Tending To Our Garden Creativity - Part 1 of 3
Thoughts On Finding Joy Amidst The Things We Didn't Choose
Three weeks ago yesterday the snow melted off and I walked our fields for the first time since last December.
Since then I’ve been visiting each row, pulling back mulch to check last Fall’s transplants, and (mostly) delighting in what I’m finding.
(Except delphinium - what the heck? They seemed so content last Fall but have vanished with the snow. Adding “start new delphinium” to the punch list).
The whole world feels possible right now. Native pussy willows put out bright-green catkins. The pulmonaria flowers its first delicate, 2-tone blooms. And daffodils pop from seemingly impossible locations, just to dot every shade of yellow generously across the farmscape.
Rather effortlessly, I find myself stumbling upon that “happy for no reason” feeling (an experience I associate strongly with gardening and farming anyway).
Yet - this time of year, I sometimes struggle to stay grounded. Things feel too deceivingly, too infinitely, possible. Likely because the hard parts of the growing season haven’t hit yet. (Ground elder, I see you).
It’s now when I risk envisioning the perfection we will surely achieve this growing season. I risk committing to unrealistic goals. Only to be crushed when - shock and horror - we experience the same difficulties experienced by every farmer ever.
The weeds will surely seed. Our bodies will wear thin from the workload and the weather will defy logical explanation. I will live - and farm - firmly within restrictions not of my making.
So for several years now, I’ve been intentional about keeping my loaded-with-possibility brain from taking flight. This year, as part of that grounding practice, I find myself returning to 3 discussions. Their topics have little in common but each address a challenge our family currently faces:
Caring for our garden creativity
Caring for our soil
Caring for our fragile, imperfect bodies and minds
What these discussion do have in common however, is this hard, true and timely reminder:
Often we don’t choose the things that most define us. Yet, within these limited lives, with our fragile human agency, we find space, meaning and joy. We find - somehow - enough.
So - for this post -let’s start with #1.
Caring for our Garden Creativity
In advance of the American Peony Society National Convention’s tour of our farm I’m reworking a large portion of our decorative garden.
The current design requires too much maintainenance. The plantings aren’t as dense as intended, leaving space for invasives like Canadian thistle and purple loosestrife to get a toehold. And though I’m not really a “straight lines” kind of gardener, I need at least some pathways to be straight so I can use my stirrup hoe to keep them navigable. The impending tour offers a great excuse to rethink the whole thing.
But geeze-da-wheez, as I’ve started the re-design, I’m immediately reminded how much better I am at growing plants than - well - designing with them.
To help me get my head around it, I started following various garden designers, hoping some of their expertise might rub off. But unfortunately, I learned many garden design stories go something like:
“Thus-and-so fancy person bought a country estate, hired all the designers, spent all the money and look - paradise! (That now will be maintained by a large gardening staff into perpetuity).”
I think I speak for most of us when I say, “I will never find myself placed within that narrative.”
Which is why Nicola House’s interview on Gardener’s World Podcast felt like a breath of fresh air. Nicola won the 2022 Gardener’s World Garden of the Year award and in this interview, Nicola tells the compelling story of how she and her family created their garden.
Unlike loftier stories with ample budgets and soil issues addressed by hauling in infinite cubic yards of topsoil removed from god-knows-where, Nicola designed completely within the her twin constraints - a very limited budget and ridiculously tough planting conditions.
(Who amongst us has not grappled with at least one - or usually both - of these things?)
Even better - her limitations notwithstanding - Nicola gave herself complete freedom everywhere else. She didn’t create an elaborate plan. She didn’t bother with gardening design rules. She didn’t consider color palettes.
(Color palettes - I just can’t).
Instead. she went step by step, simply planting what made both her and the wildlife happy.
Stepping back, it’s clear that what Nicola created is impressive. It’s a garden that just reaches out and pulls you into its embrace. Equally admirable is how she went about it - finding freedom wherever she could, sticking firmly to her own creative instincts.
But it’s Nicola’s why I find most compelling. Nicola created her garden because her family’s complex set of special needs mean they often can’t leave home. So when they need to get away - they simply go to their garden.
For my family - despite my autoimmune diseases and dysautonomia now being quite well managed - leaving the house for more than an hour or two can still require somewhat elaborate choreography. Add to that, one of our children’s own set of immune challenges, and we’re often better off simply seeking joy here at home.
And I know Nicola and I aren’t alone in this experience. How many people’s bodies or caring responsibilities prevent them from engaging in the world as freely as they otherwise might?
Nicola’s why speaks directly to what I to have experienced while living in a body that sometimes breaks my heart:
In consistent, meaningful interaction with the natural world, I find solace, and even physical healing.
And I bet I’m not alone in that either.
I know Nicola’ story is simple. But sometimes it’s precisely the simple things that remind me of what I already know but need to hear again. Namely:
I don’t need detailed plans, a large budget or intimate understanding of color theory to create a garden. I just need to listen to what I love and quietly do that.
In the creation of our gardens, our most lasting act is the refuge we create for ourselves and for the world around us.
Our constraints may look - and sometimes even feel - oppressive but they winnow our gardens (and perhaps our lives?) down to the beautiful essential.
Gardening Friend, I don’t know what limits you today. Whatever it may be, my greatest hope is that you not feel alone in that experience.
So here’s a blessing for our beautiful, limited lives and the beautiful, limited gardens in which we find ourselves made whole.
Today, I’m not clear what defines me
It’s just too much to look in the eye
But I don’t need to stare it down to know - I didn’t ask for any of this
Yet there is something.
A quiet presence.
Perhaps my soul?
Insisting I can live here in this discomfort
Insisting, “No, this life is good.” (Even as it makes a crap highlight reel on Instagram).
Insisting I persist anyway
Not stoically
But in abiding faith
That I might stumble on something that transforms
That does not change the stark facts of my life
Yet quietly rewires my relationship to them
How I need rewiring today
May I find it in the way the light filters through the sycamore in front of my house.
Dappling the swing where my children clock hundreds of hours flying through the air
At 3 AM - awake too early again - may I hear the peepers in our ponds
And open to that sound
Until it breaks my heart
Then rebuilds it - bit by bit
And most importantly, today may I encounter someone else, whose own limitations feel too big, too inevitable
And may I find my way alongside them.
Walking in shared burden
In shared joy
In shared knowing that - yes, between us - we surely hold enough
Thank you- this is beautiful and very relatable, even with my teeny little plot.