VIKING CHRONICLES —“Walking around in my garden at home and looking at my plants — it’s good for the soul,” Spanish teacher Kim Revilla said.

From the first Mandevilla she planted in 2004 to the colorful variations of Canna that she is experimenting with now, the hours that Revilla has spent tending to her plants have turned her into an avid gardener. Although her garden is filled with countless varieties of plants, her favorites to work with are bulbs, specifically Freesias, a colorful and fragrant flowering plant whose bulb is planted in the fall and appears in the Spring.

“Bulbs fulfill a challenge to see what I can plant so that there’s something interesting in every season, because they disappear when they’re not in bloom,” Revilla said. “When it’s their time all of a sudden you have this amazing flower that pops out of nowhere to enjoy.” 

Sometimes Revilla will come across a bulb she left in the ground when trying to plant a new plant and need to move it elsewhere, but there is often no way for her to know if a plant will grow until she waits and sees.

“You read the requirements needed for the plant to survive, but until you actually try it on the spot that you think is going to work you can’t know until it grows if there’s something not right,” Revilla said.

Revilla feels this experience serves as a good metaphor for life.

“It reminds me not to not to give up if something doesn’t work the first time,” Revilla said. “Because most of the time, we don’t really know what we’re doing until we do it a couple times through.”

This mindset that has flourished with her gardening has helped her take a new look at her anxiety. She feels that now it is easier for her to acknowledge that she is never going to flawlessly execute anything immediately, and there is no use trying to.

“Everything’s an experiment,” she said. “Maybe something doesn’t work, but you try doing it again in a different way. It makes you realize nobody does it perfectly the first time.”