For me, few things are more satisfying than digging into the earth, uprooting weeds, pruning back shrubs, and planting bulbs. It’s also a beautiful way to commemorate someone you love. We have neighbors in the Berkshires who plant a fruit tree each time a new grandchild is born. (They have a whole orchard now!) When my mother died a few years ago, a bleeding heart was flowering outside her...
Though the observation is hardly original, I’ve come to understand firsthand that, at its heart, gardening is the urge to add order and context to the landscape, to somehow harness and humanize the wild. In that sense, Mother Nature herself is the wisest and most patient of teachers. Now remember, dear, you can almost hear her say as you take in the sad little heap of shriveled stems and...
Because gardening is such a solitary practice and in many ways repetitive, it can easily serve as a form of meditation. When you’re going through a difficult time — or have a serious problem to work through — there’s nothing like pulling up weeds or pruning back a wayward shrub to help focus the mind. There’s also a primordial aspect to it — the sense of being the latest in countless centuries...