Secret in the Garden

But she was inside the wonderful garden, and she could come through the door under the ivy any time, and she felt as if she had found a world all her own.

from The Secret Garden
by Frances Hodgson Burnett

It’s spring…well almost, and even though it doesn’t feel like it at the moment, it’s time to think about planting gardens or, in my case, prepping the planter boxes on my balcony and browsing online at Greenhouse Select for handy stuff that will help plants grow.

I never know what children’s titles I have on hand in my own personal library because I’m constantly giving them away to nieces, nephews and the children of friends for birthdays as they grow into the books on my shelves. I have given away five copies of Tuck Everlasting, three of Playing Beattie Bow, three of King of the Wind and seven of Charlotte’s Web. But my favorite children’s novel of all time has to be The Secret Garden and I’ve given so many copies of it away, I have lost count. Preparing to write about greenhouses and tying it somehow to this wonderful book, I checked my bookshelves first, to save myself a trip to the library or bookstore. So imagine my surprise when I found I actually still owned my own copy of this much-loved novel.

I planned to just flip through the book for some ideas. But the beautiful words drew me into the seamlessly unfolding story of an orphaned girl journeying from her parents’ home in India to her uncle’s house on the Yorkshire moors. It is a typical coming of age novel with a bit of a twist and since Mary, the main character in the story, learns how to garden, some self-empowerment thrown in for good measure. Add a mysterious, walled garden that is locked and no one has entered for ten years, and you’ve got yourself one timeless tale that sets the imagination on fire.

Upon reading it for the first time all those years ago, that is exactly what this children’s novel did for me – it set my imagination on fire. It didn’t matter that our city backyard in no way compared to the acreage attached to an English country mansion, but that wasn’t a problem for me. My father had turned the abandoned garage on our property into a gardening shed and there was a corner of it that was “walled” in by the trees and shrubs growing in that part of the yard. When first I was called and then searched for, my mother or father would discover that I had virtually vanished. I hadn’t really; I had simply stumbled upon a secret world of my own and found it amusing to stay hidden while they looked for me.

I “borrowed” seeds I found in the shed and planted them in my secret little bit of earth. Unlike Mary, however, in her walled-in garden, nothing grew in the plant bed I had stealthily attempted to create in my hide-away. Of course, now I know the reason that nothing grew was probably due to the fact that the area was too shaded or the seeds that I had stolen were simply old. The story might have turned out differently if I had the Solexx Lit'l Propagator Twin Walled Greenhouse to putter around in.

If you’re looking for a parent/child activity that both you and your daughter or son can enjoy together, consider creating your own “secret” garden. Perhaps it’s not just flowers your child will plant.