I’ve heard it said that gardening and religion are the obsessions of middle-age. I won’t burden you with my fragmented thoughts on religion, but I will ‘fess up to an obsession with gardening. When I look at an empty lot, my imagination brims with images of grasses, hostas, cone flowers, sedum, ferns and all the plants that do well in our area.

And I can’t help it. I stare longingly when I pass a garden center. And if I’m not in a rush (and alone), I will probably stop to see what’s available and seldom leave empty-handed. My wife indulges my passion for plants; I assume she thinks it’s relatively benign.

Actually, I think gardening and religion may be connected. I’ve often wondered if the interest in creating a beautiful garden stems from a deep-seated desire to re-create paradise–the one that was lost when the First Gardeners were banished from theirs. Poor Adam and Eve. Unlike us, they didn’t have drive-up garden centers where they could seek solace…or to stress out about what kind of mulch to buy.