Margit’s Note: Tending My Own Garden

By Margit Detweiler

I have a pretty little cactus in my office that’s kinda hard to kill. I only have to water it, like, every six weeks. So usually, if I remember, I pour a little of my bottled water around its pebbles and admire its bright yellow bloom. And it lives! Somehow, despite my fair attention, it blooms like a prickly star.

I’ve never been much of a gardener. Even though I married a man named Gardner — go figure.

My parents are the flowerbed heads of the family — a horticulture super fan (mom) and landscape architect (dad). They’d bond over rose bushes and clematis while their three kids, enlisted to weed, would roll our eyes, preferring a cruise through Plymouth Meeting Mall or a game on Odyssey (you know, that early video game console sued by Atari for their Pac-Man rip-off game, “K.C. Munchkin?” No? Ok).

We were inside kids.

Or maybe I was. Now in their 40s, my sister and brother do garden a bit (and/or their spouses do). Yet I’m still happier “wasting” hours inside a movie theater versus taking a stroll through the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. There, I said it. I can feel a collective gasp from my extended family.

I do have a handful of green plants at home (don’t ask me what kind they are), given to me by the previous owner. Because of their heartiness, a sunny window and some occasional watering, they, too, survive.

Don’t get me wrong, flowers and plants give me glee, they do. Or maybe it’s all the oxygen they’re blowing my way. It’s just that time and effort thing. In any case, as spring begins, and we’re heading into brighter lights and seed-planting, I pause to consider, as I do each year, should I join that community garden and grow something? Thirty seconds later: Nah.

This website is plenty, thank you very much.

Our theme this week is Bloom and we’re talking about all kinds of growth, sprouts and “coming out.”

• Late-blooming Aliza Sherman watches her daughter grow
• Amy Barr cultivates her first-time garden
• Naama Bloom (I mean, how could we not) chooses the last name Bloom
• Ashley Ford plays dress-up
• Sarah James refreshes our makeup bag for spring
• And after a friend passes on, Diane di Costanzo finds sunflowers

Here’s to busting out all over,

Margit

(Feature Photo: Flickr.com)

Originally Published March 24, 2015. Updated April 4, 2021.