A Garden Will Grow Even in the City

A LITTLE girl I knew loved to garden. She did not live on a farm in the country. She did not even live in the suburbs but right in the heart of a city. Her backyard was small and only a little of it got much sunlight at all. Nevertheless, she could coax pansies and other flowers out of the ground. She did not bother with vegetables because she did not like them.

The little girl's name was Catelynn. She had a small spade, a hand hoe, and a weeder. She kept them on the lowest shelf in her closet where they would be handy whenever she needed them. When spring came, Cate took out her pail and tools and went into her garden, to the patch of earth her dad had set aside just for her. In that patch of ground, when the crocuses had come and gone, and grape hyacinth and daffodils were still in bloom, she planted her spring garden.

She watered the earth with the hose. Then she turned the soil first with her spade, and then with her hoe. Then she was ready to go to the nursery with her dad to pick out her flowers.

At the nursery, she chose as many kinds of flowers as her dad advised, since her garden was so small. Back at home, she planted a row of pansies in the front of her plot. Pansies were her favorite flowers, and some of them always returned each year after the last freeze. She thought they were the best of all because they were humble, they came in lots of colors, and their petals were interesting in shape. She said they always looked glad to see her.

BEHIND the pansies, she planted petunias. She also planted marigolds, moneywart, periwinkle, columbine, daisies, and last of all, in her sunniest spot, her rose bush. She liked the roses because some of the best fairy tales had roses in them - "Beauty and the Beast" and "Sleeping Beauty," for example. Cate's bush produced pale yellow roses tinged with peach, delicate and fragrant, and always almost perfect.

It was a fine garden, and Cate kept it every year, weeding and watering it carefully, until she went to college and got too busy for gardens. But one day, I'm quite sure, Cate will have her garden again. And it will be a garden in the city - perhaps not very big, but very beautiful and rich in color. Right now, she has a tiny garden in her window - four pots of cooking herbs and one for pansies. `Kidspace' is a place on the Home Forum pages where kids can find stories that will spark imaginations, entertain with a tall tale, explain how things work, or describe a real-life event. These articles appear twice a month, always on a Tuesday.