My flower beds are more beautiful than they’ve ever been right now—and I haven’t done anything to them since early fall last year.
Historically, I have found so much joy in tending to the five large flower beds I built right after I bought this home nearly 3 years ago. But last November brought a wagon full of challenges that kept me occupied and out of my garden.
The two winters before were spent planning my spring gardens, growing a variety of plants from seeds in my makeshift garage greenhouse. I would spend hours tending the soil, removing every weed, and rescuing homeless plants from Home Depot. (I call them homeless because it makes me feel like my purchases are a service to the plants.)
But this past winter was different. With the election in November and the beginning of the new administration in January, my business—already on a slow decline—fell into a drastic downturn. I found myself in a financial crisis, coming to terms with the possibility that I might have to sell my house. Tending to the garden felt too painful.
Gardens are about hope.
You plant with the hope of tomorrow, the anticipation of what might come. And I was out of hope.
To tend to a garden I might have to sell crushed me. One particularly hard day, my mom offered to take me to Home Depot to rescue some plants—her treat. And I couldn’t do it. That says a lot about my state of mind.
For months, I left my flower beds alone.
I didn’t pull anything up.
I didn’t till the soil.
I didn’t plant seeds or seedlings.
I didn’t put down bags and bags of mulch.
I didn’t even water what was already there.
And the most miraculous thing happened: my flower beds are gorgeous right now.
Many things reseeded themselves—sweet alyssums, snapdragons, pansies, and zinnias. Perennial plants like ganzanias, lantanas, pink primroses, verbenas, dianthus, and roses came back stronger than ever. Daffodil and lily bulbs are blooming. Even the flowering “weeds” fill out the garden, making the beds bright, lush, and alive.
We often use gardening metaphors about tending the soil, planting seeds, and nurturing hope for tomorrow’s blooms. But this lesson feels quite the opposite.
I left my flower beds alone.
I didn’t tend them.
I didn’t nurture them.
I didn’t prepare them for what I wanted them to be.
Yet they showed me something more beautiful than I could have imagined or planned.
What’s the life lesson in this?
What I see today is the product of the investments from previous seasons. Some plants might even be seeds I planted long ago that only came up this year, like the bluebonnets.
Gardens are long-term investments of time, energy, and hope.
Sure, some of the things growing will eventually need to come out before they take over. If I don’t weed eventually, the garden will pay the price. But for now, I’m reveling in the beauty of the wildness.
Today, the gift my garden has given me is a reminder:
