The Gardener and St. Peter
Loretta Aaron
Gardening follows a rather set pattern. Generally, from during the formative years of one's youth, the love of growing things can be compared to a seed, which may lay dormant for years, awaiting a time when conditions and circumstances are ripe for development.
As the seasons of the year complete their cycle, as surely as summer follows spring, and fall advances into the stark barrenness of winter, so follows the life cycle of a the Gardener.
When the first home is acquired, and with it a plot of good earth available to expand this love of growing plants, the dormant seed for the love of growing can now take root and flourish. Flower beds are made ready. Bermuda roots are diligently extracted, the soil turned over and over, and then smoothed out again. All this is done in anticipation of the eternal promise.
The first effort of the Gardener is often amateurish, but rewarding nevertheless. With the passing of years, more difficult and temperamental plant material is attempted -- as to succeed with the difficult becomes a challenge.
When the Gardener has reached the age of 35 to 40, his enthusiasm peaks, and his full energy will be expended upon his hobby. The variety of plant material used in his garden will multiply with the passing years.
After a few years, the mistakes of the youthful gardener are corrected. Often, the Gardener will move to a new area, and leave his mistakes behind for someone else to correct or remove. After a decade or two, the Gardener will begin to eliminate all high maintenance shrubs and plants. Little time will now be devoted to garden chores that are monotonous. After a few decades, there will no longer be hedges left to trim.
The years allotted to the Gardener pass all too quickly. Trees and shrubs planted during the early years of gardening have now reached heavenward. Less and less space remains between the shrubs for small annuals; then will come a spring, and these annuals will no longer be a part of the landscape. Later, even the established perennials will give up the fight for survival, as the shrubs take over the area.
Then another spring, and even the perennials fail to appear after the first gentle rains.
Such is the way of gardens, and Gardeners, as the cycle of nature is completed, both for the Gardener, and his garden.
The years pass, and each morning the Gardener still make the rounds of his beloved garden -- for has this not been entrusted to his stewardship. He still watches carefully for the inroads of disease or insects that might attach his beloved plants.
As outside gardening decreases, potted plants appear on his window sills, and to these the Gardener will tenderly administer. There are now days he will not venture out into the areas farthermost from the house. When the heat of summer descends, the water hoses are laid early in the morning, or late in the evening only. His strength has ebbed with the passing years, and he dare not linger long in the noonday heat. The trees and shrubs have sent their roots far downward, as if in anticipation of the time when they would be left untended for longer and longer periods.
And then the inevitable, for the final chapter must be written, and the Gardener's spade will be left to gather rust.
.....through the mist and the fog and flickering shadows, a soft compelling light penetrates from afar. Before the eyes of the Gardener now appears the Eternal City. Hesitantly, the Gardener moves forward. The path ahead is smooth and the footsteps of the Gardener are sure and steady. The cane which he has used for support to help him make the rounds of his garden is not in his hand. Then the shadowy mists part, and his eyes behold a gate wringing inward. Just inside stands a kindly man dressed in a white robe. Beyond the gate a spectrum of color stretches out through limitless space. His pace quickens, and he is hardly aware the kindly man had reached out and gently taken from his hands a garden hose sprayer, a bottle of Malathion, and a pair of pruning shears that were clenched tightly in his hands behind him.
St. Peter, for it is indeed he, explains to the Gardener that this is Paradise. Here there are no hungry insects, mildew or blackspot. Here all roses and irises are perfect.
This particular Gardener was a rosarian, his eyes now behold the shimmering beauty of the gently slopes that fell away. These are ablaze with all the roses he grew in his earthly garden. He was told that since he had been a good steward of his earthly roses, he would now be entrusted with the care of the celestial gardens. Now he was to be allowed to spend eternity among his beloved roses. This, indeed, was heaven.
Heaven, being all perfect, is divided into sections, so the rosarian could spend his eternity among his favorites, while the irisarian could wander at length among the iridescence of the iris, and gave forth a splendor that rivaled the colors of the rainbow.
For the perennial gardener, who favored a wide variety of plants, this section held untold wonders. Here were gathered all the perennials of the Universe -- all the countless treasures his earthly garden had not the space to grow.
St. Peter now turns and looks through the mists. Coming toward the gate is an irisarian. His eyes are fastened upon the rolling slopes of iris. St. Peter was aware of the yearning in his eyes. Reaching down and picking up a basket placed beside the gate, St. Peter hands it to the irisarian. It is filled with all the rhizomes of the new introductions that his budget did not allow him to grow. With not even a backward glance, the irisarian hurried through the gate.
(An award-winning article published in the Oklahoma Horticulture Magazine and reprinted with permission in the Sooner State Iris News, February - March 1984.)