It started about five or six years ago when Brooke, the little girl next door, began yelling at me from her porch.
"That's a hydrangea," she'd shout as I slaved in the yard. "Robins use
them to decorate their nests." "If you put that there it won't get any
sun." "Those are seeds. If you shove a couple in the ground, they'll
come up all over." Gardening was supposed to be a solitary opportunity
to concentrate on Mother Nature's wonders; instead, I was being
bellowed at by a 6-year-old Master (Sergeant) Gardener.
Brooke had watched me pull weeds, sneeze up a storm and attempt to kill
my lawn for years. Eventually she mustered the courage to walk through
the hedge that conveniently separates our properties and make
additional inane observations, but at much closer range. Pointing out
particularly colorful butterflies or helping untangle a hose, Brooke
was just helpful enough to keep me from shooing her off the lot.
"I think we should start a Garden Club," she mentioned one day. "Can
you make a meeting on Saturday?" she inquired.
I told her I like to keep my weekends kinda wide open, mainly so I can
sleep in. But this was a persistent kid.
"How about noon?" I finally relented.
"That's a lot of sleeping," she replied.
The meeting was set.
At precisely 12, Brooke skipped over and sat down on an overturned pot.
I reclined next to her on a lawn chair with an espresso in hand. Like a
seasoned Shriner, she immediately took charge of the meeting. We
proceeded to take a roll call (my idea), discussed some rules
(mandatory attendance) and elect a President (she won unanimously). We
talked about what flowers we liked and why spiders don't make their
webs higher off the ground, and the gathering was pretty much over.
The next few weeks went by without a meeting (rain delays and several
hangovers prevented me from toiling in the yard.).
One day, on my way
to putting out the recycling (she had the schedule down pat), Brooke
pinned me for the following Saturday. This time the President was
prepared: We had roll call and discussed the state of the garden
(pretty good, but my lawn refused to die), followed by a brief
dandelion removal project. Then Brooke announced it was time for a
neighborhood "walking tour" that would feature a number of local pea
patches.
Taking my hand, she took me on a visit of several neighbors' yards,
introducing me to people I'd lived next to for years but never spoken
with. Truth is, that's actually how I had wanted it, but Brooke was
breaking down more than a few barriers, opening me up to the remote
possibility that youngsters were more than hyperactive noise machines.
Brooke pointed out features in other gardens that I could incorporate
into my own (proper tools, sheds, water features, fruits and edible
herbs, etc.). It was then I realized this child had been studying
gardening for years and might be a genuine resource on the subject.
The Garden Club grew, both in membership (we added her Mom -- my choice
-- and some kid named Riley) and frequency. We brought pictures of
landscapes from magazines and books (she liked topiaries, I liked lawn
chairs), and began trading groundcovers and life philosophies, and
making real progress (except in killing the darn lawn).
Many jobs involved Brooke in a supervisory role -- me high on a ladder,
or with a power tool of some sort, her looking on with arched brow.
"You know what to do, right?" I'd ask for the umpteenth time.
"Call 911 if you're unconscious or missing any limbs," she'd reply.
Often the Garden Club meetings were quick -- in between her family
outings and my frequent naps. (This was in the days before I met
Vanessa, now my fiance, and her twins.) Always full of fresh ideas,
Brooke came up with all sorts of agricultural projects. One day it was
taking soil samples: "Not good!" she shouted at the Tupperware test
tube. "Too much clay, too many potato bugs."
Another day was all about aphid spotting (and killing). Though it made
her sad, she sprayed the suckers like Al Pacino in "Scarface." (The
meetings were not without humor: When pondering the reason aphids
seemed only to chow newer leaves, Brooke responded, "You wouldn't eat
old chicken.")
We even had an emergency meeting to deal with a mole wreaking havoc.
Brooke (no surprise) had a solution. The mystical concoction was part
Harry Potter, part Mad Max, and as effective as napalm. We mixed sugar,
our own hair, leaves, salt, bubble gum (tied in a knot) -- plus one
last ingredient I promised not to divulge -- in a large bowl, stirred
until disgusting, then dripped the mess into several mole holes.
Lo and behold (and I swear this is the truth), a few days later the
rodent was found lying on his back in the middle of my lawn. (A crude
dissection from Riley proved the gum had done the trick.) Brooke,
dismayed that we killed Mr. Mole, suggested we lessen the dosage next
go-round so any future visiting mole only "gets the message" and moves
on to some other neighborhood.
Today Brooke is 11 and not nearly as interested in horticulture as
boys, bikes and books. Now I wait, shovel in hand, hoping she'll prance
over to impart some much-needed wisdom and unique perspective on
bug-catching, digging in the dirt and stopping to smell the roses.
I hollered over the hedge the other day about unexplained absences at a
recent Club meeting. "Oh, sorry," she replied. "Justin and I went to
the park on our bikes..."
Maybe it's not such a bad idea to set a specific time for the Garden
Club, after all. Hate to let too much time slip by before we have
another one...
