy lady, though in my own head and in my own garden, I’ll be active and spirited and very much alive.
One of these days, too, I’ll get back into writing, though I haven’t yet thought of a story or characters I’d be willing to live with for the year or so it will take to write the book.
Meantime, it’s a matter of deciding what plants to order and where to put them.
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August 25, 2021 at 3:19 pm
Pat again good post. As far as I am in a situation stagnation at least intellectually. With pandemic I have stopped my japanese classes. At the moment grief continue to control me. Instead of fight with or to get over with. I try to cope with. As far as I can’t fall in love with anything or anyone. I continue to keep in touch with IT technical informations and try to keep my plants alive.
As far as you are a enthusiastic and amateur gardener you are going to learn with good mistakes.
Please be aware of catalogs plants and selections of the plants good with your soil and with your garden climate.
The catalog plants done with professionals. The people dream and active and crazy made miracles for them and for others.
Please plant four seasons plants. I can have flowers in winter. But I don’t have a real garden.
Some catalogs plants never stay for a long time. This is my 20 years experience. That is one of the reasons I never command plants by catalogs.
As far as a leaner I continue to learn.
Dream with perseverance and common sense always will help you.
August 25, 2021 at 6:22 pm
Next spring, I hope to go to a garden center in the next town. Maybe they will have some good plants for me.