Friday, April 8, 2011

A to Z Challenge

A Tribute to letter  G

G is for Garden
This is a tribute to my parents as well. They loved gardening. We had a garden in our back yard with fruit trees like Guavas, Mangoes, Bananas, Papayas and Pomegranates. Around the trunk of the Guava trees and the Mango tree, my father had kept little pots with seasonal flowering plants. Then we had Palm trees, Crotons, Roses, Jasmine and many more. Every time my father bought a new plant he would walk my sister and me and showed the plant and told us the name of the plant. At the age of five, my sister had memorised almost all the names of the plants. Then my father would proudly mention that to our relatives. One day one of my uncles asked her the name of a flower he saw in our backyard. My sister did not remember the name for some reason, she kept on thinking and then finally she came up with an answer: "It is the flower of it's own plant." To this day we remember her smart answer. We also had a small garden in the front, most of it had Cactus plants and some Bougainvilleas. Sometimes baby goats would squeeze and come in from underneath the gate and go towards the Cactus. My sister who was five would gently tell the goat not to eat the Cactus because they have thorns and then she would pluck some flowers and some leaves of the Bougainvilleas and feed the goat. To this day, I tell her kids the story about their mom when she was little.
Some people don't even care about plants and trees, but to those of us who care, gardening is our life.

"So you take a subway" she asked.
"I don't have a car, but I have a garden on my patio," he said.

"In our neighbourhood, kids eat right and it does not cost us much," she said.
"Oh?" he said.
"We all grow different kinds of vegetables and give each other gifts of produce from our gardens" she said.

"My heart goes garden, garden,
whenever you smile,
stay for a while,
stay for a while." Translation of an Italian Poem, told by a coworker of mine who said that in Italy a Garden is synonymous with happiness.

"Jason" said Mommy " Where are you taking my silk flowers?"
"Mommy" said Jason. "I am making a garden in my blanket fort."

7 comments:

Tracy said...

Munir,
Truly there is nothing like a garden to remind us of life~
Very nice post!

Belle said...

My grandfather was a great gardener. One of my first memories was grandpa giving me pea pods from the garden and shoing me how to open them.

I've had a few gardens. The best I did was with pumpkins, they are fairly easy to grow and it was wonderful to have 30 of them for Halloween!

Lisa said...

You invoke the longing for an eden garden, a home orchard, a flowery patio. Lovely post. And thank you Munir, for all your kind and wise comments at Live High.

Step-parent's Cove said...

Wow! Munir this is spooky! Laughter! My blog that I haven't posted yet is about gardening. I just love to garden. I spend loads of monies on plants each year. Usually my yard is the talk of the block because of my gardens, but I don't think I will be doing much this year. I just have way too much to do inside, and besides I am praying that God would help us to get a bigger house, and I find myself kind of down about the housing situation. My cousin can't wait for spring to let up where I can garden. She thinks that will help me be happier, for I really love to garden. My blog background picture is of my apple tree blossoms from last year. My blog photo is of a flower in my garden. It's a Lilly but not sure what type. My husband was going to ask his brother about it, but never got around to it. Oh, well. Have a great one.

Vanilla Mama said...

I wish I could garden - I have a Black Thumb! What a lovely memory, thank you for sharing!

Monalisa said...

i used to garden during my childhood, but later on when i went on to college and out of my native place, i had to leave all gardening back at home. But i still adore gardening. My dad has started gardening at home and he reaps wonders. No body does gardening here, but what he does is all surprising to all neighborhood. And yes, the best part is sharing the reap.

NormalToEatPB said...

I love plants, I used to grow morning glories - so beautiful!