Every new house, apartment, and even boat I move into I immediately plan a garden. I can’t help it. And, every time I leave that house, apartment or boat, I wave good-bye to another crop of plants and sigh. All that work? And for what?

The first house I moved into in Costa Rica was downtown. Not off to the side of downtown in a neighborhood or suburb, no smack dab in the middle of San Jose. This house had a tiny front yard and every morning I would nurture the struggling bougainvillea trying to guide a vine towards a shimmer of light. I’d pluck out overgrown impatiens and shoo away the big paws of my three dogs so they wouldn’t trample my new seedlings. Just as the vines of the purple plant began to stretch over the fence, we moved.

On this boat I lived on, I bought all these pots. I watered them until the end of the season when the petunias looked like long skinny necks of a giraffe and the mums were huge big-bellied blossoms. I left the pots to the new owners.

I owned a home once where I transformed a trash-filled back yard into a blooming English garden. I sawed planks into pathways; picked out chunks of broken glass from the soil; and hauled perennials and annuals from the nursery until my wallet and my back ached. I can smell the garden when I look at photos, and if I close my eyes, I can still feel the stems brush past my legs when I walk down the path, an iced tea in my hand.

The plot of yard I have now is small, tropical like (which means shady) and offers a few sleeves of dirt for blooming potential. I gained custody of a few plants when I left my last home. Most were almost dead. They’d been unattended to and ignored. I’m not much of a green thumb, and I don’t care to study about plants. I just like figuring them out on my own terms, learning tidbits of information from people more knowledgeable than me, and ultimately letting the plant just do it thing.

The planting season is on hold because there’s no rain right now. We just sprinkle our crop with the hose every few days and they seem happy, blooming and taking hold. I drove by the old house I lived in downtown. The bougainvillea has taken off. It’ s purple spreads now over the top of the iron gate. I’ll never be a master gardener, I don’t have the patience to study that much. When I think of these tiny plots of land, chunks of soil, maybe I left some beauty behind. Maybe someone else will be moved to pick up a trowel and feel the energy of the earth right there under their thumbs.

So when it starts to rain, I’ve got this idea to haul in some bricks, build up the dirt, and find some more purple blossoms, orchids maybe. A Japanese theme - wouldn’t that look great? I could get some bamboo, and put the fountain over there, a few chairs, and……….