Mom's Magical Garden

Mom’s Magical Garden

Whenever I change a house (by the way dear husband and I have changed four in four years) my Mom’s expert-interior-designing-tips prove very helpful. 

Our standard conversation,

Mom:  Beta, now just get some plants and you’ll be ready to flaunt your house. (Totally expected)

Me: I want to, Maa but alike you I’ll get attached to the plants as well. What if we have to move into another house? I can’t leave behind my plants to die. (I play the emotional card)

Mom: You can donate them to someone who likes plants, right? (She is always ready with solutions)

A mother to Mother Nature, She is! 

And I strongly believe God was of the same opinion which is why, “The LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground--trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food.” (Genesis 2: 9, The Bible)

She finds it difficult to relate to people that don’t grow plants. She often questions, “How can they not see how therapeutic it is; to sow a seed, witness the wonder of the fresh new sapling, water it, and nurture it, to experience it grow into a tree?” 

No wonder, whenever, she feels overwhelmed with home chores or depressed she steps out into her little garden, feels the plants, talks to them and becomes rejuvenated. 

You heard me right; she talks to her plants. So every year when Christmas is at hand she talks to the floral plants and requests them to blossom flowers on Christmas day. And, I am yet to understand how, but they do; miraculously. 

My brother and I always mock her addressing, haphazardly grown trees in our backyard, as jungle. But a recent incident left us dumbfounded. 

In the busy crowded area that we stay, it is so rare to see our national bird but there it was; a peahen, roaming around freely. It is a recreational stop for a group of monkeys too. They pay a ritual once-in-a-week visit and get to feed on vegetables from our fridge. Undoubtedly, we have to admit that what mom proudly calls her jungle is in a true sense one. 

In the front yard stands a Karen-tree (don’t know its botanical name). This tree has grown out of an unwanted branch thrown away in the colony, rescued by Mom and planted in an empty space. 

I always admired its fallen flowers giving an image of a bright yellow carpet spread on the floor. But during my recent stay at “Evergreen Villa” (My maiden house) I noticed how this done-away-with, once-useless branch is now a home to so many different species of birds and animals; crows, cuckoos, humming birds, hawks, sparrows, doves, seven sisters, nineteen gale, woodpeckers, chameleons, squirrels, honey bees to name a few. 

This led me to research about importance of trees in the Bible and the following are the findings: 

“He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.” Psalm 1:3 

“For there is hope for a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease.” Job 14:7

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” Proverbs 13:12

“The glory of Lebanon shall come to you, the cypress, the plane, and the pine, to beautify the place of my sanctuary, and I will make the place of my feet glorious.” Isaiah 60:13

“The trees once went out to anoint a king over them, and they said to the olive tree, ‘Reign over us.” Judges 9:8