by Elizabeth Spence
Peter Martyn is proud to admit that he does indeed know one end of a spade from
the other. But plants and planting – not so much.
For his mother and late wife, he was the one who dug the holes, carried the stuff, mowed the lawns, raked the leaves, did the weeding (with supervision), and drove everyone to garden centres. So he certainly knows what the non-growing side of gardening is all about.
Peter grew up in Montreal with, he admits, not much interest in gardening. He knew his father grew tomatoes and his mother loved pansies and marigolds. In his 20s he almost blinded himself playing around with some horseradish, which certainly didn’t encourage him.
Professionally he was an English teacher in Montreal, and spent many years overseas with CUSO as an international volunteer. He married and brought up a family. The idea of gardening wasn’t even on the horizon.
Upon retirement, he and his wife, Debbie, moved back to her home town of Tatamagouche, where he started filling his time with writing and journalism.
Back in the hometown, Debbie was the gardener, Peter the garden help. Very sadly, Debbie passed away almost two years ago, and as the next summer approached, Peter was faced with what to do with the garden. It was all a bit overwhelming to start with.
Then, last June, at our plant sale, there was Peter with a tray of plants.
“Hello, what are you doing here?” I asked rather bluntly.
“Oh, you know. The garden,” he replied.
Jennifer and I were delighted to learn that he had been triggered to get started when he saw the launch of this, our North Shore gardening website in April of this year (2024). Hooray for Peter!! Immensely gratifying for us.
The bug was starting to get hold of him. He asked everyone he could think of for advice and suggestions; he kept an eye on what everyone else was doing. In short, he started learning more and more about plants. He was getting very enthusiastic, and the next time I saw him he was hugging a tray of plants at a local garden centre.
He was off!
He sees gardening as a sort of extension of housekeeping, loves having everything nice and tidy and enjoys decorating. So one of the first things he did was to put pots of flowers by the front door and install hanging baskets.
He planted the annual and perennial flowers he had bought, and went for tomatoes and herbs too – basil, dill and oregano. One of his passions is making pickles and preserves, and the thought of growing his own herbs as ingredients gave him quite a thrill.
Then the first great moment of utter disaster arrived. He had nurtured eight tomato plants this summer. Oh joy! The existing hostas were lovely too.
But then it happened: “Varmints got the tomatoes,” said Peter, “and the deer got the hostas.” He felt this appaling feeling of loss and dismay which many of us know.
He learned very quickly what all of us gardeners have learned: there are never any guarantees in gardening.
In spite of this setback, he is battling on. He is approaching the existing beds with a more and more critical eye and is starting to make decisions about what to do with them. Start splitting perennials? Cut things back? Even (holy cow) dig a new bed!? Or even (holier cow) put in a pond? Ideas are starting to formulate themselves. Here are some of the beds that he has in his sights:
Peter certainly appreciates the amount of work involved in gardening, but he is finding that the garden gives him more than that – a sense of achievement at seeing one’s labours come to fruition.
But there is something intangible as well.
He realized that he actually enjoyed weeding and wondered why. It came to him that he was in a state of physical and emotional peace as he was carrying out what many feel is a dreary, boring, mind-numbing chore.
“Mindfulness” he calls it.
I think at that moment he had the first inkling of why so many people love gardening so much. He is trying to maximize this sense of peacefulness in the garden by keeping his “mindful” antennae quivering. Just being out there, surrounded by the plants and the insects, the scents and the sights, is becoming a wonderful way of calming the spirit. Going barefoot in the grass intensifies the feeling for him.
As we were speaking, I thought of the word “petrichor”, the wonderful, earthy, calming odour we perceive after rain has fallen on dry earth. We are not making this up; the garden speaks to us in so many soft and quiet ways. If we listen carefully enough, as Peter is learning to do, we can be carried away into other realms.
I am left with one of Peter’s deeply-felt observations: “The garden,” he says, “is a good place to be.” He’s right, isn’t he?
3 Responses
What a wonderful story! I felt Debra’s presence along with Peter’s as you told this heartwarming tale of a garden’s life. Good stuff!
Thank you Gail!
Well done Peter. A great first rry. Just think if the plants had jot been eaten you qould not have learned what could be done next time in trying something different.
It happens to all no matter how experienced.
You have this. 🌞✌