Esther Silvius
Magazine and Feature Writing
Mr. Fred DeArmond
January 5, 1959
A doctor’s prescription is a friendly, very personal note, written in technical terms and symbols to give information to the pharmacist. It may require a single medicine or several ingredients that must be compounded in exact amounts and proportions. It is for the purpose of giving to a specific person a specific medicine good for what ails him at this moment.
Gardening does for me what a doctor’s prescription is intended to do for his patient, it makes me feel better. If I were a physician, the medicine I would prescribe most often would be: “℞, b.i.d., work outdoors, preferably early in the morning and early evening.” Nothing mysterious about this. The ℞ symbol simply means “take thou”, the “b.i.d.” twice a day. Like many prescriptions, this medication is sometimes disagreeable, but if taken long enough will effect its cure.
The state of my health, my disposition, and my feelings in general are the lowest during the dismal winter months of December and January. When the sap goes down in the fall, when the leaves are raked and put into the compost pile, when the garden is put to bed for the winter, when all growth is suspended, then, and only at this time, do I begin to complain. My head aches, my back hurts; I’m listless and lazy, tired constantly; dread each day, hate getting up in the morning, and dislike going to bed each night; can’t sleep well, don’t enjoy eating, yet gain weight. I’m miserable.
If anyone ever needed a prescription for some magic potion to restore him to normal, I do. There was a time when I was younger, that I would take this vitamin and that tonic, trying to find a panacea for all these annoying ailments. It was quite by accident that I found this elixir, not in a drug store, but delivered by the postman.
On one of these all too frequent, dreary days in late January there was left in my mailbox a seed catalog and a circular from a nursery. I eased my weary body into a chair and started leafing through them. The longer I looked at them the better I felt. My lethargic feelings disappeared, the stupor I had been in for weeks was replaced by a feeling of unexpected excitement. Slowly, almost reverently I laid the catalog down and walked to the window. There in all the bleak lonesomeness of midwinter was my backyard, but I didn’t see that. In my imagination, inspired by the pictures I had just seen, it was abloom with forsythia and violets, the tulips and jonquils were showing color, the pussy willow had kittens, it was spring, spring in my heart, spring in my body!
Simply by turning pages in a catalog I found the magic medicine I had been looking for. I reviewed the last few years of my life and came to the realization that my good and bad feelings followed a definite pattern. The wintertime was the only time of the year I did not feel wonderful. With the coming of the spring my spirits soared, my energy returned and I was alive once more. All because I could now dig in the ground, plant things and watch them grow.
Gardening is pure unadulterated hard, backbreaking work. But, oh, the rewards it has to offer. It replaces the backache of boredom with the actual ache which results from ambitious activity. It teaches patience, endurance and perseverance as nothing else can. In a way it is closely related to being a parent. Sometimes I feel as if I had actually given birth to a plant. I’ve labored with it, nurtured it, watched its diet and wondered at its beauty.
Digging in the ground is a perfect release for bottled-up emotions and provides an outlet for nerve-wrecking tensions. It renews one’s outlook on life and alleviates the mental headaches which result from the pressures of our present day living. After a few hours spent in your garden, whether working or just puttering, you’ll feel better, think better, sleep better and live better.
Each year as spring approaches, I prepare myself for the wonderful busy days ahead by picking up my prescription for energy. I go, not to a doctor for consultation or examination, nor to the pharmacist for a bad-tasting concoction which I do not want. Instead, I go to the hardware store for a hoe, a rake, a spading fork; add to these a few packages of flower seeds, some old, some new, and I have the ingredients for my personal prescription for feeling wonderful. It doesn’t have to be put together in precise amounts, but should be taken regularly, b.i.d.