the big picture
There has never been a more important time to cherish – and wield – the secret superpower of gardening, writes MICHAEL McCOY
Asecret superpower of gardening is its provision and celebration of short-, mid- and long-term goals. Weeding and planting provide the immediate gratification of order restored, and a looking forward to future pleasure. You’re planting a promise. Cultivating expectation. Sowing anticipation. I can’t think of any other consuming passion to match it in this regard.
This superpower isn’t secret because of any deliberate concealment. It’s secret because it’s undersold, as there’s such a small financial benefit to anyone ‘selling’ it. Show me a really keen, switched-on home gardener, and I’ll show you someone whose leisure-satisfaction-todollars-spent ratio is exceptionally low. And it’s undersold because, in a world of high-octane, extreme, consumerist leisure, it just looks a bit… almost embarrassingly… humble.
Knowing full well that I’m preaching to the choir – if you weren’t aware of these deeper, slow joys, you wouldn’t even be reading this magazine – I’m thinking we’ve got to be more consciously aware of these pleasures… we’ve got to understand them better, and celebrate them more. We’ve got to wield this superpower more effectively and knowingly. After the year we’ve had, it has never been more imperative, in our lifetime, that we should do so.
Indeed, while good, steady rains have kept my garden fully hydrated throughout this calendar year, I’ve watched on, powerless, as most of my professional, social and leisure goals wilted in the face of COVID-19. There was a moment when every item on the calendar was deleted. I had some ongoing work, but there was nothing, absolutely nothing, in the calendar to draw me forward, to cast a hook and line into the future and draw me onwards. In that moment there was nothing next week or next month, and nothing certain even next year.
EXCEPT (and it’s a huge, all-caps ‘except’) for the promise of spring. Except for the almost palpable underground rumblings of bulbs flexing subterranean muscles in preparation for their spectacular show. Except for the swelling of leaf and flower buds, initiated months ago but now approaching full expression. Except for the slow creep in day length that tickled and prodded a whole lot of slumbering plants into wakefulness.
This month, where I’m gardening, is the pinnacle of delivered promise – the consummation of months of unquenchable expectation. If there’s a moment of arrival, this is it. And, by golly, I intend to extract every last bit of pleasure from it. And while I’m celebrating the payout, I’m going to reinvest. Now that it’s past the date of the last frost, it’s time to cram my big pots with a huge, happy mix of summer annuals and perennials. It’s time to plant heat-loving vegies.
And, making full use of the humble, quiet, future-enhancing powers of this passion, I’m also going to plant a tree.
Michael blogs at thegardenist.com.au