Gardening is an art. It is said that not anyone could sit to start gardening and come out successful. It is a deep process and requires dedication.

The hurdles to be jumped are not one but many. The pests, bugs, rats and even butterflies can hinder one's dedication. If one can jump higher than those obstacles, only then one is fit to be called as a gardener.

My mother is one such person, dedicating herself to her flower pots and plants. Our house, being an apartment does not have much space to accommodate gardening on the ground. Her idea was to move all her plants and put them in flower pots to continue her garden work.

Roses, hibiscus and jasmines were her first priority. Her evening walk in the parks always had her eyes open for newer kinds of flowers.

"Their fragrance has it all." She said one evening as she re-potted one of her plants, putting more manure to it. The kid in me, wondered and smelt the air every time she said it out loud.

As years passed, her need for more soil to procure more plants grew. If there was a construction, her feet would automatically dart towards the site.

"Get the plastic tub. We can grab the waste soil those workers are going to throw away." She would say. "They are the best for the plants."

I would become her appointed assistant and hold the bags of soil on my back as we walked back home. Her love for soil and seeds so increased that she still has her collection of flower seeds under her bed pillow.

One day, her sister had video called her. She was apparently in her garden as she spoke. My mother saw the flowers behind her sister and her envy grew as large as the bags of soil I had carried for her. Her eyes grew wild just like that bunch of bougainvillea around her sister's bedroom window.

Looking at the direction of my mother's eyes as it darted around the place, my aunt got curious. Smiling, aunt explained her in detail about how she had spent her time early in the morning and late evening, tending her plants gently.

That was the beginning of another era of plants in our apartment. Exchanging techniques of planting, cleaning the area was of main importance.

The flowering plants were reduced and a few medicinal shrubs and herbs took their place. The number of plants soon increased and my mother found it difficult to manage; for the space in the corridor wasn't enough to hold all of them together. They created mess that was difficult to clean. Smaller pots and old plastic covers came in handy now.

The space was evenly utilized. By the end of two months, our window pane had around six plastic cups hanging by with plants that I couldn't even pronounce.

As the number of plants increased, the amount of manure required to nurture them increased too.

But from where was she getting more manure?

She had already spent too much to pet the ones that were there. Using the same soil over and over again, it had lost the ability to produce better results.

But my mother was determined. She pulled out all the tricks from her sleeve. She had gone to the local libraries sacrificing her walks for her beloved plants. She started monocot seeding to increase the ammonia content in her soil.

But was it enough? With poor soil condition, the plants had come down. The flowers were wilting, the medicinal plants had pests and the vegetable plants (which were still in its trial states) didn't bloom flowers.

The next era came immediately after that. It included manufacturing our own manure at our apartment. All the decomposed and organic waste was dumped in a bag and tied securely everyday. Every other week it was mixed thoroughly for better airing.

The outcomes were too many. Firstly, though it was not proved yet, we didn't know if that homemade manure worked well and secondly, the fragrance it let out was unbearable. Thirdly, the guests who came home often, now turned their faces in the opposite direction when we called them over.

My mother was renamed as the Mythical Farmer of our family.

As she waited for her manure to come alive, the pots were shifted to the terrace to avoid the odor.

The plastic buckets which held the decomposing manure eventually went up too. Then came another problem.

Rats.

The odor had called up all the rats of the colony like the Pied Piper's flute. They had not only dug up the plastic buckets, but were curious to see if those pots had their good in them. Every night, the pots were uprooted.

All the flowers and now blooming vegetables were trodden upon while the soil was out in the cemented ground, rather than the pots itself. By the end of the month, our terrace had become a playground for those rats.

Even though cats and rat-traps were initially useful, those smart rats had eventually grown intrepid and walked the nights like the very fearless night-walkers.

Those trending rat poisons that were advertised often never worked. My mother swears that she saw a rat eating the poison and running around like it had been to a drunken party.

Day by day, the rats were growing smarter and they found one way or the other to escape from all our traps. Thinking of ways, my mother's hair grew gray with each passing day.

No matter what we did, the problem didn't cease. Perhaps mother should have left those roses and jasmine plants intact in the beginning.

Losing all hope, my mother decided to have only those plants that were spared. Though cleaning the mess of our beloved rats was always the case, few plants came up unscathed. Bright red tomatoes and even a small pumpkin were ripened.

"Why did the plants grow well when I decided to give up?" My mother muttered one day as she plucked out the tomatoes.

That one question hooked me and I had it digging my head for a few days. Were the plants testing my mother's patience level to grow up? Sure, there were other factors to account to, but how were only those plants spared?

Perhaps it was the law of nature. We need to worry less to get better results. We often see kids living in the slums more immune to the common cold than a kid living in the bungalow with protective measures.

Maybe we need to go through all the damages to get to a better place. Perhaps failure is a next step to success is actually true.

My mother had cared and attended to those plants more than she kept track record of my grades, yet they had failed her. Maybe it is telling us that it's okay to not have our life all figured out? That it is still fine to adjust as we go along that road? Perhaps they are asking us to take a break to breathe and look around instead of constantly finding imperfections?

In those months, maybe that was what those rats and plants thought us subtly.

Just like how the seeds and watering the plants were necessary to get the last batch to life, it is necessary to plant the seeds of ideas, dreams and wishes into our lives as well.

Though the external factors influence the growth, by the end of the day, only those that were destined to grow and bear fruits prosper.

And it's not probably, but definitely after a series of failure.