As a devout writer and a passionate gardener (you can swap those adjectives if you like), one of the great delights of the year is to bring these two loves together.
Writers and gardens have a long and storied history of hanging out together. More than 2,000 years ago, Cicero, the preeminent rhetorician of the Late Roman Republic famously wrote: “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.” More than 200 years ago, acerbic French philosopher Voltaire (controversially) concluded his raucous novel Candide with the words: “Let us cultivate our garden.” More recently, poet May Sarton wrote that “gardening is an instrument of grace.”
However, writers need not love gardening and gardens in the abstract. Anyone willing to spend some time with their own “bit of earth” has the opportunity to create their own garden, whether they’re working with a Gothic mansion on the Yorkshire moors or a cramped, shared apartment in Chicago.
Here’s how it works:
1. Choose Your Space
Gardens can work in a variety of spaces, from rolling meadows to splintery balconies. When thinking of a garden in general, you need to think above essential qualities, the most important being soil, light, and water. Your average backyard will take care of these three needs, so long as you choose and care for your plants suitably. It isn’t that much more difficult, however, to make other spaces work. Many annuals and perennials need hours of sunlight each day, but it is just as easy to find choices happy with dappled light or even heavy shade. If you don’t have a yard to dig in, some everyday terra-cotta pots and basins and potting soil can meet your needs. To be sure, every choice requires consideration and accommodation. Even shade-loving plants want some light, and potted plants will eventually outgrow their containers. The point is that if you can claim a bit of space for yourself, you can make a garden.
The second consideration in choosing a space has to do with making your garden a “writers garden.” You want a place with an intimate feel to it. An air of privacy and mystery, where your thoughts and imaginations can run wild, untrampled by the bustle and distraction of the world without. I think a great writers garden is a secret garden, not hidden away by lock and key, but begging for an introduction before would-be visitors get to know it. In my sunny backyard, I claimed the narrow alley behind my garage and the neighbor’s fence for this purpose. When we moved here, this was used to pile unwanted brush and scrap out-of-sight, but after cleaning it up, planting some cool and friendly ferns and hostas, and hiding the entrance behind a blooming hibiscus, it feels delightfully solitary. So, look for places you might take-for-granted: an unwanted corner, an underused closet, a weedy grove, or any other tucked-away small space that is ignored because it might seem more trouble than its worth.
2. Plant Your Garden
Do your homework before you buy seeds or hit the nursery. Some plants are a lot of work and others take care of themselves. Some might even take too good care of themselves, running rampant over their neighbors (I’m looking at you creeping Jenny!). Make sure not only that the plants you choose are suitable for the space you have chosen, but that you are ready to provide them with the care they need.
Remember, your writers garden is a place to defeat distraction and stimulate your imagination. It should be the kind of place that makes you set down your phone so you can daydream. Don’t be afraid to indulge your senses for this goal. Zinnias and marigolds are hardy classics that pack a visual punch. Plants with vibrant foliage, like coleus and caladium won’t survive winters in a northern climate, but they are affordable enough to treat as annuals. Sometimes, people overlook the power of scent in favor of color, but nothing is as stirring and poignant as the mid-spring kiss of hyacinth breath, or pungent lilacs, or the murky autumnal scent of a climbing Don Juan rosebush. Lavenders are a treasure because they continue to smell wonderful all season long, even after the flowers have died.
On the subject of season, people also overlook their garden’s potential by only planting for the growing season. In Michigan, there are four seasons, and they each offer different delights. Try to plan at least one or two garden features that you can enjoy during each phase of the year. Bright red holly berries add a splash of life to winter drear. Plucky pansies and crocuses shrug off early spring frost. The captivating symphony of shading and falling leaves in the autumn should never be ignored!
And finally, remember that your writers garden is a space; it doesn’t need to be limited to plants. A birdbath, a statue, a rusted bike, windchimes, and other features can stir your memories and press their impressions upon your writers garden.
3. Make Time for your Garden
This may be the hardest step of all, and it is certainly one which gardeners of all ages and experience struggle mightily. Maintaining your garden will almost certainly take more time and effort that you expect. Between this and the other obligations and responsibilities of our busy 21st century lives, you may find that all of your garden time is spent… gardening!
To be sure, there are delights and invigoration and
moments of surprise and piece that come upon you when you’re raking leaves,
pulling weeds, or watering thirsty plants.
But what will make your writers garden a writers garden is the
presence of writing. Don’t forget to
visit sometimes not with a watering can or pruning shears, but with a notebook
and pen. You’ve put so much effort into
making this a lovely, stimulating, and creatively nurturing place. Make sure
you set aside some time so it can work its magic upon you!
Excerpt:
I borrowed a flashlight from Charles before I left rehearsal that night. I half-expected to hear some winos as I passed under the viaduct, but all was empty. I directed the flashlight beam away from the looming silos and made my way across the wet stepping stones with aching care. When I got to the other side, I saw Bill standing beside my tent, staring at me, his forehead hatchet rent.
That was when everything I had kept at a distance collapsed beneath its collected weight, and I knelt and vomited and cried. We will never be free, we will never be free, we will never be free of this, it will never go away. Then the food was gone, and I was dry heaving. I swallowed and slowly gathered my breath and looked up again.Bill hadn’t moved. He still stared at me, the wound in his head like a third eye that didn’t watch me but looked instead at the silos hidden behind the concealing trees.
“Since you’re just staring at me, you won’t mind if I get something to drink,” I said.
I rummaged in the tent and got the water. I swirled it in my mouth and spat out the bile. Then I drank. Then I ate a Pop-Tart. Then I ate another. Then I reached into my backpack and took out some fishing line and silverware from the home ec room. Ignoring Bill, I tied the fishing line around the trunk of the willow tree and drew it in a broad loop around the clearing, wrapping it around trees as I went. When I had returned to the willow tree, I tied the line off and began hanging the silverware, in twos and threes, every meter or so. It probably took me an hour.
I plucked at the fishing line. The silverware clattered and banged.“Now I can hear like a pigeon,” I said.
Bill started to walk away. He went a dozen paces up the trail, then looked back at me.
“What is it?” I said. “Why are you here? Why don’t you just go away? You’re an urbantasm. You can’t see me. You can’t hear me. What the fuck do you want?”
He watched and waited.
“You aren’t even there,” I said, but I picked up the flashlight and followed him along the path.
Bill led me slowly. In the utter dark – the sky was cloudy above the hundreds of branches – I had to step carefully over the cracked roots and desiccated vines. I followed Bill back to the main path, and he led me southward. We scrambled up and down a couple of hills, and I could hear the churning of the water far beneath me. I caught up with Bill at the edge of the stream. He was standing near a lightly submerged concrete pillar, which seemed to provide passage to the other side.
“What is it?” I asked.
Bill stepped onto the pillar, his footsteps not disturbing the water, and crossed to the opposite side.
I followed, my feet clumsily kicking up waves. At one point, I slipped, and my whole left leg went into the water. I almost fell off the pillar completely, but I held the flashlight overhead and hauled myself back up. I finally made it to the opposite side, dripping and freezing, and saw Bill moving away from the stream onto the bank.
Is this where she is? I wondered. Did she come back in the woods here and die, and I’m about to find her body, and then he’ll vanish, and I’ll be left alone with what’s left of Selby? Is that what happens now?There were no paths here, and the growth was younger and denser than where I had made camp. Branches and nettles scratched my face, and the flashlight beam flew wildly. I finally emerged into a massive grassy clearing, where Bill stood waiting. He pointed. I followed his gesture.
We stood at the back of a broad lawn, looking up at a great, hulking, shuttered building made of brick and stone. It was only three stories high but close to a hundred feet tall, and the vast wings of the structure stretched off to the right and left. For a moment, I wondered how such a colossal building had gone unnoticed in the middle of the forest. Then I recognized it as the mental asylum. We’d come out of the Happy Hunting Grounds on its westward side and stood behind the massive complex. I could hear the quiet hum of traffic along South Street.
“Is Selby in there?” I asked.
Bill’s mouth moved.“No,” he said, and there was a slight delay between his speaking and the sound that followed.
“So you can talk too. And I can hear you. And you can hear me.”
Bill stared at me.“I’m not going in there,” I said. “No way.”
I returned the way I had come. Bill didn’t follow me. When I got back inside my tent, a blue glow rose around me.
“Is that you, Aunt Ellie?”
“Yes, my love,” came my aunt’s voice.
“Why is Bill following me? What does he want?”
“Yes, my love.”
“Why am I able to hear you now? I thought you were just images pulled back to me because of the O-Sugar. How are you able to talk? Is it a flashback? Are you just illusions? Or are you real ghosts?”
“Yes, my love.”
“Whatever you are, please protect me from nightmares again. Because the days are nightmares right now. I can’t do this if both days and nights are nightmares.”
“Yes, my love.”
I undressed and crawled into the sleeping bag. The blue glow wavered, and I knew Ellie was taking a seat outside. I closed my eyes and wondered if Bill was going to follow me for the rest of my life. I wondered if Selby died, if her urbantasm would appear to me as well. Would I give up my search at that moment? I thought about May. I wanted her. The warmth of her arms. She could protect me, but now it was up to me to protect the others. I started to say a rosary to myself. I thought it might help me calm down. It doesn’t matter if I don’t have the beads, as long as I say the prayer. I knew the number and order of the Our Fathers and Hail Marys, but I’d forgotten what came before and after. Was it the Nicene Creed at the beginning or another saying? And what were the right ruminations? The scourging and the crown, yes, but what else? When Pilate washed his hands? No, that’s not right. None of us can just wash our hands. I said prayers until the sleep finally closed in around me.
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