How Horticulture Has Influenced My Writing – Maureen Hartman

Not all writers take the traditional path toward their craft. A degree in creative writing or modern literature isn’t always our first calling. Some meander, wandering through one course of study or career path after another on our way to our desired destination. Neither is wrong, and without the life experiences I’ve had on my journey riddled with potholes, detours, roadblocks, and many wonderful diversions, my writing would lack the useful depth and color needed to turn a story into a novel worth reading.

My education was in Horticulture, which, unless one expects to receive training as a groundskeeper, seek a career growing indoor flowering plants in a commercial greenhouse, or apply their passion for flowers and ornamental landscape plants to their backyard for personal pleasure, is not the traditional path to a literary career.

Following that divergent path, I’ve discovered those experiences add an element of reality to my novels that have helped shape a scene from a flat, uninviting landscape to someplace a reader might like to linger. A garden is three-dimensional. Visually, yes, but the scent of a rose, lavender or a Fresia blossom fills the senses. Likewise, the feel of cool grass underfoot, the prick of a thorn, blisters and bruises, sunburns and soil-packed fingernails are tangible elements that I have ready access to as extra tools in my writing toolbox.

In my first novel, Stranger in My Heart (unpublished), a key character wrote a weekly garden piece for the local newspaper, then creatively applied her skills in her backyard garden, while two others lacked green thumbs and struggled to produce anything. But even a green thumb fails us all from time to time.

In my second novel, SPIRIT (published 2020), Lucy, the main character, was raised by a landscaper. Her sister pursued that career path. They both appear in the story and help revive a long-neglected garden and orchard where key scenes occur. It was a blast creating that space because I could see it, feel it, smell it. The orchard was as real to me as if it was in my own backyard.

My recently released novel, For All the Right Reasons (published 2022), is more limited, horticulturally speaking, in favor of scaling back a bulging word count. But I sneaked some in there in the form of a small vegetable plot in a private back garden. I was more successful at fleshing out a forest landscape, using my experience as a day hiker in the Pacific Northwest.

Gardening has taught me humility. Nothing is guaranteed. A hot, dry summer or cool, wet spring can unexpectedly change last year’s best-laid plan. Last season’s bountiful raspberry harvest is this season’s disappointment. Healthy daylilies cry out to be divided and only so many friends and neighbors are willing to take the spoils. It’s heartbreaking to think of that potential as yard debris. It’s like cutting scenes that took months to craft from a novel.

But there are joyful surprises as well. Unharvested artichokes, for example, burst open in a vivid theatrical display. Upon closer inspection, I discovered multiple species of bees weaving through the hot-purple forest of stamens as they collect nectar and pollen. A mass of Black-Eyed Susan seed heads left standing long after they’ve shed their golden corona is a gathering place for goldfinches and chickadees throughout the fall and winter months, and morning snowfall highlights the contrasting black and white like a photograph from a past decade.

My Work in Progress is seeded with bits of garden scenes taking shape. I’m digging in.

I often write about the garden in my blog (maureenhartman.com). Especially when there is something remarkable to report. My blog is a playground for passing thoughts. There are no guardrails for my topics. And when my thoughts bare down on the garden, I’m in my own little paradise. Words and plants melded together for my own amusement. Hopefully, others’ amusement as well.

Those who visit my garden mention how much work it must be. “I could never do that,” they’ll say. When people learn I write novels, I get the same response. But it’s not work when you love it.

When asked how Horticulture has influenced my writing, I find it difficult to give one definitive answer. Maybe gardening has taught me patience and a willingness to try new things. If it doesn’t work here, then plug it in there. You’re all writers, I imagine. You know what I’m talking about. We’re no strangers to cut, paste, delete, edit, edit, edit. That’s gardening. And in writing, that’s quite an influence.

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FOR ALL THE RIGHT REASONS

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