HELPING OTHER people build gardens is part of the summer experience. Whether you give away divided perennials to a friend, lend a hand with a new garden space, or offer suggestions for garden design, the end result is an enhanced landscape and a shared experience which pleases both the eye and the heart.

Unex- pected things happen when you work in other people’s gardens. One friend uses special mulch when planting: shredded scripture. For example, you can actually pull a paper strip from the waiting hole, find the timeless words of John 15:4, and know the plant is resting on timeless words as its roots become established in their new home. And there are sometimes cats, curious cats: a calico cat, a black cat with yellow eyes, a hairy Persian cat, batting at your trowel, lurking behind the shrub or under the porch, ready to pounce. Then there’s an occasional pottery shard that has its own mystery.

Around Northfield and other nearby towns,lupines are among the most decorative flowers in late spring. Photo by Christine Barnes, The Northfield News And there is Jenna. Jenna is seven years old. My garden partner and I first meet Jenna when the school bus drops her off at her house where we are working. She runs up the driveway, dressed in a pink flowered skirt and top, and pink shoes, brown hair flying, backpack flapping. Shyly, she endures a brief introduction from we two gardeners, then bounces inside to greet her dad.

Soon there is a soft knock on the porch window, and a peeka boo game is in full swing, with Jenna’s delightful face popping from behind curtains, upstairs, downstairs, and upstairs again. Whatever shyness initially governed her behavior, restraint has vanished.

Jenna flounces out of the house still in her school clothes, but with carefully gloved hands just like the gardeners’. Hers are not garden gloves, however, but red wool winter gloves, not at all intended for the mud and dirt which cover her new-found friends. She’s ready to join us, but sits nearby, sizing up the situation, calculating how to weave her story into ours.

We are re-doing a large lupine garden at the front of her house. The plan is to remove some of the mature, established plants, plant other perennial varieties for interest and expanded blooming time, and create an inviting path that meanders to the porch. Mayhem ensues, as we dig up some of the large inbloom purple beauties, tap roots and all, and place them in the wheelbarrow bound for the compost pile in the back meadow.

A tug on my shirt: “Why are you destroying the garden?” Jenna says with big, brown, wondering eyes. We explain, but the concept escapes her, and she begins snapping off lupine blossom heads from remaining plants, and strip-firing them at us with the deft stroke of her hand. We clarify the subtle distinctions and she gets it.

Off we go with the wheelbarrow to the back meadow, and Jenna gallops along. On the way back, she gathers strawberries for us from a well-kept garden, but two have barely a blush, and one is half-ripe. Generous, nonetheless. She watches with a grin as we smack our lips with pleasure.

Time to set the stones in the path. To stabilize them, we need some gravel. Jenna is fully accommodating in the process, dumping small pebbles, and jumping like a girly piston, up and down, until the stepping stones rock no more. We flood the area to help settle the path, and Jenna’s pink shoes and red wool gloves take on a whole new color scheme in the ooze.

As we set the other perennials into the garden, the hose is suddenly dry. We notice Jenna’s absence. We sneak around the side of the house, and rollicking giggles rise from behind a bush. She has come into her own, full of life and laughter, and sweeps us up with her infectious spirit and full commitment to the project.

She’s missing again. The front door opens, and out she comes with a box of tiny beads. Occupied on the porch with her jewels, she soon offers each of us a silver-wired trilogy of pink and white, square and round shapes. We are touched by her gifts. Jenna puts one in each of our cars for safe-keeping.

The garden is finished, and it’s time to go home. We clean up with Jenna’s supervision and running commentary, and say our goodbyes. Tired, I begin the return trip to Northfield, and listen to a little music along the way. At a stoplight, I happen to glance at the dashboard, and there are the jewels, next to a painted rock that says “Dance”. That’s Jenna.