Who Did This?

I admit it, I look out over my garden sometimes and think, “Who did this?” The peonies were just in glorious bloom, milky globes tinged with crimson, followed quickly by the lilies.

New, head-turning white bulbs called Hymenocallis just started popping up, all nine of the bulbs I planted, way before I expected them.

Next came the Stargazer lilies, which I planted years ago. Every year, they are more exotic, fragrant and bountiful.

Then, another surprise, a new exquisite orchid-like lily emerged in mottled purple two months before the mid-summer bloom date.

And now, from one of five pots and several in-ground stalks, the long thin pod of an Angel’s Trumpet has split and a flower is about to open.

For so long, I was someone who kept indoor plants only. I thought that was all I could manage. It was true I had special plants I cared for over the years. I took them outside at the first hint of spring so they could leaf up and grow strong, then brought them back in when it turned cold.

But when I divorced after 11 years, I left them all behind. Later, a friend visited that house. She told me it was strange and difficult seeing my plants there without me.

Later, I moved to a townhouse with my new husband and space to garden outside. The plants that were already in place were nice, but pedestrian, I thought — azaleas, roses, a dogwood tree, holly, and way too much monkey grass.

As soon as my hands began working in the soil, the genes embedded in me took over. I had not expected it to happen. But soon I was obsessed, which should not have come as a surprise. I was, after all, someone with the DNA of generations of people who had depended on and deeply loved the land.

My siblings and I are the first generation not to grow up on farms. Still, we were raised in the country and my father had a long commute to work. Those genes don’t give up easily. A few years after marrying, my sister and her husband bought a beautiful farm.

I had moved hundreds of miles away to the big city, but home and my sister’s farm are always calling me. In between, I garden, a tangible link to the people and place that always were so important to me, even when I did not understand how very much.

I am thinking of those people often when I’m in the garden, especially at twilight. As the shadows deepen, I brush the soil and pinch back top leaves so the plants will thicken. I think about Daddy’s garden, how so many things seemed to grow like magic.

That DNA is in my blood. It pulses through my arms and hands, through my fingers and into the soil and the plants and the blooms.

The flowers that grow now with so little prompting feel it and respond. Their message to me is clear: You did this. We have always known you.

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