Front Yard by Norman Draper Page B

flower beds. “So, what do you think, Marta?”
    In the past, Dr. Sproot’s gardens would have been crowded with her coreopsis-salvia-hollyhock blend, yuccas, and a smattering of dahlias and roses. Marta had always thought it a weird combination, especially based as it was on Dr. Sproot’s insistence on assigning a precise percentage of the whole to each particular flower grouping. It had been her pedantic way of doing things, and for that reason it had always had a sort of artificial, mathematical look to it.
    What we had here now was so different Marta didn’t know quite what to make of it. Dr. Sproot had kept it a secret from her and implored her to stay away until she could properly unveil her new gardens. It appeared Dr. Sproot had completely given herself over to geraniums and spikes, which gave her yard the appearance of a bristling red, pink, and white torture chamber. Marta had to stifle a gag impulse. In small doses, geraniums and spikes were just fine, though not to her particular taste. When planted solely and over such a broad expanse, it would make any experienced gardener want to run to the nearest weed patch for shelter. It screamed out obsession of the absolutely worst kind.
    â€œIt’s quite impressive, Phyllis,” she said. “It truly is.” She had not lied. It would also be telling the truth for Marta to call a giant sanitary landfill impressive. Dr. Sproot’s geranium-spike extravaganza was impressive in that it was one of the most ridiculous horticultural displays she had ever seen.
    Marta wiggled her nose in a subtle show of disgust. My gosh, she thought, I’ll never be able to come over here again. It will make me nauseous. She reflected with some sadness that in trying to let her spirit take over from her old, coldly pedantic ways, Dr. Sproot had shown that her passion was woefully misguided. It was now plain that gardening from the heart was not going to be her forte, and that, in essence, she had no gardening soul at all. In fact, it would have been much better had she kept her gardens the way they were before, though Marta had no desire for the old, rampaging-nutcase version of Dr. Sproot to reassert herself.
    â€œThis is something else,” said Marta again, trying desperately to sound enthused in order to encourage Dr. Sproot’s personal transformation.
    â€œThese gardens are from the heart, Marta,” said Dr. Sproot. “From the heart, I tell you. All my fabulously impressive knowledge and revolutionary approaches to gardening innovation mean nothing to me anymore. I don’t care what anybody says about what I’m doing here. I’m doing this to please myself. And I’ve found that I am obsessed with geraniums and spikes.”
    Marta cringed.
    â€œI’m so proud of my geraniums and spikes, and, Marta, I don’t go by the book anymore. I go by my gut. I water when the spirit moves me. Same with fertilizing. I figure my inner gardening being will tell me when it’s time.”
    And your inner being better start telling you to come up with a new plan, thought Marta, because there’s way too many geraniums and spikes here. Ecch!
    â€œI’m so happy with the way I’ve changed,” Dr. Sproot said. “It’s so much more spiritually fulfilling. In time, I feel I’ll be able to be one with my flowers—see how they seem to be bending toward us as I talk about them; it’s almost as if they can hear what we’re saying and want in on the conversation.”
    Marta saw no such thing. She couldn’t imagine Dr. Sproot talking to her flowers. As happy as she was to behold over the winter and spring what seemed to be a truly contrite Dr. Sproot seeking forgiveness and redemption for all the bad things she did last year, there was a ring of artificiality in what she was saying and doing. It was as if Dr. Sproot was reading from a script, and once the pages of the script ran out, the