Sometime earlier this week--the days have blended together a bit-- I began weeding Iris's garden. Before this project I had worked with the group, hauling out pieces of a retaining wall that had kept the once-tidy garden from sliding into the patio. We hauled out fallen pieces of the garden, too, and pieces of garbage from the renters who had destroyed the wall and trashed the house. Clearing the patio had been rewarding, but as others settled into scraping away peeling paint, I found myself on the periphery, wandering without purpose. Looking at the overgrown and slumping garden, I realized there was something useful I could do.

Before I started weeding, I consulted with Iris about which plants she wanted me to leave in the garden. "There's not too much anymore," she told me, before pointing out her irises, of which there had once been many more, and the rosebush a relative who had since died had given her. It was clear from the way she talked about it that the garden meant a lot to her, and its bedraggled and overgrown state impeded her feeling at home. These plants were both sources of joy for Iris and sources of history. She was also incredibly knowledgeable, much more than I felt as I began pulling weeds. At first I tread lightly and stuck with pulling out only the tall grass I knew for sure was unwanted. I didn't want to remove any plant that Iris valued as part of her home. As the week went on and the grass disappeared, I began to venture further into the weeds, removing outsiders from trash to Queen Anne's Lace.

After a few days of weeding, the garden was as good as I thought it would get, considering that I did not want to cause the whole garden to crumple into the patio below. This morning, however, David Rost asked me if I wanted to go shopping with him because he wanted to buy Iris some plants to surprise her. Delighted that I could see this project beyond the stage of bare soil, I helped select the last two peonies (piney roses down here) as we had recently been told it is believed in Appalachia that they ward off evil spirits. We also picked out two irises, Iris's favorite flower, as well as two lilies and several flowering plants for hanging baskets and window boxes that I had found at the house.

Arriving back to the site, lunch had begun so I joined the group on the grass. David began unloading the van as Tommy, Iris's husband, looked on. Iris came out to see what was going on, and David called her over to tell her that we had bought her some perennials to remember us by in future years. I watched her face carefully as she absorbed our purchases and their bright flowers. She held her hand over her face as tears came to her eyes. Later in the afternoon, she reappeared saying that she had stopped crying now. "My garden is coming back," she said several times.

Iris fielded several cell phone calls this afternoon, each time telling the caller about the new flowers in the garden and the wonderful group working at her house. As we got ready to leave, Iris said "I could keep every one of you!" I sensed that this house, with its new coat of paint and its flower beds rid of invasive plants, felt like home again. Iris was empowered by these changes, as other improvements, from home insurance to a water collection suddenly felt within reach. I too felt a sense of home and belonging in my connection to Iris and the flowers in which she took so much pride and in my connection to the contribution made by our group.


-- Laura Twichell