Out watering her summer garden...
Illustration
Out watering her summer garden, Martha began to reflect on its variety. The zinnias burst forth in a wild rainbow between the sedate, steadying greenness of the ferns and the towering stateliness of the delicate French hollyhocks. It was, she admitted, an odd juxtaposition, for usually one did not have the freedom to place shade-thriving ferns next to sun-demanding zinnias. But that was part of the reason she had dug the garden in this particular portion of the yard -- to take advantage of the peculiar cycle of light and shadow it afforded, always shaded at one end by the blue spruce that stood several feet away, always sunny on the other where the diurnal shadow of the spruce did not reach. She had spent countless hours preparing the soil of this bed, digging down deep, filling in a six-inch layer of sand to promote good drainage, and covering that with a rich mixture of topsoil and fertilizer before introducing the plants to their new home. They responded well to her efforts, the bloomers making the yard resplendent with color, the nonbloomers offering the glory of their delicately detailed foliage as a very different expression of life and being. And despite their differences, their totally opposite needs for direct and indirect sunlight, they grew together richly, in one bed, taking nutrients from the same soil, intermingling their roots, and drinking from a single life-giving water source, her garden hose. -- Fannin
