Garden Meditations and Hollyhocks

C. L. Fonari created the holiday celebrated on the third day of May. In certain circles she is known as the garden lady; she is also a writer, a radio personality and a speaker.

The holiday is Garden Meditation Day. At first it sounds a tad uppity. I took a master gardener’s course but I don’t remember all the fancy botanical names nor the scientific reasons gardens benefit from certain things being done a certain way. I endured simply to learn more about hollyhocks.

My mom had a great bed of them across the back fence for several summers when we lived in St. Louis. The year I visited France I was mesmerized by the towering stalks of hollyhocks that lined the streets of Giverny in June. Walking the street between the colorful blossoms was dreamlike.

Hollyhocks are not true perennials, though they might seem to be. They are biennials that self-seed easily. That explains why the seeds I’ve planted in the spring seldom provide a thrilling show later in the summer. I should sow the seeds in late summer and plan to enjoy them the following year. That tidbit of information surfaced in an aha moment as I nursed a single plant last year, but guess what I forgot to do. Yep. Now I have to wait another year to enjoy alcea rosea - their fancy name.

Gardeners of all varieties are patient souls. Some of my friends have grand success applying that academic knowledge, and others have marvelous luck using a farmer’s almanac for moon signs and wives’ tales. Then there are those who seem to toss and pot and plant willy-nilly with prolific bounties of everything to share with friends and neighbors.

It’s hardly a chore, watching the bees, butterflies and hummingbirds enjoy any flowers I happen to have. It’s a way to slow down, de-stress. Playing in the dirt, (whether that dirt is in a tilled garden, a free-style flowerbed or a hodge-podge collection of fun pots and barrels) is a sure-fire way to put a lid on the worries of our world trying to boil over onto our joys.

A lot of us look to the natural world to relax, reflect and enjoy life moment by moment. A verse of a favorite hymn I learned as a child comes to mind: “For the beauty of each hour of the day and of the night, hill and vale, and tree and flower, sun and moon and stars of light. Lord of all, to Thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise.”