Lessons on Life From the Garden
So often lessons in my life have been learned in and through nature, mostly in the garden. This week’s learning is how important feeding and nourishment is.
Gardening as in life, is a seasonal learning curve. In the past my mission has always been to ensure the garden is composted, bedded down with straw for the winter, regularly fed, enriching the soil in the right seasons.
A bit of an epiphany has hit me this week as the realisation dawned that I have dropped the ball in this area over the past few years. Whether it has been due to a busy lifestyle, distractions, or whether the wilderness project took so much of my time developing, that other areas of the garden missed out on the deeper attention they needed? All the signs were there. Some plants were being infested with aphids and other under leaf nasties. A sure sign of a lack of something!
Maintenance was regular; clipping hedges, weeding, trimming, the once-a-year compost or pea straw was still happening. The overall look of the garden was tidy, but the care of individual plants and the amount of feeding and watering they needed, was not. For this reason, plants have been removed from my garden as they weren’t thriving! Given more water, feed and nourishment, they may well have done much better.
Isn’t this a metaphor for our own lives? How often the appearance on the outside can appear so neat and tidy but areas of our lives can be suffering due to stress, busyness, lots to juggle, neglect or just because.
This week has had me researching again what each of the plants in my garden needs at this time of the year. Bottom line is compost, compost, compost! Making as much of it as we can for the spring, applying it now before winter. If we don’t have enough compost, we are advised to be adding in sheep pellets and blood and bone as most plants thrive on these. Watering the organic matter into the soil and then mulching to retain the moisture.
We all need feeding to thrive. It is so easy in our own life gardens to have areas that are depleted, need nourishing, weeding or removal. What tell-tale signs of dryness, yellowing, black spot, infestation of aphids is slipping into our gardens of life or our actual gardens?
Many years ago, to help me decide what needed to stay or go in the garden, my '4F' formula was helpful. A fifth has since been added. Form, fragrance, fruitfulness, fabulous to the eye and filler. If any tree or plant did not fit these categories, they were removed.
This autumn is a great time to take stock of the garden of our lives. What needs feeding, watering and nurturing to make it thrive? What brings no benefit, has never done well and adds nothing to the overall beauty and harmony of the garden and needs to be removed? What was once lovely, but has gone out of shape and needs a prune and reshape to look fabulous again? What needs a good weed and cull as it is taking over or robbing the great plants, of nutrients?
Perhaps this season is simply a time to notice, to tend, to nourish and restore. As Ecclesiastes reminds us, “there is a time for everything,” and maybe this is our time to gently bring life back to the areas that have been left unattended.
