Pedro’s Garden

Pedro had a beautiful garden outside his house. It was so beautiful that when people walked past his house, they would stop and enjoy the view.

During the summer, the sweet smell of roses was so strong that if you opened the kitchen windows, you could smell them inside the house. In fact, every morning before school, when his family had breakfast, they would open the windows so the family could enjoy the smell of the garden.

There were bushes full of blueberries and raspberries, and a small patch of fresh, juicy strawberries. There was also an apple tree and a pear tree.

It was truly a dream garden.

Pedro usually enjoyed having the garden, especially during the summer. But autumn and spring were a little different.

During autumn and spring, his mom and dad would ask him to go outside and pull out the weeds, trim the bushes, cut back the grapevine, and water the plants once a week.

That part he didn’t enjoy.

Sometimes one of his friends would be kind enough to stay with him and talk while they worked together.

But usually, he had to do it alone.

And the worst part was that he had to do it no matter what the weather was like, good or bad.

It was hard work, but the joy of eating fresh strawberries and blueberries with pancakes was so much greater than this chore.

There was once a girl named Lucy who dreamed of having a beautiful garden.

Her family had just moved into a new house. Her parents had recently finished renovating it, but there was still a lot of work to do outside. The garden was a disaster.

It was so overgrown that you couldn’t walk through it. There was no lawn, nothing but overgrown weeds.

Although the garden was big, it was in horrible condition. It was so overgrown that the plants blocked the sunlight from coming through the windows.

And so Lucy’s mom told her,

“Sweetheart, I know you’re also upset about how our house looks from the outside. There’s no place to play and nowhere to grow fruit. So why don’t we take matters into our own hands and work on it together? Could you help me with that?”

Of course, Lucy became excited.

She thought about all the little things they could plant and how she would be eating fresh fruit in the mornings.

She imagined having a dog that she could play with in the garden.

But she didn’t realise how much work it would be.

While Pedro only had to work on the garden once a week, Lucy and her family were working on theirs every day.

They had to start everything from scratch.

They had to remove all the weeds, dig out the old soil, and bring in better soil with an excavator.

They had to buy small plants and plant them.

And still, there was nothing to show for all the work.

At least now the sunlight could come through the windows.

A month later, the garden looked fine, but there was mostly bare ground and small, young plants.

And what a fight it was to keep those plants alive!

There were bugs, weeds, too little water, and too much water.

They had to protect the plants from the sun when it was too hot and from the snow when it was too cold. They planted blueberries, raspberries, a small patch of strawberries, an apple tree, and a pear tree.

That was a real hassle.

But Lucy would think about what the garden would look like in a few years.

She would draw pictures of it, and that really helped her stay positive while working on the garden every day.

One day, Pedro had had enough of wasting time on the garden. Why did he have to do it? Of course, fresh fruit in the morning was nice, but he would rather spend time with his friends or watch cartoons.

And that’s exactly what he told his mom the next time she asked him to water the garden.

He thought she would get mad at him, but she just said, “Come, Pedro. I’ll show you something.”

He followed her into the living room, where his mom pulled out a photo album. On the cover was written “Lucy’s Childhood.”

She opened it to a page with a picture of a house and a family standing in front of it.

“Is that you and my grandparents?” Pedro asked.

“Yes,” Mom said, turning the page. “Those are pictures from when we moved into this house. I was around your age. Look, here’s what the garden looked like when we first moved in.”

Pedro let out a breath.

“Wow, it looks so bad.”

“Yes, and it took a lot of work to make it into what it is today. Now it takes just a little time to maintain it. Would you rather have the garden look the way it did back then?”

“No,” Pedro said. “I like it more now.”

Mom smiled.

“You’re doing a great job taking care of it. I’m proud of you! Maybe one day your children will be running around in it.”