I am half way around the back nine and stuck on a recurring theme of what my last garden might look like. I can only imagine— smaller. Is gardening in dotage a matter of diminishing returns? We are selling our Louisville home and garden after thirty years and moving to a condo in town. But we’re holding onto the farm and garden in Salvisa. I’m seventy-four now and don’t have the energy I had when I was fifty-four. I’m not complaining. Even after nearly a quarter of a century gardening with M.S. I still have the enthusiasm of an antsy six-year-old, and ample wattage to burn after an afternoon nap.

Louisville arborist Robert Rollins sits to my right. Mike Hayman photo.

Circumnavigating the pond in 2015

Our granddaughter Story in 2009

The back garden from the bedroom window 2013

But there are noticeable changes.

Whenever I walk through crowded airport concourses the cart drivers now ask if I want a ride.

Apparently, I am not incognito.

I refuse the ride.

I am not decrepit.

I am not done yet

Neither are Garden Ranter Emeritus Bob Hill and Janet (AKA Yard Mama) his wife of sixty-two years.

Janet and Bob Hill 2023

Bob and Janet came to my 60th surprise birthday party fourteen years ago. After a few glasses of wine, Bob said, “Look around. All these friends will be at your funeral.” I didn’t know whether to laugh or pray.

I have often thought about these prophetic words, and only recently made a simple plan—avoid falls and forever love my family, friends and garden. Wherever we might be. Trivial matters will not be a concern. Burial or cremation? Surprise me.

Wild Church

“Make plans to attend the next Wild Church at the home of Bob and Janet Hill on Saturday July 19 at 10 a.m.” Bob and Janet ran the unique Hidden Hill Garden for seventeen years. “They are in the process of selling their property, so this will be the last chance to be in that lovely space for Wild Church. There is a large arbor, a meadow and flower gardens. Don’t miss this chance to contemplate Creation in this lovely garden. “

Wild Church is a ministry of Wall Street Methodist Church open to all. The idea was hatched after an annual church meeting and picnic that was held in Lapping Park in Clarksville, Indiana.

Associate Pastor Nancy Palmquist wrote on Facebook, “Members asked for more worship activities in the great outdoors, so we looked into ways to offer connections with God in nature throughout the year.”

Impenetrable humidity hung in the thick air on Saturday morning

Twenty of us gathered in a small, covered pavilion. Cicadas droned loudly. A song sparrow sang. Possibly in the huge pin oak nearby that Bob planted one Saturday morning in the mid-1980s. (His father backed into it later in the afternoon. The tree survived.)

Bob said, “Janet goes to church in town. I walk out the back door. This tree started as an acorn. This is my god.”

Associate Pastor Palmquist read Psalm 148 and urged us to Observe, Reflect, Respond and Rest. She then called upon us to wander around for twenty minutes in a quiet contemplative way with no objective other than allowing the spirit of Hidden Hill to transform us. A cool breeze suddenly blew. The cicadas reverently toned down.

“After some research, Palmquist wrote on Facebook, we found that a church movement had been developing that eventually came to be called “Wild Church” (in England, where this idea started, it is called “Forest Church”). We have learned from others in this movement, but there is no formal structure or organization directing the plans for local gatherings.”

I have visited Hidden Hill many times

I remember dozens of small, interesting small trees and shrubs when I first visited Bob and Janet in the mid 1990s.  The two acre grove is now a forest. The variegated Zelkova, the Persian ironwood, the weeping Katsura are whopping big trees now.

So many memories.

Fallen Angel with a beer

2017

A bell rang. There was no rush. Wild Church congregants walked back slowly. Once settled some were moved to respond. Many had been to Hidden Hill before. Some remembered plants they had bought that were still flourishing at home. Others spoke about the peaceful sense of place. There was a collective deep appreciation for the Hill’s work and the legacy they are leaving behind. This was goodbye and Thanksgiving. Solemn and sad. Bob won’t be driving around in his golf cart, pointing out the camellia-like, white Franklinia blooms, in late summer. Yard Mama won’t be riding her lawn mower much longer. But there was a strong belief that Hidden Hill and their enchanted forest are not done. 

When Bob retired as a journalist at Louisville’s Courier-Journal after thirty-three years he wanted to start a small retail nursery at Hidden Hill. It was a means to make a little money in retirement. But there was a larger calling. Artist and creative consultant Meg Higgins interviewed Bob in 2001 and asked him to explain his intention. She was moved to tears by his explanation and sincerity to share the place he knew was so special. Tens of thousands of visitors, over seventeen years got the message. This is a very special place. A fun place, too. Kids of all ages get it. If Pee Wee’s Playhouse had an adjoining garden with loads of unusual plants, a frog bog, a fallen angel, a waterfall, a miniature railroad. sculpture garden, and a key to a doorway portal that unlocks the imagination, it might look like Hidden Hill.

The promise of increasing harmony

Hidden Hill is for sale. Eight beautiful acres. Bob and Janet have been sorting through a lifetime of memories. They bought a smaller home nearby with a long back lot. Janet is ready for the move. Bob has been dragging his feet, but he knows it’s the right thing to do.  Bittersweet as it is. He’s edging closer. I have no doubt that ground will be broken on a new garden before first frost.

The Hidden Hill doorway unlocks the imagination

Regardless of age and infirmities every hour that passes I think about gardening. Ways to simplify by giving up the city garden in Louisville and enhancing the country garden in Salvisa. I know the clock is winding down. I went down this same road of diminishing returns on Garden Rant six years ago. My friend Charles Murray commented.

Allen the essay is so lovely I want to fuss with the idea of diminishing returns, to make it suggest either that although the returns are lessening, that’s o.k. because it never was about returns, really, or that the diminishing has it’s musical sense, as in a diminished interval, which is not just o.k. but sometimes best, because it fits with so much else you are dealing with in what you write, the uncertainties, mysteries, resolution of dissonance, promise of increasing harmony.

It takes years to light a fire in the first place, and horticultural wildfires burn out of control for a long time.

I am happy the fire remains a flickering flame.