Cultivating a love of gardening

Plants help create a beautiful, joyful place

By Amy Rognlie

I am not quite certain from whence sprung my love of all things green and growing, but I can recall, even as a young child, my fascination with the plants around me. I remember rubbing a freshly plucked spearmint leaf between my fingers to inhale the sweet aroma; peeling long, thin, white tendrils of papery bark off the neighbor’s birch tree; plucking the stamens out of honeysuckle flowers to touch the drop of nectar to my tongue, and marveling over the delicate line of bells on each stem in the lily-of-the-valley patch that thrived in the cool, shady strip between the driveway and the house.

As a college student, I purchased my first plant. It was a common inch plant, but I thought it exquisite with its alluring purple, green and silvery striped leaves cascading over the sides of the black plastic pot. I named it “Moses” and hung it between the fluorescent lights in my dorm room. Later, as a newly married twenty-something living in an apartment, I tended shelves of African violets until I began to nurture little boys instead.

As the boys grew, so did the living space. We expanded into vegetable gardening, flower beds, grapevines and a blackberry patch before packing everybody up and moving to Central Texas. In July. From Colorado.

Once we settled in after that first hot, hot summer, I was thrilled at the thought of gardening in a more temperate zone. In the spring, I happily planted my pots of pansies, privately gloating over the fact that I was enjoying lovely, frost-free weather while my Colorado friends were still up to their eyeballs in snow and cold.

Then came summer. In Central Texas. Suddenly, everything I thought I knew about gardening didn’t work. Tomato plants withered. Herbs bolted. Sedums sulked. Surely, at least beans would grow. And marigolds. Umm, no. At that point, I almost admitted defeat. After all, how hard could it be to grow marigolds?

Eventually, I came to terms with my new climate (in more ways than one) and began to take joy in the learning process. At first, I was like the girl in Robert Frost’s poem, “A Girl’s Garden”:

She says she thinks she planted one
Of all things but weeds.
A hill each of potatoes,
Radishes, lettuce, peas,
Tomatoes, beets, beans, pumpkins, corn,
And even fruit trees.

Her crop was a miscellany
When all was said and done,
A little bit of everything,
A great deal of none.

Though I (and my garden) have come a long way since that hot summer 10 years ago, I’m still learning every day. I am just now realizing how much winter gardening we can do in Central Texas, so this fall and winter were a splendid experiment for which I will be better prepared this coming year. Let’s just say that the carrots and sweet peas were not a success, but the lettuce is happy and the spinach, arugula and collard greens are coming along nicely in the small backyard veg beds.

As I write this on a frigid February morning, the daffodil bulbs my granddaughter and I planted over Thanksgiving week have popped their noses out of the dirt an inch or two; a welcome herald of warmer, blossomy days ahead.

I am up to my ears in seedlings in the house. Impatiens, alyssum, lobelia, nasturtiums, nicotiana, mammoth sunflowers, globe amaranth, black-eyed Susan vine, rainbow coleus, and hyacinth runner beans are clamoring to be freed from their little pots and settled into the warm Texas dirt. The 18 (yes, 18) tomato seedlings are being re-potted into larger pots today because, well … perhaps I started them a wee bit early in January. The mandevilla cuttings that I started in the fall are starting to bloom, the caladiums in the south window should be sprouting any day now and the canna lily divisions that I overwintered in pots are sending up shoot.

One of the Pride of Barbados seeds finally sprouted, and I think I still have time to plant the dichondra seeds that are coming in the mail any day now — is it spring yet?

It is! If you have been too busy to notice, spring is in full swing in the heart of Texas. So slow down and give gardening a try this year! And remember that it is okay to start small. Plant a few flower seeds in a pot. Pick out a couple of jalapeño plants at the home improvement store. Dig a hole for a new tree.

Essayist Joseph Joubert said, “All gardeners live in beautiful places because they make them so.” Whatever your space — a few pots or a few acres — make it a beautiful, joyful place for yourself and your family.

And join me on my Central Texas gardening adventure again in the next issue of Tex Appeal as I share the latest from this girl’s garden.