What Does Your Garden Need?

What Does Your Garden Need?

Preparing the Heart to Grow

On Sunday 12th April, I joined Soulful Sunday – usually held by the wonderful Donna Lancaster. This week, it was beautifully facilitated by Sarah Barker, who brought us into the garden. Not the kind you tend with trowel and gloves, but the one you carry inside you.

We arrived, with the quiet hope of things being tidy. Presentable. A garden in full bloom that we might show to others without apology. But Sarah gently redirected us: before the blooming, before the tending, there is the preparing. And preparing asks a harder question – not what do we want to grow, but what do we first need to clear in order for us to grow ?

The theme was gardening, and yet it was never really about gardens. It was about us. Our hearts, our histories, the invisible things we carry that either stifle or strengthen what is trying to emerge. Four stages of growth became our compass – and I am still sitting with and reflecting on them.

Stage one
Clearing; weeds, stones, and what we keep hidden

Before any seed can take root, we must reckon with what already occupies the soil. Sarah asked us to consider our weeds. Some are obvious: the tangled, brittle things we desperately want to pull up — the shame, the bitterness, the old grievances we keep returning to like a sore tooth. These are the ugly weeds. We know them. We want rid of them.

But some weeds are deceptively pretty. They soften the edges of a garden with their wildness, and we convince ourselves they are harmless. Yet left unchecked, they crowd the ground, stealing light and nutrients from what truly belongs there. Pretty weeds are not innocent weeds. Some of the loveliest-looking patterns in our lives – people-pleasing dressed as generosity, perfectionism dressed as care – can quietly take over if we do not notice them.

Then there are the stones. Sarah distinguished these tenderly. Some stones do not belong in the soil at all – they block growth, and they are heavy to carry. Fear. Loss. Shame. These are stones in the heart that we sometimes pick up and hurl – at others, at ourselves. Part of healing is learning not to smash ourselves or anyone else with them.

But there some stones can help us step up. They are the solid ground beneath our feet. The question becomes: which stones are obstacles, which are foundations and which stones are steps? Are you throwing your stones, or standing on them?

And then she asked, as you might ask something you already suspect the answer to – do you have a secret garden? Something you are keeping hidden, tended privately, never shown? Gardens kept entirely for show are exhausting – it takes more energy to hide than it does to show up – naked – in the world. The real growing often happens in the secret ones.

Stage two
Nourishing; the necessity of rot, and what we feed

A well-nourished garden, Sarah told us, needs rotted manure. It is not a comfortable image. And yet, it is one of the most honest things I have heard in a long time about growth: the periods of greatest difficulty, the experiences we can barely bring ourselves to name, are often the ones from which we grow the most.

The most fertile ground comes from decomposition. What has broken down in your life? What has composted in the dark? It may well be exactly what your next season of growth needs. And then the harder question beneath the nourishment: what are you currently feeding? Every garden reflects the attention it receives. Time, energy, presence – these are the water and the light. What are you watering right now? What are you giving your days and your care to? Because what we attend to, grows.

Stage three
Sowing; slowly, carefully, with patience

Seeds are tiny. This is easy to forget when we are impatient for transformation. We want the planting and the blooming to happen simultaneously – well my impatient self certainly does. But a seed requires time beneath the soil before it is visible at all. It is doing essential work in the dark.

Sarah invited us to be gentle with ourselves when it comes to new growth. To sow carefully. To resist the urge to dig up what we have just planted to check whether it is working yet. New ways of being – softer self-talk, harder boundaries, the tender first attempts at something that matters – these need the same patient stillness we would give a seedling.

What are you planting right now? And can you leave it alone long enough to let it grow?

“Grass doesn’t grow any faster if you pull it.”

Stage four
Tending; at your own pace, in your own season

There is a quiet tyranny in comparing your garden to someone else’s. Every plant grows at its own pace, in its own season, according to its own particular nature. The quote that was shared – that grass doesn’t grow any faster if you pull it – landed differently for different people in the room, I imagine. For me, it was a reminder of how often I apply force to my own becoming. I want to see the results NOW! As if urgency were the same as readiness.

Tending is not dramatic. It is consistent, quiet, and often unremarkable in the moment. It is showing up. It is noticing. It is knowing when to water and when to simply trust the rain (tears). It means continuing to value even the stones that remain – not throwing them but using them to stand a little taller.

A garden for show invites performance. A garden that is truly tended invites life. The difference is whether you are growing for others or for yourself – and whether you are willing to sit with the mess and the patience that real growth requires.

I left Sunday’s gathering reflecting on weeds and stones in my life. The things rotting into richness whether I acknowledge them or not. The seeds I have placed in the dark and the impulse to check on them too soon.

Perhaps the most radical act of growth is not the dramatic clearing or the sudden flourishing. Perhaps it is the moment we stop pulling the grass, put down our heaviest stones, and trust – quietly, patiently – that the season is already doing its work.

This session was facilitated by Sarah Barker. With thanks for the gift of the garden.

Click here for more details about Donna Lancaster’s offerings

Click here for Sarah Barker’s The Grief Space

[The Grief Space is a one-day workshop designed to support people to gently begin to process hurt and loss of all kinds.  It could be bereavement, loss of a part of yourself, a relationship or a future you thought you would have.  You will work with sacred rituals, somatically and learn about how to release grief and leave carrying your loss more lightly and feel more hopeful and connected.]