Author: Joy Murray

This summer I’ve spent a lot of time communing with plants.  I’ve had some changes in my life.  My adult daughter moved in with her two cats.  She’s going to help me out around the house while she regains her financial composure after changing careers.  So my studio got smaller, but it’s a good thing for us both.

I planted a lot of flowers in pots on the porch this summer, and if you follow my facebook page, you’ve seen the progress of that enterprise.

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In the back of my house, in the neighbor’s driveway, there’s been an abandoned motorcycle since I moved here over a year ago.

At least it looked abandoned.

I wanted to take some good close ups of the rusted gears, and the way things that once moved become stationary.  I have transitioned to using a wheelchair for most of my outdoor and indoor activities this year, and I felt a bit of attachment to the rusting old thing that once must have glided with ease through the streets of Memphis.  My photography was limited, however, by the quality of my camera as well as my ability to get in close without my own wheels getting stuck in the gravel pavement of the driveway.

I decided in the spring to use it as a guerrilla garden.  (I sometimes plant left over seeds in abandoned lots and in other people’s property just to see if they grow.)  I started adding pots of plants that might vine into and over the bike.  It’s in an awkward place, not much soil, inconsistent sunlight.  But I know plants strive to grow no matter what, so I went ahead and sneaked plants onto it.

But it didn’t really look right to me.  So I went ahead and planted some purple hearts in the ground around it.  I also planted some morning glory seeds hoping they were strong enough to handle the thin layer of soil under the gravel and dry conditions.  And within a month, things were growing:

And the morning glory was more than prepared to take a ride on those old wheels.

My neighbor told me about mid-project that it was indeed his motorcycle, not really abandoned by some former tenant.  He’d bought it to fix it up, but that he’d never had time to.  He was happy that I was able to create a little garden with it.

Then a few weeks ago, he told me that someone had bought it to fix it, and would pick it up soon.   It’ll be interesting to see if the morning glory will continue to grow even when the support is taken out from under it.   I’m not worried about the purple hearts, they grow and grow.  They don’t let circumstance stop them.

For now, though, the old motorcycle is still there.  Thriving in it’s disrepair.  Rust settling in deeper and deeper and my little bit of wild gardening twining through it.

This summer.  I’ve felt like I’ve been in a fallow period artistically.   I haven’t been painting a lot.  I’d planned to paint the flowers I grew on the porch, but instead, I do brief pencil sketches then just sit back and meditate on color, on growth, on life.  On Change.  I keep thinking things in my life will settle, but sometimes it feels like change keeps knocking me off course.

My morning glories, hibiscus and moonflowers bloom only once and then they fall away, their bright brief task in life carried out with color and grace.  They go to seed and another flower takes it place.  I check the plants each morning for buds and for new flowers.  My marigolds, petunias, celosia blaze out, and will bloom til the end of summer.  It’s mid-August and I’m sure they know their days are numbered as the sun slowly changes angles and they keep growing towards it.  And I am with them, every day, watering, tending and delighting.

So, now as I see my garden’s progress, I don’t feel it’s been a fallow time.  Only a change in season.  All these little growing things are here for the summer, then they will go fallow, and with or without me, they will come back.

I think we all need fallow periods for our roots to grow, so when the time comes, we bloom freely and with whatever color we can muster.

Life is change, but I feel rooted in it nonetheless.

Thanks for reading my post.  If you like it share it.  If you find a typo, please let me know and I’ll send you a thank-you postcard.  

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