putting out new roots

Y’all.

The garden is talking to me.

I know y’all already sometimes probably think my porch light is not all that bright, so I can tell you this without fear I’ll damage my reputation.  The garden has been talking to me.

After the intense rains we’ve had lately, several plants are behaving in unusual ways.  This tomato stem is putting out rootlets… seven feet up in the air.

I’ve been saying to myself for many months now, “Bloom where you’re planted.  Just freakin’ bloom where you are planted, Meredith.”

Which is fine advice.  But sometimes you’re seven feet up in the air, and it’s just not going to work.  I keep trying and trying to put down itty-bitty roots here.  I am the kind of girl who likes to feel rooted, in place.  (Excepting a few very intense bouts of wanderlust in my younger years.)  Yet I think this Sungold tomato plant is a perfect illustration of my current situation.

Sometimes the planting wasn’t thorough.  The Gardener put you haphazardly in a bucket of compost, planning to carry you out to the perfect spot in the sun, and then the mailman knocked on the door.  Sometimes the Gardener lost the label on your pot and planted you in full shade and you need to give some clear signals that this is not working out for you so she’ll move you ASAP.

And sometimes you are just waiting to be transplanted again, and you don’t know when that will be, and maybe you have to do the best you can with whatever you can get for a while, and you still love life to the absolute fullest, and you still try to live in the moment as much as possible.  But you know this is not where you want to be.  Your roots aren’t finding purchase in the rich soil you long for.

It’s okay.  It doesn’t mean it won’t happen.  It doesn’t mean you can’t continue to grow.  You may even put out a few feeble little buds, as a sign you’re in earnest about this whole flowering thing, and you mean to produce a spectacular flush of bloom — fireworks, really! — just as soon as you get a helping hand to set you deeply into the planting hole that’s just right for you.

I just need a little patience.  I need the support of all those who love me and believe my flowers are worth waiting for .  Plus, the company of my friends in the garden who speak my language without saying a word.

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