We’re supposed to be in Greece. Instead, I’m in my garden trying to adjust to living with severe arthritis and a torn meniscus. Who knew? I sure didn’t until the orthopedist let me have it with both barrels. On the horizon, she told me, are PT and learning a new kind of caution in my daily routine.
We plan, the gods laugh. But it’s time for gratitude and not a pity party. Slowly I am discovering that I can still weed (and transplant stuff with some difficulty), deadhead and help with the mulching. And at the end of day, I still can walk the beds with a cane or walker and thrill to a world of growth and beauty right in my own backyard.
Irony of ironies, the industrial strength walker I picked up on permanent loan from the local senior center was covered in labels that turned out to be from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Some other garden lover it seems, was using that built-in seat not just to rest but to transport trowels and spades and diggers.
Gardening as we get older is a triumph of love and will over nature: aching joints, twingy backs and a host of other ailments. It is small comfort to hear friends are experiencing the same thing this season.
“I’m learning to pace myself,” one told me just this week. Where she once could garden for hours on end, the clock has now become a part of her garden routine. “Two hours and I’m done,” she lamented. I have yet to hit that limit.
But progress comes even in small doses. A series of square-foot weed free patches can achieve the same thing as tackling half a bed. It just takes longer. And where there’s time, there’s hope.
In a pinch, a long-handled spade can work as well as a cane when navigating tricky terrain. The seat on a walker is handy for schlepping tools and my once under-used “weeding bag.” Awkward as all this might look, such strategic adjustments work. I’m sure the physical therapist will have his or her share of ideas as well.
We garden for life. It grounds us, literally and physically, even when our bodies are fighting the whole idea. Exercise, flexibility, strength training — to say nothing of the mental health factor — are among the rewards for every minute we spend bending and stretching and balancing to catch that last patch of weeds lurking under the variegated willow.
I dedicate this column to those of you facing a new gardening season with your own “new reality.” My husband might have washed those department of agriculture stickers off the frame of my second-hand walker, but their message endures: a reminder that we are not alone. And finding a way to garden, whatever our age or circumstances, can enrich our lives beyond measure.
Author of the 2006 regional best-selling novel “Time in a Garden,” Mary Agria is an 8-time first prize winner of the Michigan Garden Club’s statewide feature writing contest. Her “An Itinerant Gardener’s Book of Days,” gardening novels and books on gardening and spirituality are available online and from local bookstores.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Time in a Garden: We garden for life
Reporting by Mary Agria, The Petoskey News-Review / The Petoskey News-Review
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Mary Agria, The Petoskey News-Review | USA TODAY Network
