The old people's garden

Every year, a few weeks after Tet, my family has a meaningful spring activity, which is to return to the countryside to plant trees in our ancestors' garden.

My paternal home has a large garden with many old trees. Every year, that garden is where the village elders launch the Tet tree planting campaign. My father said it is called the elders' garden because in the past, the elders planted many trees. The garden is not far from my grandparents' house, just a few steps away. The garden is spacious and has many kinds of trees: lychee, longan, grapefruit...

In early spring, my father often buys some new varieties of plants to plant here. There is not much vacant land left in the garden, so in recent years, my father often buys small trees or ornamental plants to plant among the large trees that the elders in the village have planted before.

Early in the morning, after breakfast, my grandfather and I took the lemon trees that my father had ordered a few days ago to the elders' garden to plant. This morning, the weather was still a bit cold, with a light drizzle, but my grandfather said that in this weather, the trees would grow very quickly. He held a hoe, I held a shovel, and my father carried a bucket to water.

He said that since he was a child, he had participated in planting trees in his ancestors' garden. At first, there were only a few longan and lychee trees. Later, whenever there was a valuable tree, the ancestors would ask for it or buy it to plant. So now the ancestors' garden has nearly 100 different trees. The garden has fruit trees, shade trees, and medicinal plants.

Coming to the elders’ garden, the atmosphere was so peaceful. My grandfather and father each shared a task. My father used a hoe to dig small holes. My grandfather used scissors to cut the old branches of the lemon tree and then wrapped plastic bags around the base of the tree before planting. My father asked me to go to the nearby stream to fill the water tank. While working, he told stories about the elders’ garden. This place is associated with so many memories of my father and uncles.

He told me that once my father broke a precious ceramic vase, and because he was afraid of being beaten, he brought it here and buried it under a mango tree in the elders' garden. Only a few days later, the broken vase was discovered because he and the elders were bringing fertilizer to fertilize the plants and saw the place where my father dug a hole to bury the broken vase. That day, during dinner, he casually told me a story about digging up a precious vase that someone had buried under a tree in the elders' garden, but unfortunately because it was broken, no gold, silver or jewels were found. Hearing him tell that story, my father turned pale with fear and sincerely apologized to him for breaking the vase.

The lemon trees were placed in the holes one by one. My father added a little phosphate fertilizer to each hole and covered it with a thin layer of soil so that the trees would have nutrients right after they grew new roots. My father said that these lemon trees were very productive, with big, juicy, and beautiful fruits. At the end of the year, they could be brought home and planted in pots for Tet. After filling the roots with soil, my grandfather sprinkled some lime powder around them. He said it would help the trees avoid disease.

After planting the trees, my grandfather and father took me to visit the garden. The garden was lush and green. The old longan trees had rough trunks, I couldn't hug them around. In the garden, there was also a separate area for growing medicinal plants. There were many types of plants that could cure diseases. There were la lang trees that could cure sprains, grapefruit trees, lemongrass plants that my grandmother often asked for to boil water to wash her hair with soapberry...

Every time I went back to my hometown, this garden was where my siblings and I played every summer afternoon. Sometimes my grandfather hung a hammock on either side of the lychee tree so we could enjoy the cool breeze. Sometimes he even spread out a mat in the garden so we could play cards.

The garden of the elders is so green thanks to the care of many people in the village over many years. I hope to come back every early spring to plant trees here so that this garden will always be green.