It's not all Roses, ya'll

I have a garden.  Nobody asked me if I wanted a garden, it just so happened that I have one.  It doesn't make me happy.  It doesn't make me feel soothed, it does not offer me any sort of solitutde.  I have decided, it hates me.

Gardening is supposed to be therapeutic.  My parents both love gardening for it's soothing features, they love it so much in fact that my Mom has a green house and decided to start her plants from seed in there.  My dad has an outdoor vegetable garden that's huge!  They also have rose gardens and front gardens, concord grapes and pickling cukes.  They happily wittle afternoons away out there pulling and plucking, pruning and picking.  This time of year, they have a difficult time convincing me that I wasn't adopoted. 

There isn't one thing in particular about gardening that I dislike, I loath pretty much all of it.  I HATE having my hands dirty, earth worms (which make Bethany thrilled, they are her buddies and she loves them) make me cringe, I would rather be getting other chores done than watering in the evening while being chewed by mosquitos, I think it's nuts that weeds grow with no attention at all, but for my rose to survive I have to feed it (seriously, some days feeding my kids and getting them to eat is problem enough, let alone talking a flower into finishing it's hotdog), I resent that when the flowers die you have to cut them off and mostly I hate I do all that work and then 3 days later it looks as if I've done nothing.

Wondering why I have a garden? Well, because I like this house, I like our yard to look nice, I don't want the neighbours or landlords to think I'm ok with the overgrown look and because I have to.  If we were in a position to hire a gardener, I soooo would!

Now, I do tend my garden, kinda.  I put more effort in last year, in a desperate attempt to "learn to like it" like my Mom keeps promising.  Problem is, the more I did the less I liked it, and a fact became clear.  I am not meant to garden, at all, ever.

But since, having a garden guy here sometime soon isn't going to happen, I get to take on the task.  I do it grudingly and only when I have no other choice.  I fight and struggle, complain and avoid and then haul my butt and my trusty, dusty garden gloves out there and dig in.  I mutter and mumble, throw dirt clumps at bumble bees and threaten earthworms that are slow moving with a blast from the hose if they don't "Get out of my sight NOW!"

I wish I liked it, for myself and also for my girls.  They love to be outside in the dirt, they love to help my Mom garden, to see the "fruits of their labour" and to harvest them.  But I don't, and I probably won't.  Which is ok.  I'll let it be something special between my mom and my girls, I'll let them learn from her, enjoy with my dad and when they're bigger I'll pass the gardens on to them.  It's one of the few things I can't wait to let my children do, it's right up there with feeding themselves and wiping their own cheeks - both front and back.

My only consolation is the fact that God sends little rewards in the form of beautiful, and sweet pink roses.  My most favourite of favourite flowers, and one of the only reasons I don't mix up the fertilizer with weed killer.

What about you?  Do you love the gardening or loath it?  Would you rather grow a dozen roses or find them waiting in a pretty vase on your table?