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| Lantana |
I could tell when I looked at his
face that he was not happy. Now, my boss is a very kind man and has a voice
that works like Valium on a hectic day. But when his clients aren’t happy, those
of us who are his underlings will be greeted with a thin lipped smile rather
than his big toothy grin. And then the interrogation begins. Mine began with a
drive around the city to look at competitors’ annual color displays.
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| Spring Trials - California 2013 |
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| Spring Trials - California 2013 |
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| Downtown Chicago 2013 |
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| Downtown Chicago 2013 |
But maybe I should back up a little to bring a
little perspective:
I. Am. A. Plant. Nerd. You see, this post is not about my boss. He’s
a hard-working man that cares deeply about making his clients happy. It’s about
what I am learning through the landscaping world about life. I love plants that
are unique and I love creating displays that march to a different drummer and
stand out when the summer heat rages. One of the problems this summer was that
we did not have summer heat rages. The other problem was that while I and my
plant nerdiness love unique plants displays, a large majority of people are
really most comfortable with annual color displays that are…. Ahem… ordinary.
I once said that I wanted my annual
color to be Begonia-free and Alternathera-free zones. But as I drove around the
city with my thin-lipped now not smiling so much boss, and I strove to look
through his eyes at the landscapes around me, I saw that the look that our
clients kept pointing to as “what we want to look like” was the very thing that
I worked hard not to look like. And you know what? It did look good. Deep into
our rainy, cool summer those Begonias and Alternathera were showing off like
bratty sisters and grabbing the attention from everything around them. And
COLEUS, that multi-named marvel of horticulture displays, was often the queen
of the show. All my heat and drought-loving Scaevolea, Angelonia, and Cuphea
Flamenco Samba barely even moved past being green and languished in the liquid
coolness of this summer.
Then I think I finally got it – the
lesson that has been tapping at the door of my conscious for so many years. I was
remembering the comfort of home-made spaghetti, the consistently blooming iris
that my grandmamma would share, and the comfort of the simple tunes in an
ageless hymn. These are the ordinary things that make me feel safe, that stand
the test of time and present themselves as reliable.
As the middle child of a very large
family, I understand being ordinary. With a big sister who was a nationally
ranked tennis player, brothers who were stand-outs in just about anything they
did, and younger sisters who were stunningly attractive, I found comfort and
place in being the ordinary sister who was consistently reliable to be there
when needed but never garnered the meteoric attention of a superstar.
Yes, I wrote a book. It has
received an ordinary amount of attention. But you know who love this book? The
new gardeners who need the basic, ordinary instructions on how to do container
gardening, who write me to say that this is the first time they have ever been successful in gardening. And I wrote some songs. They
were ordinary songs that never garnered much national attention. But what made
the effort of writing these songs were the people who would come up to me and
say, “I keep thinking of (….. lines in a
song) and it has encouraged or help me in this way”. Ordinary songs but
reliable to be helpful when needed.
In a society that has an almost
fearful aversion to ordinary, I am finding that ordinary is a powerful emblem
of its own. Jesus took 12 ordinary fishermen, ordinary tax collector, and
ordinary people to build a church that covers all nations today. Being able to
turn on the lights and turn up the heat in the morning is an ordinary delight
that many of my winterstorm-weary friends have learned to appreciate. There is
something in the ordinary that makes us feel safe, that is reliable, that does
not wax and wane with the popular opinion, that begs me welcome it though my
pride would defer to the unique.
Yes, I will continue my lust for
the unique and exotic plant. But I am learning to appreciate and embrace the
ordinary in horticulture, and in doing so I find myself embracing the other
ordinary around and within me.
Ironically,
my company’s motto this year is “Be the Best in 2014”. At first I thought that
by being earnest in my ordinariness, I would be negating the company motto. But
ordinary is not average, nor is it not being the best. Ordinary is better
because it is something you can count upon.
Labels: Gardening, ordinary life, plants
And you know that muddler that was in great-grandma's kitchen that everyone wondered what it was for? Well, look on page 179 and find out how to easily put it to use.
