Barry Fugatt: Nature can provide therapy during stressful times
This article was originally written for and published by the Tulsa World.
On a summer day several years ago, I stood with a respected botanist on a cold, windy slope of Colorado’s towering Mount Evans, one of the highest peaks in the state. We were well above the timber line and, to this shivering horticulturist, the landscape appeared bleak and lifeless.
The botanist, skilled in Alpine vegetation, knew better. He pointed to the base of a huge, ice-crusted boulder. And there, sheltered from the cold, biting wind, a tenacious little Alpine plant covered with brilliant red flowers stood its ground.
Breath was hard to come by on the high slope of the great mountain. And what little breath I could muster was sucked away by the sight of the gorgeous little plant. My botanist friend leaned toward me and whispered, “A remnant of Eden.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Only that there is beauty everywhere and that life prevails even under the harshest circumstances,” he replied.
Lately, I’ve thought a lot about that special time on the mountain. Despite the bleak and scary times we’re currently living through, I’m convinced that there are still “remnants of Eden” to be enjoyed all around us.
I just re-read a lovely little book by John Eldridge titled “Epic.” One paragraph really struck home. “We have grown dull toward this world,” he writes. “We have forgotten that it is not normal or scientific in any sense of the word. It is fantastic! It is a fairy tale through and through. Really now. Elephants? Caterpillars? Snow? At what point did you lose your wonder of it all?” And to those wonders I would add tiny Alpines, towering redwoods and tadpoles. Yes, even tadpoles.
My water garden has a new crop of giant bullfrog tadpoles, some 2 inches or more in length. And as silly as it may seem, I find the creatures as fascinating today as when I was a boy. I captured a big fat one several days ago and placed it in a jar of water on my patio where I could watch its amazingly rapid metamorphosis from legless, torpedo-shaped tadpole into a four-legged creature, all in the matter of a few days. Quite a show!
Remnants of Eden show up in all sorts of ways.
I had an “Eden” moment with my 10-year-old grandson just a few days before starting my shelter-in-place coronavirus quarantine. The little whipper-snapper challenged me to a game of horseshoes, my favorite lawn sport and one I’m very good at. Even so, the little rascal beat the socks off his old grandpa.
Grandpa, however, is right-handed and for this important match chose to do his horseshoe pitching with his left hand. Otherwise, the match might have been more competitive. Then again, maybe not. Either way, it was a special moment-in-time, every bit as beautiful as discovering the little Alpine flower on Mount Evans.
Large or small, our gardens are, in some ways, as therapeutic as hospital wards. Look around you. Hostas are rapidly poking their way through mulch searching for life-sustaining sunlight. Redbuds, crabapples and a glorious collection of spring-flowering shrubs are filling landscapes with a kaleidoscope of colors.
May we never grow too old or too “sophisticated” to be wowed by nature and the Eden moments she provides.
Barry Fugatt is director of horticulture at the Tulsa Garden Center and Linnaeus Teaching Garden. He may be reached by email at: bfugatt@tulsagardencenter.org.