Susan Fancy
We bought the house mainly for the backyard. Amidst towering maple, birch and honey locust trees, it was a canvas of open space where I envisioned a big swing set and our young child or children happily running and playing.
But the backyard remained as empty as a blank canvas.
With time, the local garden centre became my source for a palette of colour, tone and texture to fill the emptiness of the backyard and in me.
I toiled many seasons and years, planting an array of shrubs, bushes, grasses, perennials and annuals – golden elderberry, summer wine ninebark, lilacs, hydrangeas, floribunda and bonica roses, burning bushes, wisteria, fountain, Japanese hakone, sedge and blue grasses, phlox, geranium cranesbill, echinacea, hellebores, lavender, veronica speedwell, succulents, hostas and more hostas, snapdragons, pansies, lobelia and geraniums, to name a few.
And I filled bird feeders. Warblers, juncos, swallows, chickadees, yellow finch, blue birds, cardinals, blue jays, robins, grackles and ravens continuously visit, breaking the silence with cackles, calls and song.
I worked with nature to fill the backyard with life and entertaining company, to help me focus on creating life and entertaining company in a way my body couldn’t.
My empty backyard became a fertile garden visited by a lot of life. And despite a certain wistfulness, I now appreciate all this space represents.
There is the beauty I created in nature to help me move through the seasons and years when my hopes and dreams to mother turned to deep grief. And the plants that remind me of dear loved ones no longer here.
I see the shrubs, bushes and perennials my Dad brought over from his garden.
I see the Rose of Sharon and hostas that Mario’s Dad loved.
I imagine Mario’s brother, Pino, sitting under the birch tree that he admired, and how he would have loved the wisteria we planted in his memory.
I have so many happy memories of competitive bocce games with my Dad and Pino and less competitive ones with nephews and nieces as they grew.
I see my Mom, brother and sister gathering while Mario barbequed and times when his children helped him rake the many fallen leaves.
A lot of love has been present in this backyard. Despite my certain wistfulness, I savour it now.
