For the Love of Gardening

by Jerol Anderson

I joined GardenComm because plants are my very best friends. It’s a thrill to plant a seed or little plant and watch it become a gorgeous smile-provoking bloom or vine or bush. I used to call them my babies. But, of course, now I have real babies and they have babies that I enjoy learning to know. So that parallel is not so easy to make when I know the real thing.  

I enjoy being alone a lot and a person who is alone a lot sometimes has a propensity toward a little depression. If I am feeling too alone, I turn to my garden in summer or my greenhouse in winter or just pop into a garden center for the earthy scent and the fresh air created by my friends. Even an hour or so of getting lost in a world of plants in the winter can truly get the endorphins flowing for me.  

The only anger I feel while gardening is when I work up to it in order to remove a prolific weed that is choking out some pretty little plant. And then the anger is really artificial just so I can muster the physical strength to pull out the big guy or the stamina to keep at the pulling project until it’s finished.  

I have friends and relatives, who don’t appreciate or share in my love, love, love of a garden. One friend actually has artificial flowers in the pots in front of her house during the gardening months. I can forgive them but I’m still learning not to talk about horticulture when I am around them. Someone very special to me, who had a negative bent toward flowers, stood with me one summer afternoon as we gazed from my deck across the zillions of perennials blooming. Her comment was, “Look at that cute little bird perched there.” It was a clay bird that adorned the birdbath. I’ve learned to force a closed mouth smile and nod.  

It’s also fun to laugh about my obsession with the garden. I mean even in the winter when I can’t get to sleep at night it’s not sheep I’m counting, it’s my garden for spring I’m planning and scrutinizing. ‘Who’ can live in the proximity of ‘whom’ and be a true asset to the eye candy I’m creating for myself. And, it is for myself. Friends come over to share my garden and tell me I should sign up to be on a garden tour with others in the area. And have strangers gaping at and touching my babies??? Oops, I mean specimens.  

My obsession is as an escape. A place to go to forget everything else in the world, almost like meditation. But as a novelist it’s also fun to create characters who actually don’t like people – even their own children – as they worship the perfect rose or hydrangea. A good example is in the third novel of my Jessica Tyson Mystery Series, EMMA’S GARDEN. Or, at the other end of the spectrum, there are other characters in THE QUEEN ANNE FOX and A LAKE KOSHKONONG TALE, who truly find peace in the beauty of the natural flora and fauna of God’s creation. I am GardenComm. 

 Meet the Author

When not writing, Jerol shares her time with her husband, ‘The Critique King’, two lovely daughters and their families (yes, grandchildren), another stepdaughter and stepson and their families (yes, grandchildren), and a bird named Tonto. She has Bachelor’s Degree in Creative Writing and Biology. Also enough credits for the Chemisty Degree, but a triple major wasn’t allowed. All those science years are of yet another lifetime. They come in handy when crafting a mystery chocked with medical and forensic info. Visit her on her blog www.jerolanderson.com or on Face Book.