Most people today have a very difficult time recalling who their grandparents were, not to mention their great-grandparents. It is all a sign of our disaffected times, or perhaps people exist in a cozy, mindless, comfortable vacuum. My gardening grandparents, like my artistic grandparents, have influenced me quite a bit in my gardening interests as well as in gardening in general. On the distaff side, the Carusos always had gardens in Sicily and also in America. My grandfather Sam Caruso had a backyard nursery in Miami. He had a primitive, natural touch for propagating and growing plants---I think that our earliest primitive ancestors had the same touch. He is credited with being the first to grow and sell lots of Fig trees in South Florida. As a young boy, I helped him in his nursery, making cuttings, planting-up cans of plants, and best of all, going around to the housing sub-divisions on Saturday mornings with a truck load of plants to sell. Best of all, I loved sprouting the Coconuts that we sold later as young trees; there is an epiphany in seeing a coconut sprouting--such a powerful life force. We always returned home with our supply of plants sold out, and I can say that he loved propagating plants as much as selling them. He loved cutting a deal with people, "turning a buck" as he said, which I also like and do to this day. After all, he was a retired produce trucker for A and P; he had owned produce trucks and was in the midst of it all down at "the yards."
My father's family, the La Rosa-Mazzas, always had gardens, as well. They dropped the Mazza when they came to America, but in some instances I retain Mazza which means mallet or hammer, the same Indo-European root as martel, as in Charles Martel. My grandfather had a Fig tree in Pittsburgh that he dug up every fall and wintered in his cellar. Later, when the Fig had grown too large, he wrapped it in old sheets and rugs and covered in layers of straw. It looked like a real mummiform tree that any ancient Egyptian would respect. I suppose that is what the ancient Egyptians meant about resurrection, the afterlife. It always survived through to Spring, spread its light-green, delicate ourant leaves to the sky, and produced i Figi. He also grew rich, tasty, succulent tomatoes, not like the wretched "things" sold in the supermarkets today. Neither he, la famiglia, nor I would have condescended to put such things in our mouths; kind of like eating canned Chef Boyardy spaghetti, something real Italians and any lovers of good food don't do. To this very day, my children Angela, Andrew, Marianna, and Charles La Rosa grow exquisite pomedori every summer, and that's why we don't have to eat "cardboard" tomatoes to this day. My son Joseph really knows how to cook with them, too. Mi piace la sua pasta! Also, my grandmother Lucia La Rosa once gave me a big pocketful of Four O'Clock (Mirabilis jalapa) seeds from her garden which she called "Fourclocksa." That got me started on my great love of germinating seeds as I've written about in a previous numerous times---writing, words, and seeds.
Well, the upshot of all this is that I learned the essential gardening skill from my grandparents. It is all about Observation; watching what a plant or any other living creature does on a day-to-day, even on an hourly basis, when they are growing, especially when they are ill or suffering. Plants are wonderful, non-demanding living beings. Observation and Focus add up to Attentiveness, or LOVE. Attentiveness is love. You do not give much Attention to a person who you think you do not Love. That is why I have no favorite plant. My grandparents observed and knew what plants were doing as much as Goethe did in his essays and in his perfect little book The Life of Plants, proving that it is not what you think you know, (that gets in the way) but instead, how well you you Watch with sacred calm, with a kind of "empty mind," to quote Krishnamurti. The opposite of course is being "full of oneself," what the English aptly call being a Nosey Parker in "BBC Gardening."
Well, I could go on to my Artistic Grandparents (some ancient, of the past, contemporary, some of blood) which also have taught me Care, Focus, and Love, but that will be a Gardening-Art Blog of another sort, and for another day.
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