Enjoy the ViewJune 01, 2026

Enjoy the View

Do you ever have days when everything seems to be going in the wrong direction? When everything you planned to go up…. instead comes down or goes backward? For example: You go to the garden center to get compost to enrich the soil of raised beds and the garden center is out of what you need. They refer you to another of their centers, so you pursue that option. They do have what you need, so you purchase 7 bags and have them load the car with the compost bags that turn out to weigh 40 pounds each. You arrive home and park in the garage. Then you get a flat bed cart to unload the bags so they can be transported to the raised beds. The first couple of bags slide forward and onto the cart. The final few have to be lifted out of the trunk and that doesn’t work, or you can’t get it to work. So you close the trunk, slide the cart out of the way and write a work order to have the heavy lifting done for you. It’s a weekend, so you wait for a couple more days.

In the meantime, you have purchased several lavender plants to put into the ground behind the back flower garden beds. The deer don’t like lavender and you use the lavender buds for sachet with orchid petals. Only one problem, the area where they are to be planted needs to be weeded, seriously weeded. You have a partner who helps you, but she needs to work near the raised bed wall for support because the plot slants and the soil is quite wet. While you kneel to weed the lower bed, you keep watching and hoping that your partner will be all right. She has refused to let you do the weeding by yourself. After an hour and a half of diligent weed pulling, the ground is ready for future planting. The lavender plants are given front row places and the next additions are getting ready to join them. By that time you are too tired to do anything else, so you pitch the weeds you removed, recycle the plant containers, and put away your tools until another day. You put a container of freshly pulled grass to the side as you saved it to fill in areas near the house where grass has been hesitant to grow. That challenge is saved for the next time you are tempted to dig in the dirt.

I used to find weeding a gentle time to meditate, go slow, and just BE in nature. I tried that with the weeding and planting. The only problem is that my body doesn’t like the bending over, the leaning forward, the getting up and then getting down to kneel. And on the day after weeding, your body introduces you to muscles and nerves you never knew existed much less carried around with you all day!

Today, I will prepare a place for two coreopsis plants in the side rock garden. It, too, needs serious weeding, but there is much less grass to fight in that plot. The weather is lovely and I intend to take breaks and enjoy the view of blue skies and green grass and the one white poppy that has decided to open up and share its fragrance. I checked on the lavender plants today and they are making a lovely transition to their new home. I can envision the sunflower plants along the wall as they stretch to full height of 12 feet before they bow their heads full of seeds. I will enjoy “shopping” in the Breck catalogue for tall iris to plants between the sunflowers and the lavender. They will multiply and provide fresh blooms for the chapel in another year.

In spite of aches and pains, the effort, the weeding, the time in the fresh air and under bright skies is very satisfying. I allow myself to visit previous plantings and see them thrive and begin to bloom, with promises of future growth. I have decided that gardening will continue to be worth whatever it takes because I intend to enjoy the view.

Sister Anne Marie Diederich