in the garden...

I had a wonderful opportunity to visit a few gardens in the last several weeks...one, a masterful kitchen garden, had me dreaming of summer bounty & rushing home to create new raised beds(we have moles, gophers & sweet bunnies, all more than happy to enjoy the fruit of our labour) and fill them with the seeds of summer...lettuces, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, basil, cilantro and many, many plants of peppers (my guys do love their serranos!)
And the second, Portland's famed rose gardens, had me snapping photos like a mad woman, and looking at my own feeble attempts at lush beautiful blooms with a bit of a jaundiced eye I must admit...
Both visits got me to thinking, quite a bit, about what makes us head out to potter around in the dirt...
I love being out in the garden...I have dreams (often frustrated, I admit) of a fine English garden, filled with bounteous roses, masses upon masses of every lovely perennial nestled comfortably side by side with one another, happily co existing and creating an harmonious whole...I love the challenge of trying to create colours and textures that suit a southern California climate and sensibility, while still echoing those amazingly abundant, overflowing riches of a Somerset garden...sigh! Then too, I have a son who will constantly remind me to be xeroscapically minded (that is, conscious of my use of resources and native plants, hence, new vegetable beds in the place of grass & drought friendly beds)...and a husband who will remind me of the value of form vs function...aesthetics vs practicalities...so now, I have quite a mix in my garden...roses, yes!, but also lavender, licorice plant, mexican sage, bush sweet peas, rosemary, and society garlic...they are not quite flowing merrily into one another's space, but they do blend, and they are happy to exist with minimum water...it works, most of the time, but does have times where it looks either wild and overgrown (the times when I do not give the time to be out in my garden) or tired and hot...(and I sympathize,because usually by that point I am feeling the same way)
I said I love being out in the garden, but I have found that I can too easily be pulled away by the urgent, the immediate, and it can be days, or even weeks (or more if I am brutally honest) until I can go out to water, trim, and tend...and my garden shows and suffers when that happens...isn't that, not to put too fine a point on it, much like everything in life? If I allow myself to be distracted, to be pulled away, by things "urgent", immediate, and "necessary", I can miss the important, the quietly beautiful, the best things in my day to day life...and they suffer, and it shows in my life...
I am taking time this summer to take more time...in the garden, (my vegetable beds are coming along beautifully, and my "english gardens" are thriving...as to my roses...I will get back to you on that topic!)
And I am also trying to see distractions for what they are, and to focus on the true, the rich, and the meaningful...For me, family, friends, and TIME...here's to all of that and more for all of you!