That Time I Risked Gardening

The Joy in the Journey,

Describe a risk you took that you do not regret.

My across the street neighbors and my next door neighbor are GARDENERS, all caps. Their gardens are tended to, lovingly cared for, in perpetual improvement, and regularly pruned. Could be an inspiration idk

Except that I know almost nothing about gardening. We have “plants” in our front garden. FH knows a thing or two and has made some beautiful gardens but not yet at our current home.

So I decided today I would embark on a slight beautification activity. One thing that has kept me from trying gardening is that I might do it wrong. Might pull up the wrong thing.

But today I threw caution to the wind and started in on the right hand bed. I even pulled up a few things I couldn’t swear are weeds. They were in the wrong place and, even to my inexperienced eyes, weren’t obviously a bush or plant we wanted to keep, so off with their heads.

I had wheeled the bin over to toss the weeds (probably also a gardening faux pas but whatever).

When I decided to move to the left hand bed I pushed the bin but somehow lost my balance. It was like being on a skateboard where the wheels move faster than the body.

My head slammed into the edge of the bin, my elbows and knees slammed down onto the concrete and the other edge of the bin met up with my shin in a decidedly painful fashion.

Since this is bin day, another neighbor out retrieving his bins saw the kerfuffle and yelled over to see if I was ok. In any situation where I am physically injured, bone sticking out notwithstanding, my stock answer will always be “I’m ok! I’m fine!”

However, all I wanted was to get in the house and lay down on the floor and cry. Which I did.

After a visit to the healing portions of the gym (steam, sauna, spa), I feel better. Worst after-effect is a giant bruise directly on the point of my elbow.

And there you have it. A risk I took that I do not regret. Remind me of that, please, when I lean on that bruised elbow!

12 thoughts on “That Time I Risked Gardening”

  3. Thoughtful posts as always. This is a tricky one because I generally haven’t taken many risks in my life. As a shy adolescent, I have often avoided taking risks by being fearful of the negative consequences. That being said, I do remember a recent incident in which I took a serious risk. I had recently become a victim of cyber-bullying on WordPress. A person (whose name I won’t mention) had been insulting me online through foul language. He was claiming that I was doing too much self-promotion of my movie reviews through insults. It reached the point where his despicable insults got on my nerves. Suddenly, I decided to take a risk by confronting the person through a message. I told him off saying that he was a cyberbully who spent more time insulting people in comments of blogs rather than reviewing movies. It was a risky decision since it could have easily gone wrong. He could have proceeded to further ridicule me online. However, taking a risk seems to have worked because I haven’t been bullied by this person since.

    Your post brought to mind the recent Oscar-winning film “American Fiction”. It captures a frustrated black writer that takes a serious risk by publishing stereotypical stories which pays off. Here’s why I recommend it:

    “American Fiction” (2023)- Movie Review

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  6. I can’t tell you all the riskes I have taken in my life, but gardening would be the tamest. When we moved into our current home we had some tiger lilies that came up unbidden every year. They were so thick I tnought they would choke themselves. So one autumn I dug some of tne bulbs up and redistributed then from one garden to three others. I guess they didn’t like the soil in two of the gardens, they never came up. But in number three garden they thrived, and within 2 years they were coming up so thick they cnoked off everything else already there. Meanwhile, in the first garden, i guess I thinned them too much. Each year thereafter less and less grew there. They’re all gone now.
    That was probably 15 years ago. We haven’t taken care of the flower gardens for years lately because of health reasons. They are now growing wild. But then, so is the grass.

    Risks? Most of the risks I took ended up to be life or death risks, but I never think of them as such until they become that way. But somehow I have always survived. The odds are against me. The next risk I take could kill me. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a daredevil. I just like doing things on the spur of the moment, things that seem safe but seldom are. The good thing is, I don’t get around much anymore. It is hard to take risks when one cannot leave the house much.

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