What My Garden Has Taught Me

On Patience, Care, and the Sacred Cycles of Growth

Every time I step into my garden, I’m reminded that I am both the gardener and the one being tended to. The soil teaches. The leaves whisper. The rhythms reveal.

What began as a small effort to grow food and beauty became something far deeper. My garden became a mirror, a teacher, a living reflection of my own becoming.

Here are a few things she’s taught me:

🌱 1. Patience & Care Go Hand in Hand

There is no amount of rushing, pushing, or forcing that will make a plant grow faster. I’ve tried. We all do. But plants don’t respond to pressure—they respond to presence.

Growth happens in its own time, and care is the quiet work of showing up again and again. Watering. Weeding. Waiting.

My garden taught me that patience is not passive—it is an active form of love. And that care, consistent and kind, is what allows things to flourish.

🐛 2. Some Days, the Leaves Are Eaten

There are days when I walk out and the leaves are chewed through, or the heat has wilted what once stood tall. And it hurts.

But instead of shame or panic, the garden teaches adjustment.
A little shade cloth. Some diatomaceous earth. Pruning what’s no longer needed.

She blooms again.

This reminded me of life. Of healing. Some days, the bugs win. Some days, we wilt. But that doesn’t mean the story is over.
It just means it’s time to shift the conditions so we can thrive again.

🍂 3. Cycles Are Sacred, Even When They Hurt

I know my garden will begin to close down in the fall. I’ll feel it in the cool air, the slower growth, the dry leaves. And with that comes grief.

I’ll miss her fruitfulness. Her calm. Her quiet beauty.

But I also know—she’ll return.

Just like us, the garden lives in seasons. And letting her go teaches me how to let parts of myself go too.
To trust in the resting. To find meaning in the pause.

🌸 4. Intimacy Takes Time

You cannot truly care for a garden by glancing from a distance. You have to get close. Notice the small signs. Read her cues. Look under the leaves. Touch the soil.

And isn’t that how we are, too?

To truly care for someone—or yourself—you must look deeper than the surface.
This is where intimacy begins: in the noticing. In the presence. In the quiet commitment to know and tend.

My garden taught me that love is not abstract—it’s in the daily, the dirt, the details.

🌷 Final Reflections

My garden isn’t perfect. Neither am I. But she grows anyway. And I grow with her.

She’s taught me to trust the slow unfolding. To stay tender, even when things get messy. To hold space for the seasons within me.

And maybe most importantly—
To keep showing up.

With muddy hands and open eyes.
With patience.
With care.
With love.

Because the things we tend to—
They bloom.
Even us.

With soil-stained palms and a full heart,
Ilda