How Does Your Garden Grow?

Mustard-colored petals radiate out from the dark, fuzzy center of the Black-Eyed Susans. 

Crowning the tall green, leafy stem is the cluster of white phlox.

Low to the ground, the silver-green scalloped leaves hold the promise of the purple and buttery-yellow Columbine that will come forth next Spring. 

This is my garden, my very new garden. 

A year ago, there was very little in my yard – some wild geranium, lily-of-the-valley transplanted years ago from my childhood home and not much more. When landscapers created flower beds along our new patio last Fall, the beds stood as blank canvases through the winter, calling to me, inviting me to plant flowers. 

However, I am not a gardener. Though I love gardens and am full of admiration and appreciations for other people’s gardens, for Nature’s rich array of colors and textures, I had no clue how to create a garden from scratch, how to build the kind of garden I had seen in other people’s yards. 

I had the option, of course, to research and study how to create a garden. There is a wealth of books on gardening, articles and resources on the web. But I prefer a more personalized touch. So, I reached out to a wonderful gardener, my friend Tania. Late in April (already well into the planting season), I emailed Tania and hesitatingly asked her if she would consider helping me plan a garden. 

“I would love to help you plan your garden!” came back the enthusiastic reply. I was thrilled! 

And so, the process of creation began. Tania picked up on my desire, my wish for a garden and added her energy in with mine. This is the starting point of forming something new. We notice a wish, a desire. That desire tugs at us until we listen and begin to pay attention to it. 

Whether the desire is for a garden, or to shift our work, to get more fit, to make a new friend – whatever it might be – it’s the desire that persists – almost insists – and gets our attention that leads us to the next steps of creation and manifestation. 

Early in May, Tania and I looked over the space in my yard and began imagining what might work well. I visited Tania’s yard and picked and chose from her flowers and plants ones that appealed to me. We made notes on my Wish List. 

We also called in a mutual friend, Chris, who is a professional gardener. Now, three of us were putting our attention on this potential garden. Momentum began to gather until an intention emerged…I truly wanted a garden and with the help, enthusiasm, and expertise of others, it was going to happen! 

A Desire, given enough Attention, becomes an Intention. 

But nothing will happen without Action. All the desire and Intention in the world won’t grow a garden without a few trips to the garden center for seedlings and plants, soil and compost. On several days, Tania and I made pilgrimages to local gardening centers and then scheduled a next vital step: Planting Day. 

As can happen when energy is well-aligned, Planting Day was a miracle of good effort, hard work, beautiful weather, and satisfying results. Five of us devoted the day to transforming the empty flower beds into a garden. Three and a half weeks after our initial planning session, manifestation was completed! I’ve been happily enjoying my garden all summer long. 

This “how does your garden grow?” formula applies to any arena – work, play, relationships, spiritual growth, health and well-being – you pick! The transformation/manifestation process requires all of these steps:

• Notice what is rising up in you as a desire, a wish. 
• Put your attention on it and see if it holds your interest (not every wish is truly our heart’s desire).
• Formulate an intention to make it happen. 
• Take Right Action to manifest the transformation you desire. 
• Celebrate the manifestation! 

Asking a friend or two, engaging an expert in the field will also help the energy flow easily. Tania was my Garden Angel and I am so grateful to her. 

I’m still more a “non-gardener” than a gardener, but I’m a believer in the process of transformation. I’ll be trying out this formula again!