Seeds, Sowers and Full Time Gardeners

Seeds, Sowers and Full Time Gardeners

Living in The Garden City is not what it was. A distinct lack of rain over a long period has guaranteed this. The Carnival of Flowers is still out there. Somehow. Somewhere. There is little I remember of Toowoomba from my childhood, as I lived 45 mins outside of town. But I do remember the floats which used to grace Ruthven Street during the Carnival parade. I think back to those floats and can do nothing else but shudder at today’s impostors, posing as floats with their paper flowers and unsuccessful attempts at mimicking the beauty which belongs only to the real thing. To the old floats’ wearing masses of flowers – of real flowers. Colour upon colour upon petal upon stem – amusing the children whilst amazing the adults. And yet a debate on real flowers verses paper duplicates does not really belong in this piece. It is just another soap box for an old Carnival goer. So. Let us turn to the issue at hand. The issue of psychiatric illness. Where does it come from? Why did it choose us? Why does it lurk in the shadows – that ever present threat? Answers to these questions are not easy and if they were one would have no choice but to question their veracity. Answers to questions such as these are also as unique as each individual asking them. Therefore, please keep in mind that these words are not intended to answer these questions. They are intended to help each of us to a place from which we can begin the process of accepting these answers, or perhaps the lack of answers. A place of hope.

Let’s go back to the Carnival again for a minute. Not the floats this time - but to the gardens. The outbursts of colour dotting this city’s streets. Do you have any idea of the work involved in preparing and maintaining an award winning garden? Don’t sweat it if your answer is no, as I’ve really no idea either. You see, I am not a gardener and never have been. And yet I have never really tried. The thought of bending doubled in rain, hail and shine does nothing to whet my enthusiasm to try. And yet the sight of some of those springtime gardens is enough to make me wish I had the patience, persistence and foresight belonging to those who created them. The uncomfortable thing about this, is that I may well be a gardener. If I stopped thinking about the weather, the pain and the toil - maybe. There just may be a gardener lurking somewhere within me. Within you. And until we try we will never really know.

There are some basic steps which are needed to grow flowers. Steps of which we all are aware. Steps which some of us have taken and possibly succeeded to some degree. The first of these is getting hold of some seeds. We may have all the patience, persistence and foresight one can have and yet without any seeds we’ve got Buckley’s. The hardest thing about buying seeds, though, is choosing them. You walk into a shop and locate the stand of seeds. There are millions of different packets hanging there and as good as they all look, I have neither the resources nor the ability to grow them all. So I stand there and scan the packets until I’ve narrowed down the possibilities. Then I begin to read the backs of the packs. This cuts many more contenders from being chosen - it would be pointless planting them as the ground I have cannot support them - will not allow them to survive let alone flourish. And so, I make my choice and leave the store.

The next step is to plant them. Planting seeds involves a great deal more than poking holes in the ground and dropping them in, or so I’ve been told. In fact a better phrase would be to sow the seeds as opposed to planting them. Sowing is a combination of preparing the ground before planting and then planting the seeds themselves. It also encompasses any special requirements, like the spreading of mulch or fertilizer after the seeds have actually been planted. With this step completed, all other steps fall into the category which I refer to as gardening. The watering. The weed pulling. The pest control. The damn hard work.

Regardless of the current state in which we find our garden. And regardless of the circumstances which have led to this state, we each have a decision to make. What are we going to do with it? Each of us has an idea of the perfect garden and I doubt that any two ideas could ever actually line up. We are individuals and as hard as it seems at times, we can not be anything other than unique. We may begin with the same soil, plant identical seeds, exert the same amount of effort, endure the same weather and yet out gardens will never be the same. This is not about an idiosyncratic quirk of nature – this is about being human. For to remove these differences would be akin to removing our humanity.

What will you do with your garden? Will you embrace the toil before you or stay with the feeling of familiarity that descends each time you count the weeds? Will you choose to invest all of your resources, all that is within you, to create the garden which only you can grow? Or will you spend the rest of your life longing for another’s garden. A garden that your uniqueness precludes you from ever growing? Your answer to these questions belongs to you and always will. My answer to these questions is that I desire to move on from sowing. To move on to full time gardening. I hope that one day we each can lean over our garden fences and see the beauty in our differences rather than the disparity.