Lazy, Loafing, Living in the Now with a Garden
If you haven't caught on yet to the need to take some time out from the hustle and bustle and find some inner peace, you will regret it one day. Mindfulness helps you experience life fully. Food is tastier. Relationships are more engaging.
Mindful gardening is one of the best ways to calm your mind. It gives you the opportunity to stop and smell the roses. Your garden will be an oasis of peace and calm in a mad world. You’ll connect with nature, and gardening being a physical activity will release endorphins into your brain that make you feel happy.
- Design your garden mindfully
When planning your garden, you need to consider where all the different plants will go. Imagine in your mind how the garden will look once all the flowers bloom.
Will the colors clash? Will it be too much? If you want to walk around your garden and just rejoice in its beauty, will you have a path to walk on?
Plan it all on paper first. Set aside spaces for relaxing and reveling in your garden. You may wish to have a bench or a chair in the garden. Or a little nook where you can sit and meditate or read.
Or you can be like me and just wander around in pajamas and think about it.
- Awaken your senses
You may wish to have different species of plants that appeal to your different senses. It’s mostly about color. Choose plants with colors that you love. There are plants that will appeal to your sight such as blue passion flowers, lilies, sunflowers, roses, hibiscus, etc.
Then we have plants such as English Lavender, honeysuckle and peonies that smell great and appeal to your sense of smell. Did you know that plants have sound too? The way their leaves rustle when the wind blows is one example.
If your garden has a pond with lilies, you may have little frogs that make their home there and the sounds they make are all a part of your garden. If you can immerse yourself in these sounds, it can be a beautiful and refreshing experience.
There are plants and vegetables that will appeal to your touch and tastes senses too. Keep all these in mind when planning your garden.
We just planted things we know will grow here. Tomatoes and beets are our favorites to grow.
- Watch out for the wildlife
You want to be mindful of all the living creatures in your garden too. You’re aiming to have a little haven or sanctuary that resembles a mini-paradise. All the wildlife in your garden such as birds, bats, bees, etc. will complement your garden.
See what you’re doing. Feel it, smell it and experience it. Gardening is a very hands-on activity, and it can give you that mental break and peace that your heart and mind desires. Rejoice and play in the dirt because life is too short to have clean fingernails all the time.
There are a lot of flowers in the yard but they're perennials. Most of my gardening is vegetable gardening. This spring, I plan to create a herb garden in the sunroom.
What a lovely garden you have! My yard is full of huge rocks and I have javelina come through each night and eat anything and everything. Gardening is currently hard but I do have a small fenced area I can put pots. I'll be doing that here in a few months.
Sounds like a lot of hard work. Good luck
Yes, gardening (eating the good stuff!) is worth it though!
How true. I grew up on an Island as well as in New Zealand and all the fruits and vegetables were picked fresh.Either I was surrounded by farms and orchids and you could go pick your own fruit and vegetables and pay for it at a fraction of what you now pay in supermarkets. They were always more tastier and juicier. Just cant beat a freshly picked fruit/vegetable. Sadly supermarket stuff just doesn't appeal. It really is the GOOD STUFF when you pick it off the tree etc.
Javelinas are scary creatures. I see shows on TV with them and they even scare me just too look at them on the screen. Are they swine family critters?
I'm not sure. I think so! I'll do a post on them one of these days. They come through my backyard every night. So weird! They are ugly and boy, do they stink! Yuck!
Oh dear heaven!!! I never thought of the stink! Yuck yuck yuck!!!
Very musky smelling. Awful! lol!
I've had my fair share of sideways stares while out in my pajamas. I have always been a terrible gardener, but have always been excellent with animals. I am at a point in my life where I think its important that I develop my skill as my Mum was gifted with plants.
I used to have a real skill with houseplants but then we became snowbirds and I had to stop having houseplants because we do 5.5 months in Arizona and 6.5 months on Prince Edward Island. I grow herbs and either dry them or freeze them in the fall.
I married a widower whose last wife had numerous perennials and I know I have to do something with them but they have become so overgrown, I am overwhelmed at where to start. I am going to pick the one bed in the middle of the lawn and thin it out. That's my summer flower garden project.
Since we have a cabin in the woods, I have the perfect spot to take all the plants I have to dig up.
Certainly don't envy you and your garden project,like all things just by doing a little each day, a lot gets done over time. Herbs is a good idea. Might start that as a project for me.