Garden Evolution-Stage 2

Even though this isn’t really part of my garden evolution right now, I wanted to lead with an image so it looks nice on the Substack homepage. It’s the meditation garden I created 2 years ago. Relatively complete with a fountain hidden in between the bamboo containers; hostas and ferns line the edges of this narrow side yard. I’ve recently added more ferns in the empty spaces along the house—just haven’t planted them yet.

Today, as expected, I find that less marine layer and more sun means rearranging the plants—almost all of them! It also means a design reconsideration.

With the new sun angles and saturation—since most of the plants I purchased require 6 hours of daily sun, I had a lot of rearranging to do.

Every passing moment is another opportunity to change perspective, right? Like announcing a break from posting here and how it lasted only a couple weeks😂

As today, so it was last night at bedtime when nervy, electric body energy and a flood of internet garden pictures ran a movie in my picture maker. I spent 2 hours intently focusing on my breath—exhaling the litter, releasing hundreds of images before sleeping.

So much fun looking at design ideas on Pinterest, and so much editing the program.

The result of that mental editing process—a whole new perspective! An entirely different design picture appeared as I drifted into that in-between space. Here’s my hypnagogic kindergarten design, which almost looks better than the dry grass and weeds in the photos.

Now close your eyes, put on your child-like hat and just imagine a beautiful layer of chocolate brown bark, a mahogany ajuga patch at the close end; 2-3 foot rocks or clusters of boulders alongside the catmint in the middle; and golden juniper scattered with red heather at the far end.

This new version is actually more appealing to me and brings in more rocks—not huge, yet pretty big rocks. Here are a few pictures of the plants, which you can expand to see detail.

Close End: Ajuga Patch

Far End: Juniper and Erika Heather

Middle: Catmint, Heuchera & Rocks (which are invisible right now)

My over-zealous overstock is now repurposed for the front yard berm bed—which I haven’t shared until this very moment, surrounds my fruit trees with lavender, pink and white calluna heather, and a little blue star juniper.

Reading about and looking at other people’s gardens—like home remodeling and cat videos, is one of my favorite news forms. And now I’m beginning to realize there’s a much deeper experience—even more fulfilling than the gentle surge of dopamine from pretty pictures, or even the pulses of inspirational elixir from an idea about tending the inner garden by making an outer garden.

All true. All beautiful experiences. Even so, I sense something deeper happening here. And I guess my break from posting means something entirely different than expected.