My mistake

When I started a little garden, I did it, I thought, because I wanted it for me, I thought it was my space. That has turned out to be a misconception.

A garden seems to be an invitation that people are quite comfortable accepting.

Sometimes it's the neighborhood kids who want to help cut things back, or tell stories or invite me to the show they're putting on in their backyard.

Once, upon dodging the various types and large numbers of bees they told me we should kill the bees. So, the visit turned into a lesson on why we don't want to kill the bees in the garden. They said "Uh huh" and shook their heads, but I don't think they were quite convinced. They just knew we weren't going to be smashing any bees that day.

Adults, too, accept the unspoken invitation to stop and talk and wander through. And the garden that started as little fragments of plants from another garden has come full circle in that now I can offer little fragments of plants, or seeds to other gardeners - and that is a joy!

I also thought I would be in control of the garden, deciding which plants would go where.

Not so.

Plants come visiting through the fence from the yard next door, some reseed like wildfire, they send up shoots, and some come as complete suprises - gifts, as I like to call them. I've never planted violas but have a happy little purple community of them, larkspur came as a gift also. Both plants are now among what I consider to be treasures in the garden.

And columbine - I did plant those, three of them. Now we have a colony of original and new colors. But, who can complain? When you're as beautiful as a columbine it's not as if you're intruding or unwanted.

The garden is like life in gereral, you can plan all you want but then life happens all around those plans.