Digging for Insights
By Diana Reynolds Roome
Fine Gardening, December 2005
My father was a man of few words, but when he spoke while tending our garden back in England, his most offhand remarks seemed profound. In cool weather, his words would emerge along with a visible exhalation of breath, giving him the air of an oracle, so that even “Rake the leaves” bore the force of a declaration from nature. As he stood wreathed in the damp overgrowth of the ivy or Russian vine he was trying to tame, he reminded me of the mythical Green Man, whose carved face and leafy headdress I’d seen peering from stone pillars in dark, medieval churches, with leaves and tendrils spewing from his mouth.
Something my father said years ago in that garden has led me to my dry plot in California today, where I coax the cool-climate plants I’ve loved since childhood to grow among olive, tangerine, lemon, pepper, and fig trees. As he stood among the roses in his Wellington boots, his leathery hands partially covered by ragged, fingerless gloves, he advised me to ditch a boyfriend who had been causing chaos in my life for far too long. If he had pronounced his verdict indoors, I might have shrugged it off. But a few words of advice in this garden were enough to alter my life forever.
A week later, amid much turmoil, I gave notice to my errant partner. That act ultimately brought me to America, far away from the squelching, drizzly climate that my father had learned to turn to his advantage. When he delivered his few well-considered words he was sharing a lesson he’d learned as a gardener: Drastic measures are sometimes the only way to encourage new growth. In my lonesome state, I felt like a shrub chopped to ground level. Yet, my father knew I would thrive again in time. He was right. In coming to America, I met my husband. Our two sons were born here, I found work opportunities, and I felt life bloom again.
Recently, I’ve had an inkling about why his words carried such weight. During his quiet labors in the garden he reflected on great and small matters, including love, war, dealing with kids, and paying bills. He was always more cheerful when he came indoors after a gardening session, and I instinctively knew he’d been working things out. His thoughts were probably enriched as much by the soil as that soil was by his digging and composting.
These days, I experience a similar interplay between mind and matter. Writing in my home office, I’m drawn outside whenever I feel stuck or discombobulated. Physically demanding tasks – pruning, digging, weeding, transplanting – often free my thoughts. As I turn on the hose to water a dry pot, the soothing sound helps restore the flow of ideas. A knotty problem may instigate a strenuous digging session. After 30 minutes, I’ve got not just a large hole waiting for some pot-bound plant, but sometimes a solution to a more abstract challenge too. The simple focus of transplanting a camellia or pruning a rose induces new insights. Clearing away a tangle of weeds often leads to mental clarity. As I work the soil, unexpected ideas emerge with the graceful insistence of daffodils in spring.
As my father grew older, he often hacked back the encroaching bramble and nettles as if trying to stave off the passage of time with shears and scythe. During his final months, after a diagnosis of cancer, working in the garden kept him on an even keel and helped him to face the inevitability of death.
The Green Man has always been associated with the renewal of life even after death. Though his origins are a mystery, this mythical figure represents the deep connection between humans and the natural world, and the wisdom forged from that ancient partnership. If my father’s words had emerged as a spray of leaves, akin to images of the Green Man, I would still have done my best to understand what they had to tell me.
These days, whenever I plant a flat of annuals or pots of perennials, my attention is focused simply on the task at hand. I may be cultivating the soil to encourage tender plants to stretch their roots, but my trowel may also be preparing me for a moment of insight. In a garden, you can never be sure what might be pushing through.