Writers Unblocked Magazine Volume 1/ Number 1

THE CONSTANT
GARDENING
BY CHRIS JACKMAN, Chair, Arts and Design | School of Communications, Media, Arts and Design
UNLIKE MY WIFE, I am a live-and-let-live
gardener; the kind of gardener who doesn’t
like to garden. Yard maintenance was an
unfortunate side effect of purchasing our first
home in this little corner of Scarborough.
So when we first saw a patch of white flowers
peeking out of our humble flower bed two
years ago, I was sanguine. “They look nice!
I know we didn’t plant it, but why not leave
it there?” Survival of the fittest, bloom what
may.
My partner disagreed, but she respected
my apathy, smouldering only slightly. I opted
to put our kid to bed while she pulled them
up one by one. Not a trace remained in the
morning, and we granted ourselves the luxury
of forgetting.
We did not know that these were onions
in our yard. Wild onions, whose blossoms
flourish mid-spring. Wild onions, who sprout
in silky green chives from tiny bulbs in the
earth. Wild onions, whose stalks release
easily and whose bulbs spread like infection.
Wild onions with the tenacity of death itself.
The onions became a problem in the summer
2020. They were no longer confined to a
little patch, having made homes across the
front yard with one or two little sorties in
the back. I dutifully chipped in this time -
the first months of lockdown were frenetic
days for the acquisition of new talents - but
I didn’t share the rancor of my sweet wife.
These onions had become the hot coal of
a Melvinesque obsession. On family walks
she’d side-eye the neighbours’ yards and
randomly break our stride with a cry of,
“There! THERE! They have them too!” She
would stoop to analyze their arrangement,
trying to divine some secret of their spread,
but always stood up dissatisfied. She’d even
glare at them as we walked away, as though
suspecting they might pick up their skirts
and follow us home. I thought she was going
slightly crazy, but it was the middle of 2020
and lockdown was wearing on us all, so who
was I to judge?
Speaking of psychoses, I have come to
entertain a highly specific conspiracy theory:
the Illuminati earmarked my family for
psychological warfare. A true garden plot.
Some nefarious bureaucrat was asked how
he would break us, and he responded with
the naked audacity of “Onions.” Did he even
slow down before throwing the bulbs out of
his car window? Did he get promoted?
2020 was the year we got proper trowels and
kneepads, but these munitions were spent
in a scattershot counter-offensive. Would
vinegar work? Baking soda? And oops, a
volcano. We didn’t even know what we were
looking for at the time, memorably hacking
away the wiry shoots of a young bush that
was soon “transplanted” to a yard bag on
the curb. We were also distracted by our
son, now home from junior kindergarten and
uncommonly fond of running towards traffic.
VOL. 1 / NO. 1 • WRITERS UNBLOCKED
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