My family and I live next to a rabbi and his family. Contrary to our indoor lifestyle, through the small black fence dividing our private backyard worlds, we could often see an elderly woman on the other side reading a book under the warmth of the sun or hear children screaming and running around in the yard. If we could see them from our dining hall window, there was no doubt they could see and hear us, two all grey sweatsuit blobs and my semi-dressed up mother constantly walking around the house and bickering about what to eat. When Covid-19 hit, each of us took our stations with my mother choosing the dining table as her go-to zoom meeting spot. I guess she must have felt a little exposed being in direct view of our neighbors at all times because she became a spontaneous gardener overnight.
Gardening was not as easy as I had thought. We had to start from the ground up clearing the overgrown weeds and reviving the soil. At the time, the analogy that came to mind was taking care of one’s well being – the process of purging/cleansing to make space for growth and the maintenance that follows. In a time of so much unpredictability, consistency feels overwhelming, however looking at the garden now months from my family’s first plant trip, I can see the fruits of those hours spent retrieving and rehoming those plants.
You can find anything and everything on Craigslist — why buy some plant from Home Depot for three times the price when someone on Craigslist is willing to part with theirs for free? My mom became an expert at finding a wide variety of plants on Craigslist and regularly recruited my brother and me to follow her on her plant retrieval explorations. It was definitely a two person job considering my mom would drive our largest car and refuse to leave with nothing less than a literal truckload of plants. Sticks on fire, yuka, aloe vera (the sharp and smooth kind), Lily of the Nile, Bougainvillea, succulents, birds of paradise, cactuses — I was quickly learning the names of plants I had never known and meeting many strangers along the way.
The most memorable outing in my opinion would definitely be our visit to the home of an elderly couple. They were super nice and actually in the midst of building their own house by themselves as experienced contractors. Furthermore, they had amassed an impressive amount of plants for their future garden. I was given a little wagon to tow the chosen plants to the car; it was essentially a plant depot with a giant variety of greenery. The promise of a large boba milk tea on the trip back home was what kept me determined to successfully shovel dirt as fast as I could.
Though the Craiglist plant endeavors are now few or none at all, it’s amazing to look outside and see so many different leaves and flowers in our yard. My cat Charlie in particular enjoys looking at the occasional hummingbird or bee that stops by.