All the traditional signs of spring are here — the melting snow, the warmer days, the birds chirping — but the surest sound of spring for me echoed through my backyard this weekend: the sound of a squeaky wheelbarrow wheel.

Somewhere or another in my neighborhood, an over-achieving landscape-lover was outside getting as much done as he could on his yard while the warm weather lasted, and, boy, did that bring back some memories.

During summers in college, I worked at Shelton’s in the garden center. With most of my previous jobs having been secretary and research positions in offices, I thought a retail job would be easy by comparison, but I learned very quickly how wrong I was.

To this day, greenhouse days were some of the days I feel I worked the hardest. Our small crews spent our days doing the typical retail work, stocking and cleaning, facing displays, making signs, and, one of my favorite tasks: selling trees and shrubs. The difference between working in a greenhouse and working in the market (not the “store” — you had to pay a dollar every time you called it that) was pretty simple: Mother Nature.

Take the typical struggles of any retail employee (angry customers, cleaning up messes, time clocks that stood absolutely still most days) and add Michigan summers. One day we’d be baking in the scorching hot sun or sweating in the greenhouse, and the next we would be soaking wet and covered in mud thanks to a rainstorm (Those days were my favorite. My favorite sound will forever be the sound of rain on the greenhouse roof).

I quickly learned the value of water (for plants and people), how to clean a geranium (and countless other plants), the difference between an annual and a perennial (and the names of the majority of them), which trees and shrubs like shade and which like a little extra sun and several other horticulture-related necessities.

I remember thinking, as I brushed up on my greenhouse-speak every spring, that barring starting my own garden and helping out friends with theirs, the lessons I was learning in the greenhouse would be pretty much useless once I moved on to a more permanent job.

In retrospect, I have now discovered that few feelings compare to the sore muscles and the dirt under your fingernails after a long day of physical labor.

Looking back now, I realize I learned so many more lessons than which leaves belong to Maple tree and which flowers bloom in June. Thanks to my supervisors and my favorite farmer, Jimbo Shelton, I learned the value of a hard day’s work, how much it pays to listen to the customers (no matter how trying those conversations can be) and the patience required to achieve just about any goal you could ever set, from growing a tomato to building your dream career.

As I go through the more strenuous days in my professional life now, I often think back to the sounds of a wheelbarrow or squeaky cart in the greenhouse and laugh realizing how good I had it.

 

Ambrosia Neldon is the managing editor at Leader Publications. She can be reached by phone at (269) 687-7713, or by email at ambrosia.neldon@leaderpub.com.