The other day I did a major division and replanting of some clivia, a South African plant which likes the shade, flowers in late Winter/early Spring, and requires little more than the annual winter rain to produce its pretty orange flowers. Transplanting the clivia got me thinking about my mother again. I had to dig deep and then lift quite a weight of plant that had sprawled into a large cluster. It is fairly shallow rooted and sits on a ball of juicy, fat tendrils all bunched up in a fleshy tangle. Dividing the plant needed some brute strength but eventually I had clumps of new stock to plant.
I remember how hard my mother worked in the garden of the 14 acre property she and dad moved to in the seventies. Her dream was to landscape a few acres of the property as a Protea garden. As I puffed and panted, and dripped drops of sweat, creating new holes for the clivia, I thought of my mother with her spade, digging, planting and watering her seedlings. She must have been in her late fifties, early sixties then. I remember her long brown hair pulled back in a pony tail and twirled into a bun. She wasn’t grey like I am now; she had grey wisps around her ears and forehead. I can see her, toiling in the sun, standing up when she saw me walking towards her, leaning on the spade as she wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her arm, wearing a smile that said “phew, this is hard work.”
And then we’d chat about the cultivars she’d nurtured from seed. We’d walk up and down her rows of seedlings while she explained how to tell when a plant was ready to go in the ground. All the babies needed hand watering and that seemed like a big job every day.
It’s strange that I have these memories of my mother as a gardener now because I can’t remember her being at all interested in the garden when I was a young child and we lived in suburban Cape Town. I think passers-by would call our grounds “unkempt” for it had a wild and abandoned air about it, very well suited to childrens' imaginative games. Robin Hood, The Faraway Tree, Jack in the Beanstalk, we had all the props! We even had a tennis court at the back which I know suited my mother because it was less space to manage.
The other thought that keeps recurring is “what is the point of the work if we are just going to die?” Mum didn’t live to see her protea garden thrive. It was still in its infancy, and the rows of seedlings still lined the nursery, when she died at 65. And although I was already in my thirties, I still thought she was ‘old’ and that’s what happens when you get old. You die. I am now nearly as old as my mother when she was diagnosed riddled with cancer.
The question I struggle with today is: “If her destiny is my own future, how do I make the days really count?”
Mum in the early 70's at Lagoon Farm, Hermanus
Sherry, I was 64 when you had turned 62 and sadly dementia has caught up with me. I am on medication to help slow the disease down . One thing that is 100 % certain, is that we are born to die, I look at life in several ways, one is we get married, bring kids into the world, they go off and do their own thing, and then we have grand kids. By that time our work on this aerth is nearly done, and then its a waiting game to see who is going to fall of the perch first. My wifes mother will be 94 this year and I will be 72.She is becomming a huge liabilty and I have outlived both my parents. I will be very fortunate if I get to 85. I know I wont be driving anymore, and will probably be pottering around in my garden or some old age home. My son will go through the same process and he to will ed up god knows where, and he to will die. The wheel keeps turning !
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