HEALING THROUGH YOUR OWN PIECE OF NATURE
“The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just on the body, but the soul.”
– Alfred Austin
Do you know why I love gardening ? Because I live again as a child of Nature when I am in my garden. When I was a child myself and later teenager, I didn’t like being in my garden because that meant for me a bit of work and helping parents and grandparents about making garden being great again. In other words, it meant less fun and more discipline. Now, when I think of it, like a revoked memory from sweet past, I can laugh. What could be better than reconnecting with environment and helping your soul find a harmony after storm.
It is true, but when we are too young, we don’t know how to cherish blessings we enjoy. That is not o9r fault, the wisdom comes with maturity so the compassion and tranquility. There are always the ages of actions and the ages of meditation and the both have their special sides.
I think this is the right moment to think and to talk about the benefits of gardening. Due to the effects of Covid-19 global outbreaks, we have been awaken in the new world, full of modified circumstances and conditions. We learnt that nothing is granted and that small things have great impact, we have learnt and still learning that home is our temple and we our shelter and if it happens that you have garden, you are one of the luckiest people because you can easier deal with your own stay at home challenge.
The spring is the season when we are meeting the beauty of our garden and trying to put the make up before the summer is knocking on the heavens door. We are searching for the jewels that will turn our gardens into the most beautiful corner of domestic wilderness. During that journey, we are learning a lot about ecosystem and also about ourselves. We loose and we find ourselves in garden at the same time.
How is that possible that gardening has so much health benefits ? Why? Isn’t that just an additional housework that must be done? No, not at all in spite of fact that sometimes it just look like that. The gardening is hobby, soul food and encouraging of our own creativity and authenticity. The ritual of gardening may be same for each of us but every maestro has own secret of finalising the project. Some people like to decorate classic gardens in city or country style while other people enjoy to come out with coastal, Mediterranean, vintage, cottage, ,gothic or Japanese garden forms. However we pick up, we put our own personality in it, showing the world our artistic skills and also our spiritual attitude. at the end, it is not about gardening, it is about living philosophy.
According to official scientific data, gardening has many health benefits too. It reduces blood pressure, reduces risk of stroke, help burning calories, stress relief and perfect anger therapy, improve immune system and empower the allover feeling and well being of the gardener. You can be yourself in your garden and the world full of fake values can’t reach you behind your garden door. Once you are there, you can be weak or strong, sad or happy, angry or hurt, you are allowed to be free with your feelings and nobody is judging you. If you have plants, your are taking responsibility for them and witnessing their progress. They trust you and your learn to trust yourself. If you have insects friendly garden, you can observe the different species of insects that are visiting your temple and finding their own shelter in the time of damaged natural habitat. You are helping the healing of Earth and you heal yourself too, what is one of a kind feeling.
The cultivated garden speaks a lot about owners. It shows that they managed to stay calm in the wild world, in the instant civilisation that eats all fast and furious. The neglected garden is nothing but a portray of unhappy people who failed to find themselves and who try to overcome their depression and darkness. The gardens are our windows of our deepest feelings and we don’t need much money to make them brilliant, we need a bit of creativity to make them unique as we are.
What do we need to do, to be able to find our own touch in garden? This is not an impossible mission and it doesn’t requires you to be a millionaire. All you need is a freedom of expression and a bit of passion to turn ideas into deeds. If you are not sure which style you want for your garden, start with your house. How do you describe your house? Rather cottage than vintage or rather coastal than country ? Maybe it is sterile and urban and the fairy tale garden doesn’t match with it. The garden, just like the house, is the image of your level of creation and living style. If you like more urban style, be sure to decorate the garden in that direction. Having a coastal home with gothic garden is not my thing but I don’t doubt that there are people who experiment with mixture of styles and that is good as long as it is not kitch.
I read somewhere that there are 24 different types of gardens to be picked up. Once you find yourself interested in one of them, your can focus yourself on designing the plan and the project and providing the components. It is not always the best what is the most expensive. For being creative, you don’t need to be rich but to be opened to hear your own creative forces and to dare to follow them.
For example, I am amazed with gothic gardens or shade gardens. It reminds me on classical England with Holmes mysticism and ray of twilight. I like seeing the garden that seems perfect in its loneliness. Personally, I don’t need many roses or tulips to be happy. I am happy when I manage to find figure of sinister gargoyle that is protecting the garden and starring at me with its stone, dead eyes, hiding the millennial secret of history. Nevertheless, I would never turn my garden into the complete gothic story full of dark shades. I would always let the light in, like in the life. There is always the light that brings peace and hope, the salvation. That is why I include in my garden the vintage chairs covered with cactus, lavender beside the insect hotel and palm that is greeting the sunset on the porch. It is still not too much but it enough to make me feel good. There is a corner with vegetable garden that is teaching me how to be patient and how to take care of something that will later take care of me. In my garden, I am free and my soul too. I am homo ludens, authentic Homo sapiens that plays again and walking on sunshine.
If you don’t have possibility for garden but it is an interest for you, make sure you read about indoor gardens and how you can organise your own home Amazon. It will definitely change your life and it doesn’t matter if it is just a one kitchen window with spicy plants or the room with exotic orchids, you have your garden and it has you and will show you the road into the soul harmony, that what we all need in those times.
SARAH MAX RESEARCH 
Sarah’s invigorating and beautifully-written article reminded me of when I first knew of her: it was the vernal equinox and she was enjoying gardening. There is profound empathy and fellowship between humans who are in possession of a deep affinity with Nature.
The concept of gardening itself (i.e. for pragmatic purposes) reaches back to c. 30,000 BCE, when ancient Homo sapiens began to cultivate specific plants for nourishment and or medicinal purposes. Definitive agriculture (i.e. farming of crops) began c. 10,000 BCE, when peoples of North Africa and Western Asia commenced to cultivate wheat, etc. Though, forestry is the oldest form of agriculture (e.g. for recycling, fuel for fires and ship building).
The concept of gardening for aesthetic purposes has more recent progenitors: c. 20,000 BCE, in various parts of the world, peoples created protective areas around homes with shrubs and other plants. Eventually, these would be beautified with various flowering plants, as material wealth would be expressed through artistic cultivations; gardening aesthetics being one of them. The Old English noun ‘geard’ (etymology of ‘garden’) meant ‘enclosure’.
Gradually, gardens and gardeners became synonymous with power and wealth; although, ordinary people maintained herbal and vegetable gardens for pragmatic reasons.
Egyptian tomb paintings of the 16th century BCE are some of the earliest physical evidence of ornamental horticulture and landscape design: they depict lotus ponds surrounded by symmetrical rows of acacias and palms.
Orchard production was wide spread by 4,000 BCE. Though, it was not until c. 1,000 BCE that apple, pear and plum orchards were wide spread. By then, people had learned grafting. This greatly-facilitated the spread of fruit orchards and the improvement of varieties.
The earliest recorded aesthetic gardens of China were created in the valley of The Yellow River, during The Shang Dynasty (1,600–1,046 BCE). These gardens were large enclosed parks where the rulers and nobles hunted game, or where fruit and vegetables were grown. Though, ordinary people had herbal and vegetable gardens for self-sufficiency purposes.
Aesthetic stone gardens have existed in Japan since The Heian Era (794–1,185 CE). These early gardens were largely-copied from the Chinese gardens of The Song Dynasty (960–1,279 CE), where groups of rocks symbolised Mount Penglai (i.e. the legendary mountain-island home of The Eight Immortals in Chinese mythology; known in Japanese as ‘Horai’).
This kind of garden featured either rocks placed upright like mountains, or laid out in a miniature landscape of hills and ravines, with few plants. Other styles of rock garden included a stream or pond. The ocean style featured rocks that appeared to have been eroded by waves, surrounded by a bank of white sand; like a beach. White sand and gravel had long been a feature of Japanese gardens: in Shinto religion, it was used to symbolise purity, and was used around shrines, temples and palaces. In Zen gardens, it represents water, or, like the white space in Japanese paintings, emptiness and distance. They are places of meditation…
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You are a very clever individual!
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This is a fantastic site, could you be involved in doing an interview about how you designed it? If so e-mail me!
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