Putting the Garden to Bed — Sounding the Final Notes in Our Co-Creative Symphony

Last weekend, I put my soil garden to bed for the winter — something I technically should have done weeks ago. Yet, I learned something profound from arriving late to the bed-putting party.

As one might expect, most of the plants had completely wilted and died back after the last few weeks of sub-freezing temperatures, so it was clear that nature was “taking its course” and had moved the garden into a period of wintertime rest. However, I still sensed a kind of incompletion, similar to the feeling I get when I hear a piece of music stop right before the final, resting chord. The garden’s energy felt like it was “left hanging.” I turned to Machaelle Small Wright’s Perelandra Garden Workbook* for some insight into what I was experiencing:

…since the [co-creative] garden is by definition a creation between humans and nature, it is quite reasonable to assume that all aspects of the blueprint have built in the dynamic of teamwork between the two. This includes the closing-down portion as well. (p. 232)

OK, this makes sense. I planned and planted the garden in concert with nature intelligences, so it’s just not logical (and not fair!) to leave all of the final work to nature. And then I read a bit farther:

The closing down of the garden is primarily an exercise in energy, in that what is being done establishes an overall dynamic of attitude and intent for the benefit of the garden environment as a whole…this important attitudinal energy is infused into the environment. It is an energy infusion through the vehicle of purposeful action. (p.233)

Oh, goodness; that’s it. Not only is my physical action required to effectively put the garden to bed, but the energy of my intention is also an indispensable necessity. This absolutely explains my experience of the garden waiting for that final chord to sound. When we’re waiting for those last notes, it’s an energetic imbalance, or insufficiency, that we feel — and then we pitch forward in our seats, as if our bodies are begging for the tonic resolution. Until I did my part to put the garden to bed — until I engaged in that purposeful action that the co-creative garden (and gardener) truly needs — I could feel the garden’s own off-kilter pitch in response to the energetic insufficiency. I am grateful to have sensed that imbalance, and I am thrilled to have finally, blissfully sounded the final notes in our co-created garden-symphony.

* Wright, Machaelle Small, Garden Workbook: Complete Guide to Gardening with Nature Intelligences, 2nd Edition (1993). Perelanda, Ltd.