Growing Flowers (and Cultivating Children)

I like to think I have a green thumb.

But I suspect I have a mostly normal flesh-colored thumb with maybe hints of pale green. Like, a splash of honeydew color.

Let’s just say I have a slightly honeydew-colored thumb.

I like to garden, but I rely more on luck than skill. And last year I decided I wanted a garden bed next to the patio in the strip of earth that was more dirt than grass. I read about the steps involved in turning a strip of dirt-grass into a flower bed, and promptly dismissed the information with an eye roll and some weak joke I’m sure a middle-aged dad would love.

You see, I’m a corner-cutter. And a multi-step process is not within my wheelhouse nor attention span. So, I did it my way. I layed down cardboard. I covered it in mulch. I got bored and distracted by a different home project for a bit and returned to my “garden” a few days later. I dug some holes right through the mulch and cardboard and dirt-grass and plopped in some flowers. 

It shouldn’t have worked, but it turned out beautiful. Roses, daisies, hydrangeas, peonies. They bloomed. They spread out. They flourished. It was gorgeous. And not only did it reinforce my belief that corner-cutting is the right way to approach all home projects (much to Ben’s dismay), but it also made me crave more gardening. More opportunities to dig in the dirt and sprout life.

And color.

And joy.

And so I made more gardens. And bought more pots. And seeds. And bags of dirt. And cute little trowels and floral-patterned gardening gloves. And yes, even a tiller. And I planted and watered and weeded and pruned and it was lovely. And challenging. And rewarding. 

It’s no surprise that it feels good to have a backyard full of color. But now that the growing season is once again upon us, I’ve been reflecting on what, exactly, it is that’s making my slightly celadon-colored thumb itch to get back into the dirt. What is it that I love so much about gardening?

And I think I figured it out. I think it’s that it’s predictable. 

You see, there’s a formula. You give the seeds a place to grow. You provide them with warmth and appropriate nourishment. You keep the environment safe. You speak lovingly over them when the neighbors are out of earshot.  And then they sprout and grow and bloom just exactly the way the tiny writing on the back of their seed packets say they will.

It’s predictable. I do my job, they do theirs, and everyone is happy. It’s like a horticultural contract.

Outside of gardening, however, my only experience with sprouting and nurturing life has been anything BUT predictable. I have read the backs of the seed packets on my children and I’ve been following the steps. I’m providing them warmth and nourishment and speaking loving words over them as they extend their roots out into the world. But try as I might, I cannot get them to grow in a predictable manner. 

Instead, they are more of a giant guessing game. An experiment of epic proportions.

Do they need more water? Less?

Are they receiving too much direct sunlight? Not enough?

Is the dirt too acidic? Too sandy?

Do I need to supplement with Miracle Grow?

Yikes- are those spots normal?!

One day they need full sun, the next day they shrink away from the light. They wilt, then they stand up tall and proud, then they shoot off in a different direction altogether. And we keep reading, and learning, and experimenting, and adapting our instructions for how to care for them. And how to grow with them. And it’s amazing... but it’s exhausting. 

Because it’s anything but predictable.

To be honest, I naively thought raising children would more closely resemble my experience with growing daisies. I thought providing love and nourishment would be all it would take to sprout these beautiful children into viable and vigorous blooms. But truthfully, my children are actually a lot more like growing raspberries. They are wild and unwieldy. I am often pricked by their hidden thorns. They shoot out underground, in unexpected directions, and, sometimes, I discover them in the middle of our neighbor’s yard.

And while I love those sweet sweet berries, it makes the predictability of growing flowers appeal to me. It fills a void by providing me comfort and maybe a sense of control that I haven’t been able to find in raising my own children.

So, I like to garden. I like to add all the parts together to create a whole. I like to paint by numbers and follow the process. I like to reap the obedient little rewards of my sustained efforts. 

And maybe, now that I think about it, maybe I also have a little bit of a green thumb. Because maybe, having a green thumb means being able to cultivate life from whatever tangled thicket you’ve been given. Being able to tame chaos. Being able to find the beauty in the mess.

And I’m not going to lie- I’ve got a bit of a chaotic messy tangled thicket situation on my hands sometimes with my kids. And yet…. And yet. My children are slowly, unpredictably, blooming.