Why do I love Gardening? Confessions of a Gardener.

Weather means more when you have a garden. There’s nothing like listening to a shower and thinking how it is soaking-in around your green beans.Read more to learn more insights about it.

“Take thy spade; it is thy pencil;

Take thy seeds, thy plant; they are thy colors.”

How wonderful it would be to get up every morning, feeling the warm sunshine on our face; being welcomed into the gorgeous new day by the melodious chirping of the birds; watching the captivating sun rise in all its colorful glory; while the cool morning breeze blows across our dreamy face to wake us up; followed by a refreshing and peaceful stroll on the dew-covered grass.

Weather means more when you have a garden. There’s nothing like listening to a shower and thinking how it is soaking-in around your green beans.

How wonderful it would be to end the day unwinding with the setting sun; letting our daily worries fly away with the departing flock of birds; contemplating about our place in this world while lying underneath the countless stars, and letting the symphony of the night heal our sorrows while we slowly go to sleep.

“Gardening simply does not allow one to be mentally old, because too many hopes and dreams are yet to be realized.”

How poignant it is that in order to aspire for greater things, we human beings fail to enjoy the best things Nature has already bestowed upon us!

So what does all this has to do about taking up Gardening? I started gardening to feel connected and feel belonged to what each and every life in this world is a part of- our Environment; our Planet and ultimately, our Universe. I love gardening because it makes me feel alive and appreciate my life by nurturing other lives around me. I love gardening for the simple pleasures it provides with minimal amount of work, and the rewards that I get to enjoy, season after season, year after year. I love gardening because it feels humane to give back a little something to our ever-so-caring Mother Nature, whom we so-called “superior species” have always abused and always destroyed.

“Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes!”

So even before the age of the Computers, Cars, Industries, Iron and Stone arrived, what was the first profession ever taken up by the mankind, the first profession to set us apart from all the other species, that ensured the survival of our race, that made us finally ‘settle’ after centuries of wandering for food, and slowly grow into communities, towns, and eventually the world as we know today? Yes, all thanks to Gardening!

The four walls of our modern civilization are slowly isolating mankind from its best teacher- the Mother Nature. That the Nature is a child’s best educator, guide and friend, has been best described by the esteemed classical poet, William Wordsworth, in his poem “Three years she grew in sun and shower”. He gracefully talks about how Nature looks after a baby girl named Lucy, and nurtures her into a perfect, well-natured being.

“Three years she grew in sun and shower,

Then Nature said, “A lovelier flower

On earth was never sown;

This Child I to myself will take;

She shall be mine, and I will make

A Lady of my own.”

Observing nature closely everyday teaches me to be wild yet humble, ambitious yet grounded, and playful yet calm. It teaches to be patient upon losing something or someone valuable, as everything will be dust one day and from the dust will it grow again. It makes me appreciate all kinds of life-forms and their wonderful manners- from curly twining vines to sturdy firm trees, from ever blooming bougainvilleas to forever happy cactuses, from hopping squirrels to graceful pigeons, from noisy frogs to silent owls.

It has made me value and trust every individual around me, no matter how different their ways maybe. It has made me stronger by teaching me to stand firm on one’s ground during times of calamity, as well as to be flexible with the changing winds. It has ultimately taught me to be simple and patient, and to not get carried away by the sweet and bitter moments that the life throws at us.

There is always something new to be discovered in the garden everyday. Whether it’s a newly developing flower-bud, or restlessly watching your green tomatoes ripen to red, or recording a new species of bird that visited your backyard, or measuring the progress of your steadily growing hibiscus; garden always has something new in store for you everyday. Moreover, the sweet rewards of your very own awaited harvest is always a delightful treat that money can never buy.

“Death has come for me many times but finds me always in my lovely garden and leaves me there, I think, as an excuse to return.”

So have you started Gardening yet?