Free Mister Owita's Guide to Gardening: How I Learned the Unexpected Joy of a Green Thumb and an Open Heart by Carol Wall

water.
    There was a lightness in my step as I walked toward Giles, but my sense of joy was short-lived. As I handed him the bottle, he extended the dark green gloves to me.
    “But, you’ve already cleaned up, and made quick work of it!” I protested. “The yard looks great.”
    “But there is one more thing we need to do,” Giles said.
    He picked up the shovel he’d propped against our fence and made a few preliminary stabs into the sparsely growing grass along a very empty, eight-foot area beside the pickets.
    “What on earth are you doing, Giles?”
    “We’re going to make a flower bed,” he said. His blade chopped away at the ground. “There is good news. I have some specimens found in another client’s small greenhouse. She offered them to me, because she has so many things, and I told her, ‘I know a very nice lady who may want them.’ They are annuals, so if you don’t like them, leave them in the ground and they will not come back next year. Their colors are deep red, with some blooms being purple, and another species, yellow. That wouldn’t be too many colors, would it? I could bring them to your yard when the danger of frost has passed, in mid-May, installing them while you are at school, if you like, and you could just return home to the beauty. But for now, we should prepare the soil. It’s why you need your gloves.” The whole time Giles talked, he dug away at the ground with rhythmic cuts. Then he stopped, and in his inimitable way he looked at me without actually looking at me. Although his face was as still and unreadable as always, there was an unmistakable twinkle of amusement in his eyes. “Will you help me get it ready, Mrs. Wall? After all, it is
your yard.”
    I desperately wanted to be able to twinkle back at him, a silent acknowledgment of our tug-of-war over the azaleas and my lecturing to him from the garden book that he so clearly didn’t need. But instead, I struggled to maintain a pleasant expression. A familiar feeling of dread sank like a stone in my stomach—and in my heart. I turned around to face the creek, grasping the fence pickets until my knuckles turned white. I hoped that Giles wouldn’t notice my distress at the mere thought of joining in with his project. It amazed me how he didn’t seem troubled in the least by any sad thoughts of the way his blooms would inevitably turn brown in spite of his best efforts. I so wanted Giles tothink well of me, and I wondered how I could possibly explain to him that what he loved so much filled me with horror. How could I tell him that I couldn’t abide the feel of dirt beneath my fingernails, or even weighing heavily on a damp garden glove? He would think I was crazy if I confessed how repelled I was at the idea of a flower garden planted in the yard that collared our cozy house. I shuddered, imagining petals falling away in advance of the winter that was always on its way.
    Instead of making my confession, I told myself that Giles was just a person working in my yard, or, at best, a casual friend who didn’t need to hear my complicated family history.
    “I don’t like dirt around my fingernails,” I said. “And gardening gloves make me feel clumsy. Is that so hard to understand?” I realized with embarrassment that despite my best intentions my voice had grown testy, with a sharp edge. But I couldn’t stop myself once started. “This was a basketball court for my children. It’s not a place for a garden.”
    Giles glanced around as if weighing our options. “I’ll space the flowers out. The clusters will be beautiful, not overwhelming. The basketball stays in the garage these days, as far as I can tell. So our problem there is solved.”
    That marked the end my patience. “No, Giles!” I burst out. My voice was now angry. Then, as if to prove to both of us that I had no business employing anybody, I said, “We’re willing to increase your pay.” I truly was a ridiculous woman, I thought to myself—bribing my