A spring rain is falling on my garden this morning. It is lush and green, and it is a really different garden than the one I planned and created at the start of the pandemic.

For the three years of Covid my little urban garden was both sanctuary and therapy. When I moved in it was a scruffy backyard with some raised beds. I watched Gardener’s World on YouTube and sketched new perennial borders. I combed through seed catalogs buying too many seed packets, and then growing 1000’s of seedlings under lights in the winter. I planted hundreds of Spring bulbs. I planted native flowers and perennials. I had 4 raised beds of vegetables. I worked all day on Zoom, in a virtual world, and spent many evenings with my hands in dirt, reconnecting with something real, something that I could do, some way I could feel useful in a world that felt uncertain.

And then last Spring I broke both my legs and returned home in late summer to a wildly overgrown garden that I was still physically unable to tame. I hired a landscaper to cut back the overgrowth and reestablish order—with new borders and lawn put in where some of my old gardens were. I lost the plants at the edges, the hardy geraniums, the lady’s mantle. Landscapers are good at creating edges and putting in lawns, but they don’t know plants—so many of my perennials were ripped out in the process of ‘clean up.’ In the end it looked green and tidy. But it wasn’t the garden I planned, and it made me sad. I felt like I lost a friend. I had grown attached to the plants I grew from seed. I was attached to my daily work with them.

It's amazing how attached we can become to the things we do to cope—how our life rafts can become fortresses. Even when our life or context shifts. We miss our life raft, even though we are now on dry land.

This Spring my pre-covid work life has returned which means that I am once again working in person, far away, for long stretches of time. No more daily gardening time. I am lucky to get a few hours in my garden every two weeks. This winter I looked longingly at my seed catalogs and had to concede that I wasn’t going to be home to take care of something so tender. My lighted seedling shelves are storing canning supplies. This year my garden couldn’t start with seeds.

Yesterday I went to a local garden center and walked past all of the rows, looking at all the fabulous seedlings. Standing amongst all of the plants, I was hit with a wave of sadness—longing for all the plants that really aren’t possible this year. In years past I would have stocked up on tomato plants and varieties of different vegetables, but when you are gone for 2 or 3 weeks at a time, its nearly impossible to grow vegetables. I stood in the aisle, scanning the plants, seeing only what I couldn’t grow. Seeing only what I couldn’t do.

But fortunately, it’s hard to stay cheerless in a place that’s filled with color: petunias, marigolds, pansies, geraniums. I stared at all the color and heard myself say out loud: just grow what you can. So, I bought two flats of zinnias and snapdragons. Zinnias and snapdragons are annuals and annuals don’t mind a little neglect. They will survive drought and rain.

When I got home from the garden center, I spent a rainy afternoon weeding and preparing the raised beds and tucking the zinnia and snapdragon seedlings into the ground. I put up my tripod poles and planted my sweet pea seeds in my eternal hope of having climbing flowers (ever hopeful). And I did plant three eggplants because even if I don’t get an eggplant this year, the pale purple flowers are worth growing for themselves.

Sometimes all you can do is grow what you can. Growing what you can means acknowledging and even grieving what you can’t. Growing what you can usually means growing something smaller than you wanted—or slower than you wanted. Or growing something entirely different. Growing what you can is a compromise—between what you want and where you want to go. Between the present and the future.

Growing what you can allows you to connect with, and even enjoy an in-between place. To spend an afternoon with my hands in dirt with flats of hopeful seedlings. To imagine the color in July. To imagine the jelly jars of flowers that I will give away. To repair or grow as needed, at a pace that allows it. Growing what you can means above all—that there is still growth. It may not be what you want. But it may be just what you need.