Nina A. (ESE) - On Flower Gardening

In my childhood, I lived in a private house. The house stood in a vast garden filled only with fruit trees and flowers. There was a sea of flowers. Even as a very small child, I used to make miniature gardens out of tiny blossoms. These little garden beds were maybe only a square meter in size, but everything in them was harmonious and beautiful. I wanted everything around the house to be extraordinary, cozy, and comfortable. I remember when I was seven or eight, I became obsessed with daisies. Immediately, all my friends and relatives found out that I needed different kinds of daisies. Someone brought them to me from the Carpathian Mountains, others brought them from their own gardens, and the result was a carpet of various daisies, stunning in its beauty, which after a couple of years covered all the soil beneath the fruit trees.

The beauty was extraordinary. Everyone from the nearby streets would pause as they walked past our garden. My greatest pleasure back then was tending to that miracle flowerbed. And then, one day, an acquaintance told me that plants breathe through their roots and that the soil needs to be loosened more often.

I ran home from school—my legs barely feeling the ground, crying. How could it be? I didn't loosen the soil often enough, which meant they were barely breathing!