Cleaned up and planted, and waiting for the flowers to bloom.

So…these last few weeks one of my projects was having my flowerbeds re-done, and de-cluttering my backyard to make room for a brand new swing set and Water Table play set I had finally set my sights on after a couple months of searching and deliberating as “perfect” and “worth the effort and cost” for my girls (now 5 1/2, and 4 on Sunday!) and one year old boy, and their friends I anticipate having over for play dates as the sunny weather rolls in.

Cleaning Up and Setting Up

In order to add the things that I want, and trying to create my vision of a fun, clean, safe place for my growing family to play happily, actively and cooperatively, and myself to be able to relax comfortably whilst keeping an eye on them (instead of being distracted and frazzled by too much clutter,and empty spots in the flower bed that get filled with unsightly weeds)…I had to do a lot of assessing, and letting go of the various used climbers and toys I had treasure-hunted-and-gathered on Craigslist in previous years…and then of course there was the cleaning, and deciding, picking up, and assembling…

Having my flowerbeds re-done by my good friend, John, who is no longer in the business, but was a landscape professional/business-owner for 12 years!– was heaven-sent, in that he could help me understand the whole process of “gardening” a little bit better, taking the time to show me what needs to be done and how it’s done. Getting rid of all the junk soil hidden in the flowerbeds (a LOT of broken stone and brick etc. under the surface!), replacing it with “good” soil, assessing what plants are alive and well, which ones to which it was okay to say they need to go to make room for things that I actually like and want, and then going to the nursery to pick plants (like a mini-botany course and Christmas-in-March wrapped up in a 2-hour field trip!).  After the plants were all in, and the flowerbeds were happily covered with a nice healthy layer of mulch (suburban wood chips!), I felt like FINALLY a new chapter can begin in my relationship with my yard.

Everything looks nice and tidy now… So that is good, cause it’s like feeling like there’s space to breathe — things are cleaned up, not just at a surface level, but a deeper below-the-surface clean (like when you’ve just cleaned and organized your entire room, including all the drawers and closet space and under the bed!).

And there’s now hope for building a future in my outdoor space that I actually am looking forward to.  I am still a bit apprehensive, though, because I was not 100% sure how to pick which flowers and which colors I wanted, but realized that I can always switch things up or add things each year, and it’s okay to change my mind along the way. On the other hand, I had really had my heart set on having one of those pretty Cherry Blossom trees as well, but realized in the line-up for the cash register that I’m just not ready yet for that level of commitment yet, picking a specific type/size of tree and a particular spot to plant it (as trees are a bit more complicated to move around).  But that’s also okay — there is no arbitrary self-imposed deadline on me anymore that I need to meet (yay to that level of inner healing for my heart!)…I can take my time, decide along the way, recruit the help/opinions of my husband and mother-in-law (who has now been living with us for 2 weeks), and figure that out when I’m good and ready, no-pressure/stress happy to move forward.

New Plants Need Water

Currently, I am trying to wait patiently on my flowers to bloom so I can see how I did this year — where I’m at now that I’m practicing picking things, not because there is something specific or a right answer I “should” pick, but picking just based on what I decide I like, and want… I’m waiting to see if I like what I picked after things have grown and the colors all finally come out.

Well, I also really am waiting for the flowers to bloom because I just really want to see some pretty flowers and colors when I’m outside in my yard — just because that’s what I want to be able to see  =).

John was over a couple nights ago and took a quick look at the plants.  He commented that it didn’t seem like I had watered the plants in the front yard, and I confessed that no, I had not, but that I had only watered the plants in the backyard because my mother-in-law told me that if I wanted the plants to grow and the flowers to bloom faster, then watering them would help.  I explained to my friend that I had thought because they were covered under the “wood chips” (mulch), that it meant they didn’t need to be watered (based on what I learned from “Back to Eden,” discussed in my postings on Covering and Good Soil).  And when I had checked, the soil did seem damp as opposed to hard and dry like my flowerbeds used to be.

John told me that especially when plants are first planted, or transplanted, that they need lots and lots of water…  I thought about how this makes sense, that having lots of water keeps the soil really nice and soft, and makes the plants nice and “full” and strong, so the conditions are more conducive to establishing good roots quickly, to make their new homes like “home.”

 What My Heart is Learning

I’m really appreciating how spending time outdoors and working with things as basic and down-to-earth as plants and soil etc. naturally have so many parallels to how we experience life in our hearts and relationships — because at the end of the day, the outdoors is simply living and organic and basic and real…. and that is how life at the deepest levels of our hearts and relationships are and will always be, no matter how technology and advancement change the look of things and schedules and communication platforms etc.

The fact that I finally felt I had the energy to expend, and the ability to give myself permission to invest the time and $ necessary to begin the process of creating a back yard (and front yard) that I actually really like, that somehow reflects whatever small (but growing) vision I have or may have for these spaces that are now my husband’s and mine…. this is a powerful reflection to me of my life and where my heart has been and where it is at…and where I finally feel it could be headed.

It is possible, when we are finally ready, when we have taken the time to dig into and confront and find healing for our hearts and pasts and what just honestly hurts us or makes us scared (with community around us that helps makes us strong enough to face these things), to then seek help from various other people to begin filling in those now cleaned-out spaces with healthier, richer soil (new perspectives on and attitudes towards our selves and our lives, that we really are perfectly and loveably made just as who we are, even before anything at all has been planted in our lives, nevermind bloomed).

And then after getting to that place, where our sense of identity and worth is in simply who we are, not in anything we do or outwardly portray, then we can go about the business of picking what to plant and when…what relationships we will invest in, what work or hobbies we want to pursue, what foods we want to eat, places we want to live in or travel to, clothes we want to invest in and wear, goals we want to achieve, causes we want to invest time and $ in to support, etc. etc..

We need to remember every new thing needs to be attended to, nurtured and fed, (like making sure to heavily and constantly water newly planted or transplanted plants)–any new ventures or especially relationships we decide to give a try… and then we need to simply wait for nature to take its course, see what blooms, and how that then sits with our hearts… and know it’s perfectly okay to tweak here and there as the seasons and years come and go and change, and we learn about ourselves and what we were created to love versus like versus not-like, even as that itself can be ever-changing, ever-growing.

I am personally in a season of picking new things to plant and try out, and waiting to see how things will bloom and how that will look, and grateful that I’m finally secure enough to know that deciding later on to tweak this or that is not a matter of failure or having picked wrong, but just a step in the process of discovering what works for me…