YORKTON - Well, gardeners, the hustle and bustle of the holiday season is past, we stand at the beginning of the garden path looking to a new year, and a new gardening season.
It is always amazing to me how many people are taking up gardening as a hobby. It is wonderful to see, because it is like they are discovering a wonderful secret for the very first time. I think people who have been gardening for any length of time realize the wonder and joy of gardening and perhaps take it for granted, but for novice gardeners, it is a new and exciting delight.
What does gardening give us? The obvious answers come to mind first. It is a satisfying and rewarding pastime. It’s all good, isn’t it: fresh air, exercise, and it gives us the chance to grow some of our favourite foods or create our own personal oasis of peace and tranquility with beautiful flowers and shrubs right in our back yards.
Wait, there’s more! We read countless times that gardening can help reduce our levels of stress and therefore help to lower blood pressure; it makes us feel good just by the fact of connecting with nature, breathing in fresh air, listening to the birds, and feeling the sun on our faces.
And talk about a physical work-out! Just think back to the first day last spring that you really did some serious yard work, maybe that first clean-up day. Raking, weeding, pulling, cleaning, cutting branches, hauling them away. Probably every muscle you knew in your body, and maybe a few that you forgot were there, likely got a real work-out. Probably at the end of the day you felt like you could barely crawl back to the house. But probably it was the most rewarding and exhilarating day that you had for a long while. My sweet Mom always used to say, “It’s a happy tired.” And indeed, that’s what gardening can do for us.
I always find, too, that when we start the actual planting, and deciding what plants will go where, it is a very rewarding and amazing creative effort, especially if sometimes we hit that perfect combination of plants that gives us an outstanding container or flower bed. It often happens by fluke, but still, what satisfaction it brings!
Wait, there’s still more.
To anyone who has lost someone special this past year, my heart is with you. I hope that connecting with nature in the garden this coming spring will bring you healing and peace. I know first-hand that this is so, even if many tears water the garden first. It is a healing miracle how focusing on work in the garden, making that connection with the earth, can bring a balm and healing to our sad and troubled spirits.
When my precious Mom died, I can’t tell you how many times I’d be doing various tasks in the garden, and my tears would be falling like rain. It was my solitary pain of missing her; the aching, heart-felt cry that we all need from time to time. But you know, it was such a cleansing experience, and once it was done, I remembered so very many happy memories of being together in our garden as a family. And in time, after the tears, it brought (and brings) me joy and gratitude to my darling parents for their boundless love and all those happy times.
That’s my wish for you, gardeners. That you find that joy and peace in your garden.
Thank you to our friends at YTW who bring us local news and keep us all connected. Find out what’s new with the hort society at www.yorktonhort.ca.
Wishing you every blessing and good gardening in the new year.
