Issue #39, December 22, 2006

The Garden At Rock Cottage

The Company of Flowers

by Lance Brilliantine

Over the years, the garden has proved to be my best friend and companion. Of four children, I was the one who became the gardener. I guess I had a vision when I was told early on of the story of Eden, of outdoor places of perfection with scents and sights and colors that are secure; where every need is met.

There is a link between my passion and the influence of my granddad – a secretive man who loved engineering, science, fishing, and plants. I was his best friend! Unlike my brothers and sister, I tagged along with him to garden, tending to his treasured and awesome bank of peonies that bloomed each May in the most lovely whites and reds. I delighted in the stories he told of my great-granddad’s florist shop and even more when I would find remnants of burnt coal used to keep the greenhouse warm, or when I explored the greenhouse frames that were still on the property. (They were memorabilia for my granddad who thought to re-build the greenhouse again. He never did.) While my great-grandfather died long before I arrived, I still recall the family myths of his flowers and love of the outdoors.

Equally influential were quiet woodland walks we’d take to gather mushrooms and specimen plants to bring home and add to our collection. It was a quiet life. I was a child who would rise before dawn to go fishing. I loved listening to stories about plants and nature. My granddad took care to raise my awareness of living things around me and he helped me recognize rare woodland plants as we walked along.

I always knew that gardens meant love. The fig and cherry trees my grandfather planted in the year of my birth provided fruit and the reminder of his love throughout my youth. I was never alone when we worked together brewing garden concoctions. His special cow manure tonic grew the best tomatoes in the neighborhood. The secrets of how to sweeten soil using lime is still with me. The beauty of our spring garden as the dogwood, cherry, and pear trees bloomed will remain with me forever. It filled the gap I felt. I could not wait to get home from school each day to regain the sense of belonging I felt in the garden.

It is no surprise that as I grew, I became fascinated with everything that grows. I used allowances and savings to renew flowerbeds, which had been planted more than 30 years before. I felt pride seeing a bed of irises, which had not bloomed in years - come back and bear magnificent, purple-velvet flowers. I learned careful pruning of lilacs could transform them into a magical mist of purple, white, and red with a fragrance that can lift one to a higher plane. At graduation, I bought a hive of bees. It was solace for a child who sometimes felt alone.

I got through college with the help of plants. I shared an apartment with two other guys, who mostly focused on being popular. I quietly experimented with orchids and learned that leaving things alone is sometimes better than caring too much. Oh, the orchids never bloomed but I can get them blooming now and then and feel gratified every time they send up their spikes to heaven.

I work now for my weekends in the Hamptons and toil hard to make a garden landscape that fills the vacant niches in my soul – I am a contemplative spirit. I instill my love of gardening in neighbors and friends and take pleasure in the fact that I can ignite a gardening frenzy in others. I am content to be alone and wander through the garden with dogs and special friends. I point out plants and pass along tips, just as my grandfather did with me. I am elated by the smell of magnolia and rose or cinnamon bush, as they waft my way and listen intently for the sounds of bees and hummingbirds and other little creatures in the Eden I’ve created.

The poet William Carlos Williams said, “Love waits at the edge of a petal.” It is more than that! Fulfillment and connection wait there, too.

You can contact Lance Brilliantine with any questions or comments at GardenLance@yahoo.com.