Wally's Garden
On January 1, 2025, I will have been a paid, freelance writer for 20 years. It’s all but impossible for me to believe that doing something I enjoy has made it possible for me to support myself, purchase a home, and interact with all sorts of interesting people. I was recently cleaning out files and came across the first article I sold, an essay about my inner-city, Cleveland garden. (I was an urban pioneer for a decade or so, but that’s a discussion for another time.) I think I got $100 for the essay from a now-defunct online magazine. I was hesitant to read it after all of these years. Sometimes creative efforts don’t stand up over time, but I think this one does. I thought I’d share it…
Wally’s Garden
I came to know Wally, the former owner of my Cleveland, Ohio century home, while working out in the garden. When I acquired the house, the elegant clapboard structure, with its leaded glass windows and chestnut woodwork, had been badly abused. So, too, had the garden. Its towering lilac bushes, sprawling peonies and climbing roses still peeked out from beneath a sea of waist-high weeds, but they no longer bloomed. I could envision the majesty of the garden, but having spent my first 30 years in apartments, I had no idea where to start. That's when Wally stepped in to help me.
By both strange and ordinary coincidence, my roommate grew up in the house behind mine. Wally used to baby-sit for him. As I was spending my first weeks tugging at weeds and briar bushes whose roots I was sure originated in China, Dennis (that's my nature-avoiding roommate) handed me some shiny, black and white photos dated 1963 in the margin. They were picture of the garden--my garden--in its beautiful infancy. The majestic oak tree, the centerpiece of the garden that I have dubbed the "tree of life", was ust a slender sapling then. There were perennials and evergreens, long since gone, and a quiet pond bordered by willowy irises, long dried up. There were containers strategically placed around the garden cascading with variegated broad-leafed ivies. I could imagine the fragrance wafting from wisteria vines that climbed the sides of a pergola encasing the back porch. That was Wally's garden.
I have learned patience in the 10-year journey of turning my urban wasteland into a flowering oasis--patience to believe that the little two-inch pot that I plant today will, in five years or so, become a 10-foot shade tree and patience to know that not everything I plant will thrive. I still laugh when I remember my mother, another inside person, asked me, early in the garden project, when I would be finished. As every gardener knows, you are never finished. Nature sees to it. Wally knew that.
Sitting now amid the flowers, fragrances and textures of the garden, it's hard for me to know how I lived all those years in a second-floor apartment. The joy and anticipation of a flower's first blossom, the feeling of accomplishment when the first pepper or eggplant or tomato appears on the vine, and the quiet inspiration of winter's frozen landscape are rewards you can't find at the local Wal-Mart. I can't imagine never having the chance to watch butterflies emerge in the late summer and dip lazily among the purple coneflowers, or to smile at the squirrels romping playfully across the laden peach tree branches, or to marvel at the ever-amazing bleeding heart spring back to life each spring after dying off, all the way to the ground. Wally knew that, too.
Wally’s garden combined different textures and shapes. He mixed evergreens with perennials with vibrant annuals. Wildlife found a haven in Wally’s garden. Butterflies and birds came to the garden for shelter, water, and food, as well as a safe haven. Wally’s wasn’t one of those gardens with every blade of grass in place. It didn’t have to be. Wally’s garden was beautiful in its celebration of nature. Nature doesn’t demand perfection in its beauty. Wally taught be that.
My garden sustains me Its quiet beauty renews my enthusiasm when I’m feeling blue. The fluid landscape never fails to inspire me when I can’t find the words to write. It ties me to earlier nature lovers like Thoreau, Byron, and Whitman. It humbles me to realize my insignificance in nature’s larger picture. The fruits of my garden also sustain me. Dried lavender keeps moths away from my sweater drawers. Jars of strawberry jam and jalapeno jelly line my pantry shelves. Tomatoes wait patiently in my freezer to be pulled out in the dead of winter. Wally taught me to enjoy all that.
My garden allows me to share my good fortune with the community. The enriched soil black gold that has been amended and fortified since Wally first turned a spade, yields asparagus, berries, peppers, corn, and tomatoes, more every year, enough for me to drop a bag of produced off every week for the community center to use in its hunger program. You don’t have to be rich to be able to contribute to your neighborhood. Wally taught me that, too.
Wally was a good teacher. By taciturn example, he guided, prodded, and encouraged. His quiet presence helped me to feel a part of God’s plan, not so insignificant after all. Sure, I still make mistakes, in the garden and elsewhere. But like the garden, life is an unfinished project. Perhaps, that was Wally’s greatest lesson.
I never met Wally, face to face. He passed away sometime in the summer of 1969, but his spirit still watches over me and the garden. For that, I am grateful.
Today, as I write this, my two-foot blue spruce tree, recycled from last year’s Christmas festivities, is thriving the northeast corner of the garden. I probably won’t see it grow to tower over the house, but it will…someday. Perhaps, the garden’s new caretaker will be tickled and inspired by the photos I’ve taken of the tree in its infancy. Perhaps, she’ll take a minute to reflect and the learn, from me…and from Wally.