You Might Be a Gardener If …

When everything in the world seems out of control, it’s comforting to step out the back door and immediately be captured by the orderliness of nature.

Each plant in the flowerbed or vegetable patch blooms or bears fruit according to the schedule the Master Gardener drew up for it.

Garden life mimics real life as plants grow older and decline, or get a disease and struggle to survive. But new growth appears regularly too, endlessly delighting us with its vigor and beauty.

I’m not an expert horticulturist, by any stretch of anyone’s imagination. My gardening life over the years has been far more trial-and-error, learn-as-you-go and plant-whatever’s-on-clearance than it has been draw-up-a-detailed-plan-and-stick-to-it.

I realize that not everyone shares my level of, um, enthusiasm for weeding, deadheading and end-of-season plant sales. (If you want to know the truth, I had zero interest in any of that either until I was married and living in my second or third home.)

That said, you might be a gardener if …

• You believe that every flowerbed should include some kind of stone path.

• The way you work in your flowerbeds or vegetable garden reminds you of the children’s book, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

• You know the surprise lilies are going to pop out of the ground every year in late July or early August, but when they do, you are still surprised.

• You have a section of your “thoughts” journal—or maybe an entire notebook—devoted to gardening.

• You have a bookshelf or two devoted gardening.

• When you are jogging down the sidewalk with your daughter, you sometimes slow down to admire what’s new in a neighbor’s garden.

• When you drive past a garden patch that needs attention, you wish you could stop and dig in for a while.

• You’ve been known to use pretty much anything as a planter—a leaky birdbath, a hollowed-out rock, even the porch step you salvaged when your husband rebuilt the deck several years ago.

• You’ve given sections of your yard their own names (as if you are running your own personal arboretum): the Woodland Garden, the Hosta Garden, the Peninsula Garden.

• You mark the passage of time in the spring and summer by what’s blooming in your backyard.

• You have perennials in your yard that remind you of your children (oriental lilies, “Miss Molly” butterfly bush).

• You have perennials in your yard that remind you of your childhood (purple clematis, peonies).

• You have perennials in your yard that remind you of your mom (four o-clocks), your dad (peonies), your sister (hostas) and your friend (bachelor’s buttons).

• You have the hymn “In the Garden” framed and hung by the door to your back deck.

• When you’re working in your flowerbeds, heat, sweat and dirt don’t deter you one bit.

• You’d rather buy perennials than clothes.

• You believe that the best kinds of plants originate in a friend’s garden.

• You obsess about rain predictions and actual rainfall more than your average farmer.

• You have garden-related regrets: “If we’d only planted that line of privacy providing shrubs six years ago” or, “I wish I had gotten more peonies from my parents’ yard before they moved out of my childhood home.”

• You’ve learned to give yourself gardening grace. You realize that it’s OK to pull up a plant you’ve coddled for five years or to move something three times before you find the right spot.

• You’ve been known to mutter “nature is not symmetrical” when discussing topics that have nothing to do with gardening.

• When a new spot of color catches your eye as you walk past a window, you have to run outside and take a picture of the first bloom on your (insert plant name here).

• You have some sort of compost operation set up in your yard. (Even if you haven’t yet figured out how to produce actual compost.)

• “Help with digging” is one of your love languages.

• When life gets overwhelming and you don’t get all your garden work done one year, you don’t worry because there’s always next year.

• • •

I’m guessing that some of these points might apply only to me. But if you can relate in any way, shape or form—or if you have a different ending for the “You might be a gardener if…” statement—please share in the comments.

♥ Lois

P.S. I’m linking up this week with Purposeful Faith, #TellHisStory, InstaEncouragements, Recharge Wednesday, #HeartEncouragement, Let’s Have Coffee and Grace & Truth.