A Garden is You

You can tell a lot about a person’s outlook on life by looking at the company they keep, in their garden. I have always had this notion that a perennial garden, with its extreme diversity of color, size, shape and texture is an open window into the gardeners soul. Much like a painting or a sculpture affords the artist the opportunity to express to the world 'I am here and this is what I make of life'.

Some gardens are orderly and formal, others are, well, less formal and less organized. An overcrowded garden may indicate the designer wants to experience a little bit of everything that life has to offer and refuses to be limited by available space or existing boundaries.

Without trying to be judgmental or jumping to conclusions, here’s my view on how a garden can reflect the designers personality:

Vegetable garden – frugal and demands better quality food;

Herb garden – health conscious and mindful of our interaction with nature;

mono color – uncluttered and simple;

theme garden – playful, doesn’t take life too seriously;

small, low lying garden – uncertain and reserved;

bold colors and free-flowing plants – flamboyant, expressive;

mixed colors, shapes and sizes – non committal and unwilling to follow rules;

trimmed and formal – organized and perhaps a bit rigid;

Some gardens have lots of hardscape incorporated into them, such as benches, gazing balls, sundials, sculptures and other items that don’t actually go to support the growth of the garden flora but adds another dimension that further defines the designers character.

Then, of course there is signage that, in case you missed the point, just outright tells you what they think.

Gardening is something that, I think, should be experienced by everyone. Partly for selfish reasons and partly for an altruistic reason. If more of my neighbors had gardens it makes sense that there would be a greater opportunity to exchange seeds for plants I haven’t tried yet. :) Also, more people raising more gardens means more people in tune with nature, which could possibly help slow down our destruction of it.

I would like to say that gardening is becoming more popular, there is much discussion and no hard facts to prove one way or the other. The explosion in the number of garden blogs and websites might show that our population of gardeners is booming but I suspect this only reflects the proliferation of the internet to already existing gardeners. Sure, there are a few new gardeners coming onto the scene and maybe increasing food prices just might push more homeowners into the yard to grow their own food, but the jury is still out on that.

Expressing yourself through your garden is very therapeutic and personal. It becomes a place where we can escape the nine-to-five world where expectations of ourselves are not always our own. Some of us are more willing to share with the world what we have created. Some of us may not want to subject ourselves to anticipated criticism. Personally, I have found garden bloggers to be very supportive and if they do have a harsh opinion are willing to at least not acknowledge it in a blog.

If this post reaches someone who is not yet a gardener and is maybe thinking of starting your own plot, my advice is to just go for it. The satisfaction I get from pushing a shovel into the ground for the first time, knowing that I am about to create a fresh palette for my latest expression of myself, is priceless. Seeing plants ‘wake-up’ after a long winter of freezing temperatures brings a level of joy I haven’t found anywhere else. And the thrill of bringing wildlife to my yard knowing I am helping in their survival is beyond words.

The expression ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ comes to mind when I view a garden and I may not see it in the same way the designer intended. To me it may be more beautiful because I am seeing it from a less interactive way than they do for they have invested time, effort and money in getting their garden to look the way it does. Whereas, I am merely a passive observer and therefore have nothing invested in the interpretation of the design. Which reminds me, the true beauty of gardening is that you do it for yourself.