Compost Studios

While the Belgian climate seems awfully gray and cold to this Southern grrrl, I have to say there has been some compensation for sacrificing sunny, warm weather. Belgians are devoted and skilled gardeners and their dedication to the art of landscaping is something that enhances my life in every season.

In general, Americans are not devoted gardeners. There are exceptions, of course, but the typical house has shrubs planted around the foundations, a large expanse of lawn, a few trees around the yard’s perimeter. A lot of folks have a flower patch or two, some potted plants, some have impressive beds, but by and large most yards and gardens don’t merit a second glance. Americans are often fastidious about their lawns and surround their homes with great carpets of green but they are less interested in cultivating the rest.

In Belgium, it’s the opposite. The lawn (if there is a lawn) is just a backdrop in a scene where flowers and foliage rule. Immaculately trimmed hedges frame yards with gardens overflowing with blooming ground covers, shrubs, and trees as well as crocuses, daffodils, grape hyacinth, lavender, tulips, and countless other sorts of flowers that a non-gardener like me can’t begin to name.

Walking through the neighborhood early in the day, I feast my eyes on yards covered in color. There’s a cream-colored cottage by my children’s bus stop that never fails to charm me—and the landscaping is a big part of the reason. Its owner has trained blooming vines to frame the front and garage doors, the window boxes outside each sweetly shuttered window add a smile to the front of the house. Little E-Grrrl says it looks like a fairy tale house. The brick driveway and front walk are surrounded entirely by flower beds, and these are dormant only in the dead of winter. Blooming shrubs and bushes lean over a white fence to the right of the house like friendly neighbors ready to exchange a greeting with the passersby.

The house next door to us appears unremarkable from the street, but our neighbors tend a secret garden behind it that I can enjoy from my third-story windows. Their yard isn’t large but their garden is remarkable, spreading out from a patio with winding paths, a fish pond and fountain, rose bushes, a porch swing tucked into a green arbor, and multiple beds with perfectly timed blooms that supply new color just as another fades. What a treat to lean out my window and see it all, to smell the roses when the wind shifts, to hear my neighbors’ little girl racing down the garden paths.

Lately, as I ride the bus or walk to town, I get almost dizzy craning my head this way and that trying to take in the sights, textures, colors, and heady scents. Belgium’s gardens are irresistible in the spring, but the best part is knowing they’ll still be making me smile all the way through November.

May 4, 2006