Seattle Backyard Gardeners Will Save Us All
Last year, I joined a Facebook group for Seattle backyard gardeners. It was completely aspirational. We recently moved, and for the first time in my life I’ve become responsible for a small square of yard. I have done exactly nothing with this yard, but I do spend a lot of time reading about what other people do with their yards and staring at their photos.
As the vines on our backyard fence grew into a knotty tangle of terrifying brown spaghetti strangling anything young and green sprouting up below it, I watched the gardeners in the Facebook group post pictures of their giant collard greens and their thriving indoor lemon trees. Enthralled and envious, I pored over the posts from members asking what to do with all of the extra fruits and vegetables. Does anyone want this giant box of Italian plums? Admins encouraged the group to donate their harvests to local food banks. I lowered my blinds so as not to see the gnarled branches of trees I’d yet to identify.
Last week, I decided that I would no longer sit back and watch my garden (which had become a metaphor for my career, my marriage, and my competence as a mother) remain untended. I would start small with something I love — our poor, overgrown lavender bush. I took pictures of every side of the plant — the long, brown tendrils outstretched like pleading arms above a pile of rotting buds, the gnarled and knotted underbelly. I posted the pictures to the group and asked for help.
Immediately after, I felt as if I had just posted naked pictures of myself. What if my boss saw all of that woody undergrowth? What if my husband (who up to this point had not yet looked at the plants in our garden with a critical eye) got a hold of these pictures and realized that I was, in fact, completely unlovable? That I wasn’t fit to care for our plants and by extension, obviously, our children?
But before I could spiral too far down the rabbit hole of my brain, a tiny red circle with the number 1 inside of it popped up on my (now animated) Facebook notifications bell…then a 2, then suddenly a 5. The bell swayed almost imperceptibly, gently inviting me to press it with the pad of my pointer finger and discover the dozens of people who had come to my rescue. They arrived at the scene of my post like a team of medics — competent, kind, eager to help.
‘“Yes, that’s a lavender plant,” said Katie, who knew I just needed to feel like I had already gotten something right.
“Cut ALL THE WAY back. As in leave 2 inches,” Tanya said, knowing intuitively how badly I was craving precisely this level of detail. Could someone please give me such specific instructions for everything in my life? I held up my hand and tried to approximate two inches with my thumb and pointer finger. Who was I kidding? What am I, a woodworker? I have no idea what two inches looks like without measuring tape. But before I could tumble down the deep well of my insecurities, more comments!
“I’ve never yet killed a lavender plant,” someone coaxed. “Agree! Lavender is very forgiving,” another chimed in.
An angel named Joey, who knew I was too tired for punctuation and had also somehow inferred that I had yet to buy a single gardening tool, wrote, “You are not too late I literally had a woody lavender for 2 or 3 years a neighbor ran it over with a mower cut it all away and it came back fresh and soft and green” This response garnered 12 reactions — a combination of likes and surprise emojis. Some members of the group had follow-up questions, but I was much too content to read them as I daydreamed about plowing over my poor lavender with a John Deere riding lawn mower and watching it rise from the ashes like a phoenix.
And then there was Sonya — sweet, dear Sonya. “Don’t sweat it,” she reassured me. “Let the kids plant some peas,” she continued, as if she knew that at that very moment my two small children were whacking one another with an iPad while I gazed into my phone as if it were the eyes of a new lover. Finally, perfectly, she added, “lots of things love to grow here.”
Oh Sonya, if you are reading this, thank you. It was you alone who knew that, while I was ostensibly merely posting about my lavender plant, I was, in fact, asking something more fundamental — Am I capable of change? Can I be forgiven? Is the universe, ultimately, a friendly place? Because of your kind words, I will buy a pair of gardening gloves and some shears. I will step outside and smell my little patch of rich wild earth, still wet from last night’s rain. I will let my children laugh and play in our yard while I prune. We will all love to grow here.
