Mrs. Roberts had always had a garden. It had always been a well loved, well tended garden. She said that gardening was good for the soul. She weeded, mulched, fed and watered her garden. She also sang to it. She liked old folk songs best, but she threw in a lively hymn or two sometimes. She said that singing was good for the soul too, and that putting the two things together, gardening and singing, was the best of all.
Her neighbors loved to hear her out in her garden, working and singing. She had bumper crops of vegetables- huge zucchini, giant tomatoes, cucumbers the size of most folks’ zucchinis, and salad makings of all varieties. She kept the whole neighborhood supplied with veggies all spring and summer. Her flower garden, too, was a sight to behold. The colors of the masses of flowers with the butterflies floating above them had inspired more than one person to plant a garden of their own.
It was with great regret that Mrs. Roberts left her garden to move to a senior citizens’ high-rise across town, but there was no help for it. She could not handle a big house and yard by herself anymore. The new apartment was nice, but it seemed so sterile and empty. Even when all of her favorite things and the pictures of her family were there, it just didn’t feel like home. She hung plants in the windows, put herbs in the kitchen, and African violets on every window sill, and that helped a little. But it still didn’t feel right.
One day at the store, Mrs. Roberts saw a nice big planter. She realized that if she filled it with potting soil, she could grow some nice lettuces for salads right out on her balcony. She went home with four planters, soil, and seeds for lettuce, carrots, marigolds and tomatoes. The next day she went back and got planters and seeds for beans, petunias, daisies and sweet peas. By the end of the week, her little balcony was empty of the iron table and chairs that had been on it, and full of planters. By the end of the month, it was green, and by the end of two months, flowers bloomed and vegetables flourished.
Soon she was supplying all of her neighbors with the fruits of her little garden again. She sang to her plants as she worked in her little garden, and her neighbors grew used to the songs that accompanied her gardening.
You could tell which was Mrs. Roberts’ balcony from the ground. It was the one with all the green on it. Some of the other tenants in the high-rise thought she had a good idea, and they started growing gardens on their balconies, too. Most stopped with a few pots of flowers, but some had almost as much as Mrs. Roberts did. Theirs didn’t grow quite as well or produce quite as much - Mrs. Roberts said it was the love she gave her garden, and no one could deny that her garden was well loved. She said they should try singing to their gardens like she did, but most of them were too embarrassed to try.
Mrs. Roberts began to start small pots of flowers and vegetables to give away. She made sure that the pots were full of the recipients’ favorite flowers or vegetables and soon even more balcony gardens were growing.
And always, every day, Mrs. Roberts sang to her plants, singing with joy as she gardened because singing and gardening were both good for the soul.
One day, as she stepped outside with her watering can and little garden fork, she thought she heard someone else singing. It was a strange, lilting voice, and she couldn’t tell what the words were, but it was very compelling and beautiful. Mrs. Roberts was delighted that someone else was singing. So she listened for a little bit, and then began to hum along with the voice, eventually making up words as she went along. The gardening was even more pleasant than usual that day.
Soon she began to hear the other singer almost every day. Together, they formed harmonies and while the words the other voice was singing were never clear, the results were beautiful. The garden flourished as never before and Mrs. Roberts did, too.
In fact, Mrs. Roberts was feeling wonderful. Her arthritis wasn’t bothering her very much, she was sleeping better, and she just had more energy. She and her garden were both very happy. Her neighbors beamed when they saw her in the halls. “How well she looks,” they said to each other.” Maybe there is something to all this singing and gardening.” More of them went out and bought planters and soil and seeds for themselves.
One day, however, Mrs. Roberts took a fall. It was just as she stepped back into the living room from the balcony. She turned as she was shutting the sliding glass doors, and tripped over her own two feet. She tried to catch herself, but down she went, with her leg getting caught in a chair by the door. She fell into a table which crashed on top of her, with the lamp from the table landing on her head with a thump and her leg going snap as she fell. Mrs. Roberts lay there in the middle of the mess, out cold, with her leg at a very nasty angle.
Sometime the next day, Mrs. Roberts’ neighbors noticed that she had not been out on the balcony singing and gardening since early the day before. By the day after that, they realized that no one had seen her in the halls and no one had found fresh veggies by their doors for several days. They tried to call her, but got no answer. Worried, they got the manager to unlock her apartment.
When they went inside, they got quite a surprise. Mrs. Roberts was lying on the floor by the balcony doors, with an ugly lump on her head and her leg at a nasty angle. Of course she was in pain, but there was something strange about the scene. The odd thing was the small pile of tomatoes and cucumbers beside her, and the trailing bits of vine that snaked in the crack where the sliding door wasn’t quite shut. The vine plants had come right in and made themselves at home, with fruit growing right where Mrs. Roberts could reach it. She wasn’t hungry or very thirsty; the vegetables beside her had taken care of that. It was odd, though, because those plants were on the far side of the balcony, and the vines had apparently come inside and produced fruit in the span of a day. The neighbors decided that Mrs. Roberts must have been having them grow inside for a while.
Mrs. Roberts was taken away to the hospital, where they put her leg in a cast and said that for someone her age who had been lying there for three days with a lump on her head and a broken leg, she was doing remarkably well. They sent her home with a wheel chair the day after that, which was several days earlier than usual. Mrs. Roberts was delighted to get back to her home. The neighbors chipped in and helped with the shopping and all the little household chores she couldn’t do in a wheel chair. They said that she had been helping them with their gardens and giving them vegetables and flowers and now it was their turn to help her. Many of them sang while they helped in her apartment and Mrs. Roberts beamed at them.
Soon her neighbors were hearing her sing again as she gardened. It was strange, though, she always sounded like she was harmonizing with someone when she sang out there on her balcony, but no one else was singing. And she had said something strange when they had found her, too, but her neighbors thought it must have been that bump on the head.
She had said that wasn’t it lovely, all this time she had been taking care of her garden, and now it had taken care of her, too.
