Last week, a neighbor three doors down invited our dog, Rory over for a dog play date. While Rory and Red chased each other in a loop around the backyard, we admired the garden—azaleas, forsythias, pink flowering almond, and blue phlox. Hasta, wild violets, Japanese water iris, an old dogwood tree, and a large weeping willow in the middle of the backyard.
She walked us all around pointing out the berries the chickadees like and the flowers the bunnies eat, the pergola her late husband built, and the snag tree that's become a hotel for birds.
I was reminded that we choose what to plant and what to dig up (in the garden and in life); what to cultivate and tend to, and what to let grow wild.
Our choices shape the world we live in, for better and for worse. (We've learned this over and over again in the past few weeks, haven't we?)
What are we choosing to let grow and take root in our lives, our community, our world? What are we cultivating through our words and actions? What are we letting grow wild and beyond control?
Here's the thing I’m learning about gardening: it takes intention. It takes vision and patience and persistence and it requires getting your hands dirty. We have to choose when to plant and when to dig up; when to fertilize and when to cut back.
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This week, the same neighbor wheeled a cart down the sidewalk to our front steps with a collection of perennial transplants for our garden, carefully dug up from hers. She wrote out notes for each one on yellow cards and packed them carefully into pots.
And so, we dig, we plant, we cultivate, we choose.
