Lois de Vries' Garden Views

This is the second excerpt from a new book by America’s foremost creativity coach and my writing mentor, Dr. Eric Maisel . It’s called, Making Your Creative Mark. I’ve added editorial comments to the excerpt to help you see how you can use Eric’s suggestions to express more of your own creativity in the garden. ERIC: 4 . Complete projects for the sake of making progress. When you make new work that you think aims you in the direction of your genuine voice, try to complete that work rather than stopping midway because “it doesn’t look right” or “it isn’t working out.” You will make more progress if you push through those feelings, complete things, and only then appraise them. It is natural for work that is a stretch and new to you to provoke all sorts of uncomfortable feelings as you attempt it. Help yourself tolerate those feelings by reminding yourself that finishing is a key to progress. LOIS: Sooner or later , e very gardener finds him/herself in the mi...

I’m pleased to share with you an excerpt from a new book by America’s foremost creativity coach and my writing mentor, Dr. Eric Maisel . It’s called, Making Your Creative Mark. While Eric works primarily with authors and fine, craft, and performing artists, I’ve always found his approach to be directly applicable to my work with Cultivating The Inner Gardener. I’ve added editorial comments to the excerpt to help you see how you can use Eric’s suggestions to express more of your own creativity in the garden. Passion and Voice ERIC: A logical — and vital — relationship exists between passion and voice. It is very hard to be passionate about what you’re doing if you haven’t found your voice as an artist. Imagine being forced to sing an octave too high or an octave too low, straining to hit notes that you can’t really hit and that aren’t natural to you. It would be very hard to be passionate about singing in that situation. LOIS: Couldn’t you just feel t...

Lilacs at Willowood Arboretum A big shout-out goes to all of the folks who delight gardeners through their daily work at public gardens across the country and the benefactors who had the foresight to understand how important these spaces are to soothing the human spirit. Staff and volunteers will be working special events this Mother’s Day weekend, so take your Mom or your special lady to a public garden to enjoy the pleasures of spring flowers. Here in Northwestern New Jersey, Willowood Arboretum celebrates Mother’s Day with tours of its lilac collection, light refreshments, and music. You can also purchase starts of some of their unusual lilacs. While the more than 30 public gardens in the Philadelphia area offer perhaps the highest concentration of horticultural displays anywhere, there are public gardens in every state. If you don’t find a location at http://www.nationalpublicgardensday.org/ , use Google to search for “National Public Gardens Da...

Cinqo de Mayo Rose I t seems that the medical establishment is just catching up with what inner gardeners everywhere already know: Mindfulness meditation is good for us and can reduce stress-related illnesses and boost the immune system. According to Dr. Hillary Campbell, as quoted in a recent Sacramento Bee article, http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/01/5306627/medical-establishment-ponders.html , “(Mindfulness meditation) brings on a sense of peace and calmness. And it helps your attention and focus.” Gardening done well is a moving meditation. After all, if you don’t pay close attention to what you’re doing and stay in the moment, you could destroy the very things you’re trying to grow. The repetitive movements of tasks such as weeding are familiar to every gardener as a mechanism for slowing down and looking inward. Many gardening tasks require us to sit or kneel on, or dig in the ground, where we inhale the earthy smells and feel the texture of soils and plants. We physically rec...

Miltoniopsis can perfume the house fo r weeks. This year, my inner gardener has had to back-pedal a bit and take a break from large outdoor gardening projects since we’re focused on cleaning up more than 35 trees felled by Hurricane Sandy. Still chomping at the bit to get out there and get going, I decided to temporarily turn to an on-again, off-again indoor gardening pursuit: Orchids. If you want a long-lasting experience, orchids flower from three weeks to three months, and can make their way into a sheltered spot in the garden during the summer months, if desired. Among houseplants, orchids offer a bedazzling array of scent and color, with leaves and flowers that range from the ordinary to the weird. Phalaeonopsis (Moth Orchids) and Papheopedilium (Slipper Orchids) are the easiest to grow, and the heady, intoxicating fragrance of a Miltoniopsis (Pansy Orchid) will fill the entire house. The latter is well worth the expense even if you ultimately lose it. It helps to have ...

Although Dr. Mays did not have garden design in mind when he said this, the spirit of his thought is a suitable one for us to incorporate when cultivating our inner gardener practice: "It must be borne in mind that the tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn't a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream. It is not a disaster to be unable to capture your ideal, but it is a disaster to have no ideal to capture. It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure, but low aim is a sin." ~ Benjamin E. Mays ~

Shortly after one of Hurricane Sandy’s giant arms swept through our property last October, someone asked me how my garden fared. My reply? “Garden? What garden?” If that response resonates with you, read on. We were more fortunate than many; none of our 35 downed trees fell on the house, although some missed it by inches. There’s a ton of work ahead of us and little chance to restoring the garden to what it once was. Time to step back and get some perspective. It’s all too easy to get swept up in the hullabaloo that surrounds clean-up efforts and give short shrift to our emotional and spiritual pain. But, like any loss, if we don’t grieve the death of our gardens, it becomes impossible to move on. When we’re able take a longer view, we must acknowledge that this is one of the ways that Nature renews herself. In our case, the forest canopy had nearly closed, meaning that not enough sunlight reaches the forest floor to germinate tree seeds and support new growth. By clearing an openin...