My Rock Garden

My Dad was an amazing horticulturist, even developing a variety of gladiolus which has been registered. But I am living proof that a green thumb is NOT hereditary. I can kill plants just by looking at them.

Nevertheless, when we had to yank out some overgrown, straggly cedar bushes at our front step, I decided to replace them with rock gardens. How can you screw up growing rocks, especially in Lanark County?

That said, we dutifully consulted, and good friend and professional landscaper Heather Spurrell basically told me to go with stuff that grew naturally and was pretty independent. She knows my gardening savvy, and her advice was spot-on. If I may be immodest for a moment, thanks to her advice, our rock gardens look pretty darned good.

So now that I am an expert gardener, I want to pass along a few observations:

1. If you don’t know what you’re doing, get and accept advice.

2. You’ll have more success with what is natural than by bucking nature.

3. Weeds. Anything that doesn’t belong in your garden is a weed.

4. Weeds. Weeds grow bigger, faster, and better than whatever you really want to have.

5. Sunlight. Free and abundant, but sometimes you need to cut some tree branches to let it in.

6. Water. Especially when it hasn’t rained for a while. Out here in the country water is free and plentiful, it’s just the tedium of standing there with a hose soaking those unthanking plants. That said, I get what I want, nice healthy plants.

7. It takes a long time before visitors notice all your hard work and compliment you. Sometimes you think the grotty old cedars weren’t so bad, after all.

All of this got me thinking about life, and especially life in business, in the professions, in the community, and in the family. The need for patience, for advice, for keeping it simple, for doing the things that are right for the situation, and in Lanark County, making the rocks work for you, not against you. Or should I say working with the Lanark County rocks, not trying to defeat them.

Whether it’s building an engineering firm, raising kids, nurturing a life-long relationship, or simply being the best you were meant to be, there’s much to be said for these simple precepts from the rock garden.