Why We Garden, Part I

As we head into Spring, and the daffodils begin to poke their heads out, I find myself getting away from my desk, and wandering around the nursery more often. Now I am an incredibly lazy person, and it seems strange to me that I would get up out of my comfy, high-backed chair, and actually use my legs. Why waste all that energy, when I can sit at my desk and look at pictures of flowers?

The reason is that I get an emotional reaction when the sun is warming my face, when I can see the gently unfurling leaves of our roses breaking dormancy. Even when I stoop over, and pull a weed out from the cracks of the sidewalk, I feel oddly satisfied with myself. I think it's because when we come face to face with the beauty of nature, we take something away from the experience. Something that stays with us.

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Daffodils
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I WANDER'D lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

By William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

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[Update:] Apparently, this poem is controversial. Although I have to say, the academics who dismiss the poem have clearly never gardened. Who doesn't love daffodils?

Dutch Master Daffodil

Ellen Daffodil