A house becomes a home with a garden
When does a house become a home? When freshbaked cookies come out of the oven, when a new baby arrives, and when the place in which we live becomes larger than life.
Recently we were privileged to sponsor and attend the City of Toronto Garden Contest ceremony at city hall.
There were more than 300 entries in six categories. With so many great gardens, contest judge Tony DiGiovanni remarked: “Choosing winners was the hardest job of all.”
Among the entries was a Toronto homeowner who won the Award of Recognition “for the enormous contribution she made to her community by transforming a blank lot into a floral display with 50 varieties of roses and a wide range perennials.”
The homeowner, Shanthi Kugan, wrote a letter to the judges. Her excerpted letter:
“Dear judges, my name is Shanthi. I have been living at this address since 2012 summer; I have been renting this house from 2012 to 2014 Decem- ber, when I bought it. When we moved into the property, there was no flower, plants or anything on the property except trees, dried grass and lots of dandelions.
“I worked on my gardening with the help of my son and daughter, and made my house and property beautiful.
“When we moved into the area, not a lot of neighbours were gardening. Since 2015 I see a lot of neighbours working on their gardens. One of my neighbours gave me a few of her plants, and I gave her some of my plants in exchange. This encouraged neighbours to do more gardening.
“My son and gardening have helped me a lot to find peace, and gardening is my hobby.
“We don’t throw out old vegetables, fruits, or dried leaves, egg shells or tea bags. My son digs and buries these; this helps the soil and plants to grow healthier.
“Thank you so much. This (award) encourages me to do a lot more for my garden.” “God bless you. Shanthi.” If a house becomes a home when it is a place where we find peace, does that create a role for your garden?
When Mark was 4, his father pointed to five pyramid cedars planted in a row across the back of the yard. “The middle one is yours,” he said, giving a young lad ownership over a living thing, something that felt very special. Mark was the middle kid of five and as the years passed, his image of that house was framed by an image in his mind of that one tall cedar tree. A house became a home.
When you walk up to the front door of our family house, you are greeted by flowering plants in pots and ferns in hanging baskets — or evergreen boughs, depending on the season. Ben plants up window boxes with fresh herbs through summer at his place, and always has a pumpkin and squash at his door come fall. Food gardening is his thing.
After you garden for a while you learn a lot about people by observing the treatment they give the front of their house. A swing on a porch, visible from the street, says that the owners are social and desire to be inclusive. A tall hedge at the street, that blocks the view of the front door, tells us the owners enjoy privacy.
An unkempt hedge or yard and a lack of outdoor furniture is likely the sign of, well — you know — “indoor” people.
Whether a house or a home, the difference is what we invest of ourselves. It’s much more than a single sheet of fresh-baked cookies. It’s also a mature cedar tree or a landscape that transforms the front of the house from grey, or brown, to a riot of living colour.
It is not just one thing that makes a house a home and it is not just love. It is an accumulation of honest efforts made to warm a place up and the garden can be at its heart. Mark Cullen is an expert gardener, author, broadcaster and tree advocate, and holds the Order of Canada. His son Ben is a fourth- generation urban gardener and graduate of both the University of Guelph and Dalhousie University in Halifax. Follow them at markcullen.com, @markcullengardening, on Facebook and biweekly on Global’s Morning Show.