Ordinary Days By Lauren Denton: Gardener at heart?

In my third novel, “Glory Road,” one of the main characters owns a small garden shop, and at the beginning of each chapter, I included a quote about gardening. Once the book came out, many readers reached out to me to ask about those quotes at the beginning of the chapter and about my own gardening—how long I’d been gardening, what kind of things I grew, and what other gardening advice I had. I was almost embarrassed to admit that not only did I make up the quotes myself (though I did base them on actual gardening wisdom and advice), but I am not actually a gardener in the least!

By all appearances though, I should be one. My grandfather had a large and lovely garden at their home out in the country north of Mobile, and he passed on his considerable green thumb to my mom, who can coax life and beauty from any flower bed, container or tree stump she comes across. It would only make sense that I too absorbed some of this gardening savvy. Except that I didn’t.

I have this lofty goal of becoming a gardener one day though. Maybe when my kids are grown, when we have an old dog who doesn’t root around in the flower beds, when the days are long because I’m not cleaning up crumbs and stray socks and window fingerprints (and likely crying about it), I’ll plant a little garden. I’ll have some bird feeders and bird baths and a cute little split-rail fence. I’ll walk through my garden in the cool of the evening and perhaps marvel at a rare bird that lights on a branch, attracted by my interesting mix of plants and flowers.

In reality, and in my current phase of life, I change out my porch containers two to three times a year and I pull weeds, both of which give me an immediate sense of accomplishment. The weeding especially works for me because I can take a small slice of time and sit outside by myself, start pulling and let my mind wander. Half an hour later, I have a smooth stretch of newly turned earth where before there was only pesky weeds.

Earlier in the summer, I took my youngest daughter, Sela, out to our back flower bed to trim some tree branches and pull weeds. The recent rains had caused our sweet bay magnolias to sprout about 20 more skinny branches per tree, and we also had an invasion of weeds in what had formerly been a bed occupied solely by gardenias and limelight hydrangeas. Now the bed was studded with mondo grass, crabgrass and dandelions. Sela and I grabbed the gardening shears and a few buckets and got to work. As we trimmed branches and pulled handfuls of unwanted weeds, I started thinking that this shady spot in the back corner would be a great place for some hostas or ferns, maybe some impatiens. I got excited, thinking of what a sweet cottagey garden I could have one day … until my arm started to itch.

Now, I’d had a run in with chiggers in our flower beds a couple years ago, so I knew right away what it was. Sela and I ran inside, took quick showers and came back outside armed to the teeth — long pants with socks pulled up high and sturdy shoes, and Sela even wore knee socks on her arms all the way up to her shoulders. We were ready for war. We got back to work, but just a few minutes later, we noticed the “triggers,” as Sela called them, were back in full force, determined to cover our legs and drive us bananas. I gave the call to retreat, and we abandoned our tools and buckets and headed for the showers yet again.

Merriam Webster defines a gardener as one who tends a garden for pleasure or recreation. You see, in my dreams — or that lofty vision of my future — that’s what I do. I tend the land and the flowers I’ve planted, and I enjoy it. I do it for love and for fun. But the “triggers” do not factor into that lovely picture in my mind. Give me the bird baths, the shade-loving hostas, the cute split-rail fence, but I’ll skip the itching, thank you very much. So perhaps I don’t have the latent green thumb I thought I did, but at least I know my limitations, and if I catch the gardening bug (no pun intended) again, maybe I’ll just stick to writing about it.

When I’m not writing about my family and our various shenanigans, I write novels and go to the grocery store. My novels are in stores (locally at Little Professor and Alabama Booksmith) and online. You can reach me by email at Lauren@LaurenKDenton.com, visit my website laurenkdenton.com, or find me on Instagram @LaurenKDentonBooks or Facebook ~LaurenKDentonAuthor.