• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Home Garden Companion

Home Garden Companion

Ilona's Garden Journal

  • Plant Library On The Journal
    • All Season Garden Color
    • Sitemap
  • Garden chores
    • Essential Garden Tools For Beginners
    • Garden Tips and Advice
  • Ilona’s Garden Home
    • Old House Blog
    • Garden Librarian
  • Ilona’s Garden Flavor Shop
  • Privacy Policy

Garden Transitions

22.11.06 | Ilona Erwin | No Comments

The transitions of the seasons in my garden are the allegory of my life right now. I have a love-hate relationship with gardening that mirrors the love-hate relationship I have with my body as it ages and it gets harder to have it be what I want it to be. Sometimes my garden mocks me with all the dreams and plans I find so difficult to implement these last few years. But sometimes it comforts me with memories or small pleasures …just like the rest of my middle aged life.

I knew this day was coming, but I am still hopeful if I just concentrate on the gardening or take things a bit slower I may still accomplish the fine garden -well-weeded- that my memory and minds eye illumines before my dazzled imagination. It could still happen I tell myself…. and I am not far wrong, I believe, but the proof is in the reality of the garden. I have this winter to dream and prepare. My hopes reside in the springtime, and the belief that I will this year get a jump on the wily weeds, dig up the flowerbeds, save old plants, and start new ones. I love the pace of the garden and I have really missed it these past few years. It is more in line with my temperament to move with the seasons, to quietly weed, and pat down the soft earth, looking up at the gifts of the moment: a butterfly flitting on a flower, the sun shining just such a way through clouds, a ray of warm sunshine gladdening my heart as it rests on my face. Then I don’t mind the sweat and tired muscles of the preparation digging; of the metronomic counting-out of bending over, digging, and throwing in a pile the many weeds that have marched into my garden beds while I seemed unawares.

I miss the times of having nothing better to do after a good session of gardening than to sit in the garden chair with a glass of cold lemonade and be glad in the fruit of my labors: the restful view of a well-gardened place.

The rush and urgent demands of modern life don’t agree with me. What’s more, they don’t satisfy me in the accomplishment of them. Not like the garden. I am a gardener, and the garden is the place I belong. I have roots that have grown into its soil. Soul roots, that learn from its wise lessons, that attune me better to the voice of God in the many things He has set within its boundaries…lessons of life and death and renewal. I miss listening to those rhythms, and being exercised in its demands.

But I am older now, and some of my high flying aspirations need to come down and be rooted in my earth. The quietness of the season gives me time to breathe, to regroup my thoughts and plans, and build my hope for what the next season brings me.

Technorati Tags: seasons of life, gardening

Share this:

  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Related

← Previous Post
First Snow
Next Post →
When I woke today

About Ilona Erwin

I was a garden blog pioneer, and began writing on this blog in 2003. Before that I had begun a garden website that has been at its own domain since 2006, Ilona's Garden.

I still love writing, gardening, and art after all these years, although travel and grandchildren have become a big part of my life, now.

DISCLOSURE: I may be an affiliate for products that I recommend. If you purchase those items through my links I will earn a commission. You will not pay more when buying a product through my link. Thank you, in advance for your support! Privacy Policy

Primary Sidebar

Oh, hi there!

I was a garden blog pioneer, and began writing on this blog in 2003. Before that I had begun a garden website that has been at its own domain since 2006, Ilona's Garden.

I still love writing, gardening, and art after all these years, although travel and grandchildren have become a big part of my life, now.

Newest Postings Here

  • Hawaiian Flower Arrangements
  • HELLLOOOO, From The Other Side
  • February Gardening, Last of Winter in the Flower Garden
  • Compilation of Past Mini-Posts of 2003
  • Wayback in Ilona Garden Time

Visit for a Spell

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Youtube
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest

Mission

Finding your way home via the garden path

Books, Tools, Tips

Read reviews from the GardenLibarian

Portrait of a Gardener

gardener musings
Musings

What’s Wrong With Today’s Gardening?

Modern gardening
What Is Wrong?

Garden Journal

fine garden journal
Journal, Planner and Log Book
buy quality plants

You might also like

seeds

National Seed Swap Day in January

Garden advice

What Makes a Low Maintenance Garden?

Create A Child’s Garden, Grow Love For Nature

Growing Indoor Flowers In December

I Found Out About “She Sheds” And Coincidentally, About Friends

Newest Postings Here

  • Hawaiian Flower Arrangements
  • HELLLOOOO, From The Other Side
  • February Gardening, Last of Winter in the Flower Garden
  • Compilation of Past Mini-Posts of 2003
  • Wayback in Ilona Garden Time

Books, Tools, Tips

Read reviews from the GardenLibarian

Standouts

10 Useful Gardening Tips For Spring

Do You Grow Herbs? 10 Reasons To Love Them

10 Cool Season Annual Flowers To Plant

Standouts

August Gardening: Ten Suggestions

What are your ten top choices for perennial plantings?

ilonagarden

With village lights With village lights
Christmas decor #christmasspirit🎄 Christmas decor #christmasspirit🎄
Instagram post 17935013548845771 Instagram post 17935013548845771
Instagram post 17981374354427684 Instagram post 17981374354427684
Instagram post 17865517706595888 Instagram post 17865517706595888
Gift of flowers by my bedside Gift of flowers by my bedside
#mockorange #juneflowers #ohio #mockorange #juneflowers #ohio
Instagram post 18224713828022497 Instagram post 18224713828022497
Load More... Follow on Instagram

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Join Me

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Copyright © 2023 · Your Site Name

Hazel Theme by Code + Coconut