Joanne Sherman: Pant and Water

I was summoned to the kitchen window. “Look there, in the middle of the yard. I think your Miracle Tree has finally started to grow.”

Oh, no. I wasn’t falling for that again. It’s the annual joke — haha — after 22 years, it’s still not funny. 

Admittedly, I did have great expectations when I planted that tree, even though I’ve never been an outdoorsy let’s-go-plant-stuff kind of person. 

I get it, especially at this time of year when back-yard gardeners are so happy that spring weather has arrived. Finally they can plunge their green thumbs into that good earth. Not me. There are worms in that good earth. 

Successful gardeners are patient hard workers, with dirt under their fingernails, grass stains on their knees and no burning desire for instant gratification. I lack those qualities. However, just like everyone else, each spring I get the “go plant something” urge. And as a result, now have to endure the snickers from my family. Why? Because I believe in miracles, that’s why. And I tried to buy one.

A Miracle Tree, that is. 

It was a 7-inch stick when I planted it.. 

Granted, the twig didn’t look like much but by the end of summer, it would grow to 25-feet tall. Then 50 feet by the next year. That was the miracle and what the ad in the back of the magazine promised. 

There was even a picture of what to expect. Actually it wasn’t a photograph, but an illustration of a one-year-old Miracle Tree towering 40 feet over the head of a stick-figure man. 

As far as miracles go, this one came cheap. In return for $10 (cash only) I received the dried-up, deadish looking twig wrapped in a piece of newspaper torn from Japan’s Daily Yomiuri. And with it came the following misspelled instructions: Pant And Water. 

Pant and water.

That was it. So I took the tree twig to the middle of the yard, stuck it in the ground, watered it and watched, waiting to catch the moment of its massive growth spurt. After two months it still looked dead, but I had faith. Also, I didn’t want to admit that once again, my gardening efforts had failed. Though there was that one time when they actually paid off; the year I planted vegetables and had to dispose of roughly 10 tons of zucchini. 

I was the Island’s Veggie Fairy, leaving bulging bags on neighbors’ porches and in the backseat of any unlocked car at the post office. I unloaded dozens of squash at George’s IGA. I’d sneak zucchinis into the produce section, then get out before I was caught reverse shoplifting. 

Finally George told me to stop it and eventually I solved my excess zucchini problem by tossing them into the bay. Fish food, I thought. But shortly afterward the local waters here developed high brown tide counts. I kept my mouth shut, so mum’s the word. 

Gardening enthusiasts trick the rest of us by making it look so easy — as though the only thing one has to do to enjoy the blossoms of summer is plant a seed, then sit and wait.

A neighbor of ours was that type of gardener. The wildflower acre behind his house was a scene begging to be water-colored by the masters. For years I was mesmerized by the thick masses of butterflies and hummingbirds that hovered above the blossoms. I wanted thick masses of butterflies and hummingbirds in my yard, too.

“Growing wildflowers is simple,” he lied. And I believed him, thinking all I had to do was toss some seeds hither and yon and then sit and wait. 

To occupy my time before my Miracle Tree had its growth spurt, I bought a jumbo can of wildflower seeds and emptied it all around the site of my tree twig. Then I read the instructions: 

• Till soil

• Remove all weeds

• Evenly distribute over a 1,200-square-foot area

• Water daily

Oops! I hadn’t tilled because I don’t have a tiller. But after I seeded I poked holes in the ground with a barbecue fork. Of course I ignored the “remove all weeds” step because I don’t like doing that. And I purposely dumped all the seeds in a 12-square-foot area because I’m a believer in wretched excess, and isn’t more always better? 

Every day I watered (except for the two weeks we were away) and waited to see the first signs of wildflowers. But alas, nothing. And my One-Year-Miracle Tree twig looked kind of sad, too. Dead sad.

I knew what I had done wrong with those wildflower seeds. And it was shortly after it dawned on me that I hadn’t followed the instructions for the Miracle Tree, either.

Maybe it wasn’t a misspelling. Maybe I should have panted.