Monday, October 08, 2007

Gardening

Recently we moved into a flat with a garden. We never had a garden before so the thought of having a garden was an exciting one - It's so easy to imagine the beautiful flowers and plants growing in all sorts of colours and trees gently swaying to the rhythm of the wind.

However, reality finally sunk in. The garden was neglected and slowly grew into a forest. The grass was growing as high as my waist with the trees and shrubs unkempt.

I've never done any gardening in my life before. With a mum who is an exceptional gardener, I never helped in the garden at all. Unfortunately, she now lives on the other side of the world and it's now down to me to learn. I was so enthusiastic at first that I bought many books on gardening and thought by reading it, I would know how to do it.

So, yesterday I had a go at clearing the weeds and pruning the shrubs and trees. Man - that was hard work! I don't know what about you, but after two hours I was completely shattered. I was grumpy and didn't want to know the garden anymore. I walked back into the house and told my husband that we are going to get a gardener in because I had enough of this! He laughed at me while seeing me all worked up and said, "You've never done any gardening work before and you expect it to be transformed in one day?!" I took a step back and look at myself and how ridicules I sound. I sighed and asked, "Will you help me next weekend to do the gardening then? It'll make it a lot easier" He answered, "For my sanity, yes". :)

So, this is a new challenge for me for the coming year. It is going to help me learn about patience - patient with myself and with others. I thought by reading a book on gardening, I will be an expert in gardening. However, this is not the case. It is the experience that make it real for me. With the aches and pains, comes the joy and laughter - I'm can't wait for it! (Oppsss... there goes my impatience...)

I will post some photos up once I got the garden sorted.

2 comments:

JugHead said...

Happy Meditations!

Stuart said...

I've never been much of a gardener myself, but my darling wife has decided that it would be great to grow our own vegetables - organic of course! Antway, guess who has to do most of the hard work :) To be honest, I don't mind too much. It's good exercise and the veg taste so much better when you grow them yourself. I have started my own blog on gardening where I post information & articles I find useful, and feel others will find useful too - http://gardeningsos.blogspot.com - good luck with your gardening and do drop by my blog occasionally.