When Flower pots are the only earth you own-

For many years I kept a large garden. It started as a front yard cottage garden enclosed by a picket fence. But each year it grew bigger until I no longer took pleasure in it. A joy in spring, it was a burden in August, consuming too much water and energy.

The garden writer Joe Eck wrote that gardens should offer peace and repose. My garden did not.

I had set out benches and chairs, but as soon as I sat, I jumped up ,for something always needed to be trimmed or propped. And though the garden was enclosed, it was never private.

When my roses bloomed, and before the Bradford pear darkened everything, my garden was a seasonal spectacle. The Perennial Plant Society toured it. A local gardening show on PBS did a segment on it.

Now the only earth I garden in is the potting soil in my planters.

And yet my small and shady porch is a joy, and my everyday retreat. I sit and I do not have to get up, for little needs doing. And this garden is mine alone. No one sees me there. Planters of begonias and hanging orchids block the view in. But I have a fine view out- I watch the barn swallows in the evening, and as I write this I see a red-tailed hawk high up and circling, circling.

For my garden harks back to our earliest gardens, walled and secret, and kept to replenish the spirit and the senses.

Never would I discourage the new or young gardener from planting roses or a perennial border or whatever dream garden they want. But if they asked my advice, I would tell them to keep their garden small. Remember that what we plant in a delightful frenzy in April will have to be cared for in the brutal, humid, rainless
Southern summer. Let your garden be a labor of love.

And never, ever plant a Bradford Pear.