New Life for the Garden, the Soul

There are pansies blooming again in the patch of dirt on our patio.

It is the first time in years I have roused myself to reclaim our backyard flower bed . . . and to reassert a part of my heritage:

I was the kid whose hands were always dirty from garden soil; the young woman whose idea of a perfect weekend involved a trowel and a package of Miracle-Gro; the new mother whose car smelled of baby lotion and fertilizer.

But the hours I lavished on plants seemed a luxury I could ill afford when my husband died five years ago, and left me to adjust to the considerable demands of caring alone for three young girls.

So from inattention over the years, the rose bushes withered, the vegetable garden lay fallow, the flower beds became choked with weeds. And I tried not to miss those evenings I used to spend in the dirt on my knees, while the girls played with their dad on the lawn.

Then came last weekend. Maybe it was the way the sun kept teasing through the clouds, maybe it was the sense of hope and rebirth that the Easter holiday implies. Or maybe it was just that the kids and I were at home on vacation, with no firm plans and nothing to do.

But before I knew it, I was hunched over a circle of rock-hard ground, shoveling in piles of fertilized soil. And my daughters were on their knees in the yard, fighting over watering cans, tiny green seedlings and gardening gloves.

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I wonder if gardening is in the blood . . . if the passion for planting is conveyed through our genes--like brown eyes or perfect pitch--to our children. Or is something they can be taught to love?

I don’t recall my mother’s other hobbies. She didn’t sew, was only a passable cook, couldn’t play the piano, paint a picture or carry a tune.

Beyond caring for her children, she seemed to me to have only one passion . . . one I grew to share as I squatted alongside her every spring, nudging life from every patch of soil around our home.

Her people had been farmers, going back for generations. And you could see their legacy in her handiwork . . . the bright-colored hollyhocks that edged our drive, the hydrangea bursting from the flower beds, the trellis of white roses that climbed up our steps and around our front door.

As soon as I was able, I got a garden of my own . . . a tiny plot in the midst of hundreds at the student garden across the street from my school.

Every year, from third grade to 10th, I tended my plants three times a week through the summer, riding my bike to school at dawn with a straw basket hooked over my handlebars.

Our bounty was prescribed by the school to include vegetables most families loved--like carrots, sweet peas and juicy tomatoes--and others unheard of in homes like ours.

Swiss chard, beets, eggplant, kohlrabi. . . . I grew them, my mother cooked them, and my family ate them dutifully.

But it was not about the produce, but the process, for me.

I saw magic in the way a tiny seed became a crunchy carrot. And I realized that magic only happened when I shouldered my responsibilities, carried my weight in this partnership between nature and me.

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As a grown-up, I have planted a garden at every home . . . even when it was confined to a wooden bucket of tomato plants on a third-floor balcony. My late husband indulged, but never shared, my passion . . . fretting instead that the tassels of corn peeking over our fence made us look like the Beverly Hillbillies.

But he carried compost bags, cleared space for vegetable plots and kept watch for pesky tomato worms, whose mere presence on a plant could scare me away.

And he kept an eye on our girls as they “worked” alongside me, so they didn’t trample on or drown new seedlings, or dislodge a plant by digging too vigorously.

The girls don’t recall now how much they loved it . . . the smell of the soil, its crumbly feel, the way they delicately handled the tiny plants in their toddler hands.

But I remember . . . and I vow to try to rekindle that reverence they felt then.

The day after we planted our pansies, we woke to find our flower garden a shambles. The puppy had made it his playground at night, digging deep holes in the soft dirt, leaving some flowers buried beneath mounds of soil and empty spaces where others had been.

My daughters cried, lamenting that our hard work had been in vain. But I ushered them out and we got back on our knees, righting the bedraggled seedlings and carefully brushing the dirt away.

Then came two days of sun and two days of rain . . . and when the skies cleared and we glanced out the window, there were bunches of color where our tiny green sprigs had been.

The girls were captivated by the beauty, and awed by the notion that those fragile seedlings could endure so valiantly.

And I see a resurrection of my own blooming amid those vibrant, young pansies.

Sandy Banks’ column is published on Sundays and Tuesdays. Her e-mail address is sandy.banks@latimes.com.