“To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves.” – Mahatma Gandhi
Gardens are much on my mind this week. There is something about tending a garden, or for those who of us who are not true gardeners about walking or sitting in a garden, that is life enhancing. Our gardens whether owned or borrowed offer us sanctuary and healing, put us back in touch with the earth itself and with its seasons. They are richly symbolic and therefore fertile territory for the writer: renewal, remembrance, paradise, harmony, tranquillity, fecundity, innocence, secrecy, enclosure; life in its flowerings and its fadings …are all part of the garden’s code.
But why are gardens on my mind this week? Here are Five Reasons
1.A friend who is indeed a true gardener has started a beautiful new blog –A Garden For Pablo (Pablo being her black and white moggie) – where she is charting a year in her garden. It’s a must follow.
2. Another friend across the pond in Rhode Island has stopped blogging for the time being and begun to plant a garden – re-discovering her former self and zest for life.
3. My daughter, who has been home, is working on a series of designs featuring delicate flowers in pale green -glass bottles. ‘I must have flowers, always, and always.’― Claude Monet
4. Chapter 1 and 2 of my novel The Orchid House, which was inspired by a visit to the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall, (and seems to be selling quite well on Kindle at £2.58 – fingers crossed) can now be heard here on Listenupnorth (me reading tho’ I would rather it had been someone else.)
5. Finally and perhaps most obviously Spring is here and gardens everywhere are green and flourishing. They remind us that we too can … ‘be like the flower, turn your faces to the sun.’
– Kahlil Gibran
I continue to keep my journal of the Botanic Gardens, visiting weekly. Despite the wind the Japanese cherries are still in flower and the garden is full of lush honey scents to rival that of any eastern garden.
Truly lovely post. The medium is the message here. Looking forward – eventually – to seeing you Botanic Garden Journal.wx
Many thanks for stopping by my blog and leading me here to this truly lovely place. I’ll be back…
The Japanese cherries are in full-bloom here as well, and I love them so much. All things rising, all things sizing.
Thanks Wendy – I’ve got some catching up to do on my journal but I think this rainy weather will give me the chance I need.
Hi Ray – nice to hear from you, (tried to leave another comment on your blog but it seemed to want a password ?) I am just in love with flowering cherries! – have been trying to write some poetry inspired by them – strangely it always wants to be something else -‘Break open a cherry tree and there are no flowers but the spring breeze brings forth myriad blossoms’ Ikkyu Sojun
Thanks Vicki -I always like to visit your blog – such wonderful pieces and great pictures
All gardens are magic places whether grand or small and all cast their spell as long as we are receptive to being transformed by them.
Your garden journal will be a delight.
I also look forward to seeing it. GW
Hi Avril, I’m also enjoying gardens this month – not in Breckenridge where we’ve been having snow, but in Denver where it’s truly spring. When you mentioned that your daughter is planting in glass bottles, I wanted to tell you I just reviewed a terrarium book. I’ve moved my book reviews to a different page on my blog. (Too many of them for sidebar.) You can see the page just under my header.
Your garden is certainly a magical place Gillian but I agree all gardens have the power to transform and transport us if we are open to them.
Hi Barb, thanks, I will definitely take a look at the terrarium book – enjoy the Denver spring!