How you garden is how you are in your life. What you cultivate is an external reflection of your inner process. One of the great difficulties we all face is finding a source of objective reflection. If you garden then it is there for you.

There is something calming and settling about being in the garden and working to assert your intentions upon it and the way it is. One of the balms in my life is cutting the lawns and trimming the hedges in my own garden. I love to work on the shapes, the curves and the angles of the hedges and derive immense pleasure when I am finished from stepping back and seeing the result of my labours.

There is satisfaction and fulfilment to be had in the most simple of things. I love to keep the tools sharp and clean and love to sweep up after the cutting and trimming is done. I derive great pleasure from tidiness and precision, certain parts of the garden I leave to grow wild and build small sanctuaries from piles of logs for insects and spiders, other parts I manage more closely. Now we are in the growing season these small actions again become a component of my world. The leaves are in bud, the birds are nesting and the regenerative wave of spring invigorates everything it touches.

Consider the following:

What kind of plants do you like to grow? They reflect your nature, they feed back to your own inner process and you will grow those things that resonate or harmonise with you at a deeper level. Me? I love to grow orchids indoors and passion flowers outdoors, I love vines that grow all over the brickwork and outbuildings.
What kind of shapes do you like in the garden? Regimented lines, flowing curves, tightly clipped or left to their own devices? Personally I like a combination but I love things that meander and paths that sweep through well tended beds and turn to reveal ponds or statuary.

This can be extended and is a rewarding study. Add into the mix colours, scale, water features, trees, bushes, heights, mixes, flowers or foliage, evergreens or deciduous plants, broad or narrow leaved plants. Then there is the territory of medicinal plants, cookery, herbalism and a whole branch of arts and sciences that derive from our interactions with the fauna worlds. Whenever you are feeling less than at your best get into your garden to contemplate and be transported to another place. If your own garden isn’t right yet, it’s been neglected perhaps or you live in a place without its own garden then take yourself to a public garden, a botanic garden, an arboretum, don’t deprive yourself of these simple pleasures, they are food for the soul.
Look at your garden and the things you cultivate with fresh eyes, whether it is a vast estate or a window box, and see what it has to offer back to you.

image: taz etc.