I have taken entirely too many photos of the small patch of wildflowers growing in my front yard this spring. New parents don’t take this many photos. Bluebonnets! Black-eyed Susans! Blanketflower! Coreopsis! Or maybe other ones…beyond bluebonnets, I honestly can’t always tell my daisies from my other daisies, and maybe none of them are daisies.
While I’m aware of women’s tendency to proactively apologize for things that no one asked about, and try to avoid leading with self-deprecation, I find myself apologizing for my yard pretty frequently. If it grows in the ground, I’m probably allergic to it, and I hate the heat, and I’m busy, so tending the garden almost never happens. I have a weed-choked mudflat most of the year. I ignore leaves, or, as I call it, compost in place. So a bright cluster of color waving in the sun and breeze stands out.
Weeds thrive in my yard, so no wonder wildflowers do. Why haven’t I always planted them? Why now, and why have they made me so happy?
It’s a difficult story to tell, and requires tact, as it touches on someone else’s story, so forgive me if I avoid some details. And remember that someone else has a different story.
I plant like a graffiti artist on a railroad bridge. Hurrying, going in small bursts, aiming for quick impact. I’ll buy five plants, dig five holes, plant them, and then ignore them for months after watering them in. They often die, but a few live. I enjoy them no matter how long they last.
My guerrilla gardening technique provoked volcanic rage in the person I used to share the yard with. With each vine twined around the trellises, each purple coneflower planted with hope for healing, each new old rose, the inquisition would start.
Why did I have any right to plant what I wouldn’t, or couldn’t, care for, and might expect someone else to tend? If I couldn’t follow through, I couldn’t have a garden.
So for a long time, I didn’t. And I’m trying not to be angry at myself for giving up so easily, but the seeds of self-doubt can find purchase in any soil.
I’m not good at gardening. I can’t take care of things. Not plants. Not my health. Not my work. Why bother? Why risk the blow-back?
I let it all lie fallow.
Until I didn’t. Until I salted the earth that was barely sustaining even that harsh crop, and started over.
First, I experimented with succulents, because they’re hard to kill and easy to propagate, and I needed easy wins. And I won! Over and over! And when I didn’t, I just bought new ones and propagated old ones and kept right on winning.
I don’t know why I waited so long, almost five years, to plant wildflowers. But last fall, I went outside on a drizzly day with a tiny rake and a bag of mixed seeds. I raked a few rows, scattered the seeds, raked again, walked over them a few times, and went back inside. That was it.
But that was enough.
And now I have wildflowers in my front yard.
This morning, I picked up 3 seed packets and a stick. I poked some holes and scratched some trenches in places the sun seems to shine, and dropped in sunflower seeds. I dragged the stick back and forth over the holes and trenches, and came inside. It might rain today. Or birds might come. Or weeds might prove too domineering. Or the seeds might not even be suited for the heavy gumbo.
But something might grow, and I’m going to keep making that bet, because it is my favorite kind of wager—one I can’t lose.