We are chained to our gardens like Promethus to his rock—there to be burned unmercifully by the sun, whipped by the wind, stung by rain, rent by plants and rock, exposed to every indignity the minions of nature can conjure. Gardening is exhausting. It is sweaty. It is dirty. It is bloody.

A recent study examined the nature of home activities and which were leisure as opposed to work. People were asked to rank their enjoyment of numerous undertakings. The authors of the paper then analyzed and tabulated their findings. Examining the results, they concluded that everything above a certain score was leisure, below was “home production” (that means work). Sex, sports and fishing were at the top of the list. Gardening did not make the cut.

Did we really need a study to tell us that gardening is not a leisure activity? It’s spring here in New York. We offer up our bodies in every conceivable way for the greater glory of our gardens. I fall asleep at lunch. My body is sore. My skin is strafed, flayed by plants that have evolved mechanical as well as chemical defenses. Repeatedly plunging my hands into soil, sand, gravel and rock has left them dry, chapped, cracked and bleeding.

At a commencement address to a school of professional horticulture, I, tongue-in-cheek, advised the innocent matriculators to start doing squats. Gardeners use different muscles than most people, I told them--best to start exercising them now. Would that I had taken my own advice. My hamstrings are taut as a violin’s e-string. Bending over these days, I let out the same high-pitched whine the fiddle does. Biceps and triceps, grown unaccustomed to physical labor, are being pressed into service—sometimes beyond their limits. Feet are abused. Let’s not even start with spine and back muscles (did I ever have any back there?).

Blood is being spilled out there people. I have been cut, scratched and punctured almost beyond recognition. On the rare occasions that I go anywhere with my arms and/or legs exposed, people stare. Small children point and question their parents. Women cross the street.

Gardening is hard, unending, painful work. Ancient civilizations had it right. Put them on an altar. Make it quick.  

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Copyright  2006- 2007 by Carlo A. Balistrieri.
All rights reserved.