The One... The Only... The Vieve

Flora

This morning, as I drove past one of my old houses, I thought about the garden there. The rose bushes and bulbs and alpine heather and daylilies and climbing hydrangea and more that I planted there. The beds I painstakingly prepared, the plants I chose and eased into the soil and watered during the early fall. I left in the winter, and so I wasn't able to see them bud and grow in the spring and summer, wasn't able to fuss over their stems and blooms. The house I lived in that spring and summer, too, I created a small garden, with irises and bleeding heart and hollyhocks and I forget what else. I left that garden, too, before it had a chance to establish itself.

Now that spring is creeping up, I find I'm thinking about starting another garden at the house I live in now, another house that I'm sure I'll leave before too long. And I wonder whether it's worth it. I wonder how I'll feel, abandoning another creation before I have a chance to see it flourish. I'm not sure whether it's worth it, putting that effort and care into something I won't be able to hold onto. But maybe I will. It is something I love to do, and I feel maybe I need to do it. Sometimes you need to start things even when you're pretty sure you won't be able to see them through to the end. Someday, I hope, I'll have a house and a garden that I can call mine, that I won't have to (or want to) leave. But in the meantime, I guess my abandoned gardens are OK. Really, when I think about it, that's not a bad legacy.