Ode to a garden — and its creator

My partner has loved to grow things for longer than I have known him. When we first met, Peter had recently moved into the city from a small farm where he had raised livestock and grown food, with perhaps a little (at the time illegal) marijuana thrown in for good measure.

Over the many years we have been together – in particular, for the time we lived in the country trying to grow an intentional community of like-minded political activists – he has grown food. Vegetables from the humble to the sophisticated. Fruit, including raspberries, haskap berries, rhubarb and Asian pears. Herbs of all sorts, with garlic his favourite. During that time, he tried to live in harmony with the rabbits, squirrels, raccoons and deer that insisted on enjoying his produce before he could harvest it, but he often lamented: “They can go anywhere else on this 100 acres to find what they want to eat. Is it too much to ask that they leave this one small spot alone?”

When we moved into Kingston about a dozen years ago, he turned his green thumb to flowers, transforming a mundane city lawn – front and back – into glorious spaces overflowing with the colours, shapes, textures and scents of beautiful plants. He kept his food-growing hand in with garlic, rhubarb, asparagus, salad greens and a few herbs — continuing his stand-off with rabbits and squirrels — but his passion became the visual beauty provided by flowers, supplemented by a small fountain and statuary both beautiful and whimsical.

I’m embarrassed to admit how little time I spent in that garden, despite there being a lovely deck with comfortable furniture shaded by an arbour overhung with wisteria and clematis. There was always something else to be done, and I almost never made the time to sit, with a book or with no distractions at all, and really enjoy the beauty that surrounded me.

We’re leaving that home and garden now. The moving van picked up our belongings yesterday, taking them to our third-floor apartment in another part of the city. The building is beautifully situated, with lots of spots to sit outside near one flower garden or another, surrounded by woods.

Happily for Peter, shortly before we moved in, we discovered that we could have a small garden plot to fill as we wish, so we’ll be able to continue enjoying homegrown garlic, some fresh herbs, salad greens and maybe a tomato or two. Perhaps he’ll find a way to throw in a few flowers, too.

From time to time, I’ve encountered a stranger in our backyard — someone drawn in by the beauty they could see from the street who just couldn’t resist wandering up the driveway to take a closer look. Occasionally, when Peter hasn’t been around, I’ve answered a knock on the door to find someone to whom he had promised some seeds or a cutting from an unusual plant. In the summer, when my office window is open, it’s not been unusual for me to hear people stopping on their walk to exclaim over something they have spotted in the garden. Parents stopped with their children to talk to them about different plants. Peter knew a lot more about our neighbours than I did, because he always took the time to chat with those who stopped on their way by.

It’s obvious that his garden struck a chord with many people. Over the final few weeks in our house, so many passersby have stopped to thank Peter for the beauty he brought into the neighbourhood and to express their hope that the people who bought our house will be equally green-thumbed.

As I was putting some give-aways out by the street on the weekend, a woman stopped her car and got out to tell me that she goes out of her way to drive by our house so she can look at the gardens. A couple stopped on their daily walk earlier in the week to tell Peter how much seeing his gardens has meant to them over the years. An Indigenous woman told us that the garden is what keeps her going some days.

Every word of praise is well deserved, and I want to add my own to those of neighbours and strangers. My contributions to the garden have been minimal, extending to not much more than wandering around garden centres pointing out flowers I’d like Peter to grow or picking hanging baskets that would then require daily watering in the heat of the summer.

I never pulled a weed or picked up a watering can, and I did not spend as much time in the garden as I could have. However, I loved the beauty Peter’s gardens wrapped our home in and I deeply respect and admire his work, week after week and year after year, to create that paradise, not just for us but for everyone who walked by.

As he said to me once: “If what I have created here helps make people happier, then I am happy, too.”

Well, Peter, your gardens have made me very happy for many years — thank you!

3 thoughts on “Ode to a garden — and its creator

  1. Peter’s gardens made us very happy too, And even inspired a couple of paintings. I will truly miss seeing his face poking over the top of our fence.

  2. I have loved Peter’s gardens for years. I am glad to hear there will be a plot for him to continue his horticultural creativity at your new place.

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