An Excerpt from CONTINUOUS BLOOM: WHAT THE GARDEN TAUGHT ME ABOUT BEING A WRITER

A new book I'm working on.

It is a rainy spring day and I stand, gazing out into the yard, coffee cup in hand. Yesterday we were doing some pruning. We have a wisteria that grows on an arbor that is virtually falling down but we keep propping it up and it looks like something you’d find in an old Italian villa. Larry was lifting the wisteria to cut it back when a very angry dove flew out. Last year they had nested there and now, it seems, they were back.

I went over to take a look and the mother dove just gave me that look that only mothers can give. Yet she was beautiful and complacent even as she stared me down. We opted not to prune the wisteria til the birds had fledged. Perhaps if they knew this is their home they will return next year as well.

At any rate I am standing, looking out at the garden and I notice the tulip tree. It is the tree we planted to replace our majestic oak tree that died a few years ago (and whose loss I still mourn), but I am not a fickle person and I must admit that it was not love at first sight. Or even third sight. It has taken a few years for this tree to grow on me even as I have watched it grow. This is not an exaggeration. The tulip tree can grow five to six feet a year.

This time as I was gazing at the tree I noticed that it has bloomed. Indeed it had a profusion of flowers. Tulips trees do flower in the early spring but I did not envision this many blooms. And the bees were all over the blossoms. The tree has grown straight and strong and now teeming with life. I have come with time to love this tree and its subtle beauty. I was thinking how the tree didn’t have to struggle for those blooms. It just had to mature. Given healthy soil, sunlight and rain, most plants – and people for that matter – will flourish. (I always liked that silly bumper sticker: Bloom Where You Are Planted).

All living things, given half a chance, will flourish. You don’t have to try. You just have to do it. Flowers bloom, birds sing, trees leaf out. Creation doesn’t hurt the plants, as far as we know (though apparently cutting them does). It is possible they struggle in ways we cannot know. I just believe that blooming is natural. It requires no effort. Given the right conditions and all things will flourish

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