gardens

I’ve been thinking about gardens, growth, hospitality, and attracting butterflies.

Occasionally I have grown potted plants with success.

A few years ago I tried a garden plot, with VERY small success: a few handfuls of beans and peas and 3 or 4 cabbages. Maybe one or two cobs of corn: I don’t remember. I didn’t know what I was doing. And I lived too far away from my garden (several km) to nurture it well.

This year, in a new home, I plan to try again. The back yard is small, but it’s handy and it neighbours a playground. I dream of planting sweet peas and sunflowers against the chain link fence to create a bit more privacy for us and beauty for passers-by. I dream of a couple beds of vegetables, and of still having room for a sitting area around a small fire. Perhaps it will never be as verdant as the garden pictured above, but it can be cozy and it can be mine.

My husband doubts the execution, but he humored me and bought seed packets: sunflowers, sweet peas, and a mix called “butterfly garden.” Butterflies, like bees, are important for the pollination and propagation of plant life. Flowers, thus, are not merely beautiful: they attract synergistic relationships.

I hope, through nesting into my new home and my garden, to draw butterflies, grow vegetation, and nurture relationships—to find sympathies and synergies. I hope to draw literal butterflies and metaphorical butterflies*: women (and men) who are emerging, discovering who God has created and intended them to be.

*Apparently Wendell Berry was careful about the use of metaphor: “When a metaphor is construed as an equation, it is out of control; when it is construed as an identity, it is preposterous.” (source: Twitter @DailyWendell). As much as I admire Mr. Berry, I don’t mind if my use of butterflies and gardening as metaphor transgresses his perspective a bit.