The Healing Powers of Flowers

The flower boxes are a mass of colour, yellows, pinks, purples, orange and red.  He is overjoyed with the rainy days, feeding his garden those special nutrients that only rain can do.  The flowers look so fresh, bursting with brilliance.  This is his garden, his happy place, his saviour.

The last ten years of life had not been good for her husband of fifty years.  He woke one morning with the room spinning, as if he was sitting on a child’s spinning top, but this was not a toy that he relished playing with.  The next day he was fine, hoping it was just a “one off” episode, never to be repeated.  A few days went by, and the spinning top was back to haunt him.  And it seemed to be relentless, wanting to play at any time of the day or night, with no warning of what was to come.

A trip to the doctor amounted to little information; however it seems she was able to give it a name, Vertigo.  He was told it would eventually disappear, as quickly as it came. Unfortunately this was not the case, and after many years of struggling to come to terms with the attacks, he was told it was most probably the beginnings of that dreaded disease…Parkinson disease.  Other symptoms have now appeared, his gait is slower, his back stooped, his hands shaking as if they have a life of their own, his life still seemingly stuck on the spinning and now shaking top!! 

His eyesight has diminished, courtesy of an accident when he was young; it seems being in that stooped position has its advantages, helping him to see where he is putting his feet when walking.  It does not seem to worry him, as he says, that is life.

Now, his garden is his life.  Whilst spending time in his garden, working with the soil, planting his flowers, creating colourful garden beds, his life is normal.  His “Parkinson” head lays dormant. 

This is understandable as it is a well-known fact that moving your hands through the soil, planting, weeding, and being in the fresh air makes one happy and content.  She knows he is relaxed in his garden, lost in his own world of plants and flowers, and not trapped in a world which spins his head, making him unbalanced and whirling as if he was spinning off the edges of the earth.

The garden saved his sanity.  When he was first diagnosed, he became confined to the house.   Bit by bit, his mind started focusing on the garden.   He ventured out, choosing a small area to start with, building a garden bed, starting to turn over the soil in readiness for planting the flowers. 

Many hours and days were spent reading garden books.  Somehow he started to survive those unbearable days of spinning attacks, concentrating more and more on his gardens.  And slowly but surely, the garden grew into the splendour that is it today.  It has given him a sense of purpose in his life, and he is proud of what he has achieved.

He inherited his “green thumb” from his mother, she appeared to be able to grow anything from a cutting, and he found, when younger, quite embarrassed when travelling with her, as she would stop and take cuttings from anywhere she could, sometimes quite secretly.  However, he is now doing the same thing, and has trained his daughter in the art of “pinching” geranium cuttings from wherever she can!! 

His children wanted to do something special for his birthday, and decided to buy him some wooden garden beds, complete with dirt as a surprise birthday present.  The garden beds were delivered, and the dirt duly arrived, Saturday morning came around, and his children and grandchildren arrived, with shovels and wheelbarrows.  A bevy of activity ensued with the beds completed in record time.  He was elated, such a great time with his children and grandchildren.  Then to end off the day, his son took him to a special garden shop for him to choose rare and different plants, a memorable time with his son that will never be repeated.

And so it had started, he spent many days choosing the plants to put in the colourful boxes, making sure no two boxes had the same flowers.  By the time his birthday came, the boxes were in full bloom, his garden beds full of colourful flowers.  The grandchildren had painted the boxes in colourful greens, blues, and reds.   They were a spectacle; the children painted them and created the palm trees and beaches, handprints and other colourful pictures on them reminding him that he is a well-loved grandad.

The family had arrived for his birthday.  The grandchildren burst into the house like a tornado, running here and there, and keen to be the first to give their birthday kiss to their grandad.  His little pup Jazzy was on his lap, excitedly yapping, vying for their attention too.

They eagerly waited for their grandad to start “the walk” around the garden.  With a walking stick in his hand, they wandered out to the garden, stopping here and there as he showed them the new flowers that had grown since they were last here, and the ones that were only buds, waiting for the next burst of sunlight and rain urging them to open their petals to enjoy the warmth of the sun and the softness of the rain. 

Picking flowers were high on their list of things to do with their grandad, special blooms to be placed in the vases on the table next to his birthday cake.  Some of the flowers they picked are misshapen and bent, some have long stems, and some with barely any stems at all.   He does not mind, as he understands that the children do not want to cut the flowers making sure they are a perfect bouquet, in their mind, they just want to “pick a bunch of flowers”. 

They follow their grandad around the garden, choosing purple and pink flowers from the petunia patch, yellow daisies, daffodils, blue “forget-me-nots”, chrysanthemums, and the purple perfumed lavender.  He is pleased he has given the children a chance to wander around a garden, to pick a posy of pretty flowers to put in their vase. 

Grandad had given them their own garden pots to plant seeds in, they are keen to listen to his instructions on how to plant the seeds and they watched with wonder as these little seeds turn into flowers!!  The pots end up with a wonderful sprinkling of colour and a few fairies adorning them. 

He gets so much pleasure to see the grandchildren wandering around garden, checking out the vegetable patch – sometimes pulling the veggies out of the ground just to see how they are growing, and then putting them back in if not quite ready to pick.  He laughs, that is okay, lovely to see the enjoyment in their faces when they pull freshly grown carrots from the ground!!

It always surprises him that people say how beautiful his garden is with the colourful flowers and shrubs.   All he knows is, that if you plant a tree or flower, it will eventually become part of the whole garden.    His garden is his escape, as soon as he wanders out into the yard, he is in another world.  The flowers and trees do not care if he wibbles and wobbles around, they seem to know he needs to be there to get lost in their wonder and splendour. 

Amazingly, every tree in his garden has some sort of flower, it may be very small, but if you look closely, it is there.  He believes every plant has their own special enticement for people to look at; it may be the way some flowers open to the sun and close at night, or the way some of the buds all congregate together to make a beautiful display.  The lemon and orange trees are in full flower, heralding the sign that vibrant yellow and gold fruit is on the way.

No matter what life throws at him, he knows he will always have his garden to retreat to, planting new flowers, giving new life of plants that he finds on the “dead stands” at the plant nurseries.  These, it seems are his favourites, they too have their problems, but with love and care, they again will bloom and their flowers will be a testament to the care he has given them.