Pussy Willow Power

When I was four years old, I lived in an apartment in the west end of Toronto near the Black Creek.  I remember the weeping willows in the nearby park.  Whenever I drive past that park, even now, I remember the child feeling of delight under those long waving branches and the world feels simple and safe once again.

Then we moved to a house in a new subdivision in Brampton.  There were no trees anywhere in the newly “developed” farmer’s field.  My father set to planting the yard with tulips, roses, mint, forget-me-nots and trees.  We made frequent visits to the local nursery.  I always pondered the use of this word with regard to plants.  As a child, I pictured baby trees being stroked and talked to so that they would grow big and tall.

On one particular visit I encountered my first pussy willow bush and fell in love with its soft catkins.  Here was a plant I could stroke and talk to for sure.  I asked my dad if we could have one but he had his sights on something else.

The owner saw something in me that my father didn’t.  He told me to come with him over to the bush as he pulled a cutting tool out of his pocket.  He quickly removed three pussy willow branches from the bush and explained that if I went home and put them in water, they would root.  Then I could plant them in the earth and I would have my own pussy willow bush.  It seemed to be a miracle to me – too good to believe, but the man looked into my eyes seeing the gardener within me and I trusted that what he told me was true.

Sure enough, a few weeks later I had a jar with rooted sticks and my dad helped me to plant them in the garden.  They grew and grew and eventually the bush was twenty feet tall.  It survived insect attacks that left it near dead more than once and rebounded faithfully year after year.  Each spring, I would cut some branches to have the sweet grey “pussy cats” in my room. 

This was my first and formative experience of co-creating with nature that I can remember.  Nature needed me to put the sticks in water, wait, dig a hole and pack the earth in and then it took over.  The bush remained a companion and evidence of the power to co-create until I left home.

I would plant cuttings from my first bush at every home I lived in after that if there was a piece of land available.  It connected me to the earth and made it feel like home.  Eventually, my father tired of the bush when I was long gone and he had it removed.  But the knowledge that I could create with nature was firmly rooted within me and nothing could remove that.

In a generous moment, that nursery owner changed my life.  I went from a child dependent on a parent’s good will to someone who could co-create with the owner, the plant and the earth.  This knowing never left me.

Even at my office in Toronto, the pussy willow stalks that I put into the planters on the front porch often took root.  In one planter, the bush grew to ten feet in height.  Unfortunately the landlord’s assistant thought that this was “in the way” and it was cut down much to my dismay.  But the next spring, up it came once again.

My last home was a farm on a hill where pussy willows refused to grow no matter how many times I tried.  Just one year after leaving the farmr a new little piece of land on the shore of Georgian Bay became available for me to garden on.  One of my clients brought me pussy willows recently and I am already rooting them so that I can plant them in Waubaushene this spring.  This piece of land is so close to the lake that the pussy willows will have their feet wet and I know they will flourish.  

The grandmother that I now am feels childlike as I co-create once again with the earth.  I know that when I plant the stalks in the earth and watch them take hold and grow that it will feel like home.  And that knowing sustains me.