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Bilbo’s first garden is naught but a small patch of dirt in between Belladonna’s rows of stephanotis and Bungo’s crowd of stock. He plants forsythia and Hamfast laughs as he helps young Bilbo water the first young sprouts. Not even in his tweens yet and already hungering for adventure. Truly, he was his mother’s son.
Bilbo nearly shrieks with joy the day they discover the first blooms and pulls Hamfast into a merry dance. Their laughter soon draws out Belladonna and Bungo who ooh and ahh appropriately and a large spread of cakes are brought out so that they might celebrate with a picnic by these first blooms of spring.
Bilbo and Belladonna both wear crowns of them as they set off to Bree for Bilbo’s first adventure outside of the Shire.
Bilbo comes back with a satchel of pink tulip bulbs. Hamfast helps him clear out the area next to the cucumbers where Bungo used to grow strawberries until Belladonna confessed she actually preferred blueberries. Bilbo buries the bulbs randomly in the freshly turned soil and dreams of pink. They bloom and die and bloom again and when the grey wizard stops by to gift them with a spectacle, Bilbo gifts him in turn with a bouquet of tulips tied with strands of ferns. The grey wizard bends in half to take the bunch from Bilbo’s hands and smiles. Then he straightens back up and sets off another round of fireworks in shades of pink and green.
The next day, Bilbo circles his tulips with curling ferns and Hamfast smiles and shakes his head.
The years pass and the garden grows as the boy grows. White dahlias are added as are chrysanthemums. Hamfast receives the first bloom of the latter year after year and carefully dries every one of them for keepsakes. He leaves sprigs of myrtle on Bilbo’s windowsill in response.
Bungo is the one who plants a handful of begonias and absinth in the garden after the first time Bilbo wanders off one summer day and does not come home at night. Too busy marveling at the wonders of nature, the then almost tween had not noticed how late nor how far he’d wandered into the strange woods. With each repeat incident during Bilbo’s tweens, that particular patch grows and grows and it was not only Bungo who added to it.
Then one year, the season grows cold and colder and food goes scarce and scarcer. As he and his father nibble on the last of the remaining bread to the chorus of hungry wolves, Hamfast wonders what Bilbo plans to plant when (or if) spring returns and whether he’ll live to see it.
Hamfast and his father both survive. Bungo Baggins does not. And the answer is: nothing.
All year, the garden lies fallow. The tulip bulbs that Hamfast had watched Bilbo lovingly plant last fall had not survived the cold. No new seeds dot the finally thawing soil. What was there left to spend on the gardens when crops were so much more desperately needed?
Next year though, Hamfast hopes, next year the garden will bloom again.
Next year though, Belladonna follows Bungo and Bilbo celebrates his 33rd birthday in a garden blooming with asphodel and spikey thistles. When Hamfast received Bilbo’s Nameday gift though, he could have wept. It was a bouquet of dahlias.
Hamfast becomes older, becomes married, becomes a father. He teaches his sons his love of the earth same as his father before him and set them to tending the bounty that Yavanna grants their lands. His second son shows a particular talent for flowers and Hamfast debates teaching him to watch over Bilbo’s gardens. In the end, he has his son to caring for the Gamgee’s own colorful garden instead. He continues to watch as year by year the asphodel and thistle transition into camellias and periwinkles and reveal the dahlias hiding along the wall.
And once every year, he finds himself heading back from Bag End with a basket of poppyseed cakes in one hand and a dahlia bouquet in the other.
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Bilbo leaves, racing off babbling about adventure and dwarves and dragons and ‘plant some edelweiss in the garden for me’. Hamfast plants the edelweiss and then surrounds them with zinnias and absinth.
Bilbo returns and replaces them with white tulips and anemones. Hamfast watches but does not ask. Instead, he waits for Bilbo go inside before he sows a row of calendulas. Bilbo weeps when they bloom and Hamfast weeps with him. He waits for new flowers to replace the old as they did before but a year passes. Then two and three and four and they multiply instead. Hamfast replaces the calendulas with white eremurus. The bright yellow of the calendulas had been too jarring against the faded colors of Bilbo’s grief.
In the fifth year, a tall angry dwarf stomps up the steps of Bag End. Hamfast throws mulch in his face and threatens him with the spade. The dwarf grows angry, angry like the winds in a storm, but Hamfast stands his ground for there is anger in him too.
How dare you? He asks. How dare you think you can come again after all you’ve done to poor Master Bilbo? You who has him planting sorrow and despair in his garden beds?
They shout at each other, nearly coming to blows when the old green door swings open to a Bilbo as pale as his flowers.
Am I dreaming? Bilbo whispers. Thorin am I dreaming again?
Hamfast shuffles out of the way as the two stare spellbound at each other. Bilbo’s not the only one who’s attention had been caught by the fight between him and the dwarf though. Bell, his dear wife, was now fast making her way towards them with kitchen knife in hand. Bilbo does a double take at the raised knife and quickly ushers the dwarf inside. Hamfast protests and Bell backs him up but Bilbo shakes his head.
I need to talk to him. I need to… the dwarf lays rough hands on Bilbo’s shoulders and Bilbo turns into him like flowers towards the sun and moon.
The door closes. Hamfast turns his attention back to the tomato vines and Bell heads back to finish making supper. He sees nothing more than glimpses of Bilbo and his dwarf for the remainder of the week.
Then one day he walks over to see how the new tomato vines are doing and finds the dwarf crouched in front of the tulips. The dwarf smiles warily at Hamfast and Hamfast frowns at him. Thus they spend several long uncomfortable moments. The dwarf clears his throat roughly.
Master Gamgee, I am Thorin Oakenshield, at your service. The dwarf begins. We met several days ago I believe.
Hamfast simply glares. The dwarf shifts and finally stands, forcing Hamfast to tilt his head back in order to continue glaring at the bothersome creature.
You…the dwarf hesitates, You mentioned something about Bilbo planting sadness in his gardens bed. May I ask what you meant by that?
Hamfast crosses his arms. As if he would explain such a thing to the wretched dwarf. Said dwarf stares at him expectantly before sighing.
Master Gamgee, I understand that you may have reason to think poorly of me. Believe me, I think fairly poorly of myself as well. I have made a great many mistakes and Bilbo has perhaps suffered the most for them. But…but I am here now to atone what I can. To, if I can, make him happy to the best of my abilities. So, I ask of you, would you explain what you meant?
Hamfast clenches his jaw at the dwarf’s plea. What nonsense! If the dwarf had cared about Biblo one whit, he would never have dragged the hobbit away from his comfy home and sent him back as thin and pale with grief as the white tulips that he grew.
Master Gamgee. I love him.
There was truth in that statement. There was truth and sorrow and yearning in those words and call him a fool, but Hamfast could not help the softening of his resentment in the face of the dwarf’s- of Thorin’s sincerity. Grudgingly, he lets his arms unfold and gestures at the flowers.
Anemones for abandonment. And white tulips for…lost love.
And forgiveness. But he won’t mention that part yet. Let the dwarf work for it.
Thorin kneels in front of the flowers once more and brushes a calloused hand against the pale purple petals of an anemone. From this angle, Hamfast cannot see his expression but the curve of his shoulders and the trembling of his hand is sufficient hint that he weeps.
I would wish it grow joy and peace instead. Please Master Gamgee, would you tell me what plants would do that?
Hamfast bemoans his soft heart and motions for the dwarf to follow him.
Tell me what happened. Tell me what you wish to tell him. Hamfast demands and Thorin accedes. And as they walk up the road and past the creek to the Shire market, Thorin tells the story that Hamfast never had the heart to ask Bilbo for with a voice that remains steady even through the tears. One of courage and love and madness and all the things that grand adventures are composed of. And of how in the end, they had thought each other dead and themselves unforgiven. That was, until the grey wizard appeared and revealed the truth. Ham listens and allows himself to weep for the dwarf as well.
The flower stalls at the market spill over with color as Hamfast wanders from stall to stall with the dwarf and the curious stares of every hobbit trailing after him. He picks purple hyacinths and lavendar and sprigs of rue and bids Thorin to pay for them. Thorin does so and generously. Then he leads the dwarf back to his house and shows him how to weave the flowers into a wreath.
He watches from his doorway as the dwarf returns to Bilbo’s with completed wreath in hand and hopes that he did right.
Hamfast wonders if maybe he’ll see Bilbo’s garden bloom bright again in the near future.
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The dwarf stays through the fall and winter and in the spring, Hamfast finds Thorin and Bilbo planting new seeds in the garden. He holds his breath as the green sprouts break through the soil to reach towards the sun and unfurl soft petals in shades of yellow and red and blue. Not since the days of Bungo and Belladonna had the garden been such a joyful riot of colors.
Sunflowers and rosemary and lilies of the valley fill the air with their sweet scents along with dozens of other blooms proclaiming love and steadfastness and complete and utter contentment.
When summer flowers begin to shed their petals, Bilbo shows up on Hamfast’s doorstep with a set of keys and a bouquet of chrysanthemums and dahlias.
I’m going to Erebor and this time I shan’t be back. He announces. I want you to have Bag End.
Hamfast does not cry. He does not shed a single tear because for all that he’d miss Bilbo (and oh how he would miss him), he knew that Bilbo would have a garden just as bright in Erebor and how could Hamfast cry about that?
So he takes the keys and the flowers and promises to look after Bag End and sends Bilbo and his dwarf of with satchels and satchels of seeds and bulbs. The Gamgees move into Bag End, cheerfully ignoring the complaints from the Sacksville-Baggins. And thrice a year, Hamfast trades letters with Bilbo by raven on how their respective gardens are doing.
Under the windowsill of the room that Hamfast keeps ready for the day Bilbo comes back to visit, he plants zinnias.