My Gardening Craze

It all started when my husband and I bought a house. We wanted a fairly large block of land and at least 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms because we planned to start a family in the not-too-distant future. However, our budget limited our options to houses that were… well, let’s just say they needed a bit of work doing to them.

That’s how we ended up with a house that had been a rental for 9 years and had a garden to prove it.

BEAUTY

I’ve always been a person who is a little superficial about appearances (my husband might debate the “little”). I like things to look pretty – my surroundings as well as myself. And so having a garden that looked like an overgrown jungle just wouldn’t do for me. I wanted a place to sit quietly and appreciate the view, I wanted flowers to admire and birds to watch, I wanted a nice green lawn and most of all I wanted it all to look neat and beautiful. And because I wasn’t a millionaire, the only way I could get these things was if my husband and I created our Garden of Eden ourselves.

BREAKING UP CONCRETE

For some unknown reason, the previous owners of our house had installed a rather large shed nearly smack-bang in the middle of the backyard. It was the first thing that had to go before we could start re-landscaping. Taking the shed itself down was no hassle – it was an old tin thing – but the giant concrete slab was another story altogether. My frugal husband decided that it was too expensive to hire a jack-hammer to break up the concrete, so instead he used an old-fashioned sledge hammer to get the job done manually (!!). Unfortunately it was only the beginning of his battle with concrete in our backyard – time and again he would discover concrete slabs of varying sizes whilst he was digging and have to spend ages getting them out before he could carry on with the project (we think our backyard must have been used as a dumping ground for a while!).

The bomb site after my husband had finished breaking up the concrete slab

PLANTING CHALLENGES

After my husband had finished all the landscaping (a process that took months), it finally came time to put in some new plants. I was so enthusiastic about this, I even decided to try growing plants from seeds because I figured this way I’d get the largest number for the least cost (there was a lot of space to fill). In the end though, it took a lot of ripping plants out and putting new ones in before I eventually found varieties that thrived in the spots I had for them. I guess this is why people employ garden designers! But I enjoyed the process (for the most part), learning lots along the way.

I was so proud when my seeds actually sprouted!

THEN AND NOW

I didn’t realise how much I would come to enjoy gardening when I first set out. It started off as a beauty project but turned into so much more. It’s now many things for me – being out in the sunshine, the satisfaction of ripping out weeds, shaping a plant to accentuate its beauty, watching it grow and flower, the physical tiredness at the end of a day in the garden reminding me of all that I’ve accomplished.

Our garden now

ON A DEEPER LEVEL

Then there’s the next level, the level that sees gardening as a symbol of the work that God is doing to my heart. He starts off by breaking up the concrete slabs, softening me to his calling. He pulls out the weeds (my sin), starting off with the big (most visible) ones – I notice the smaller (less obvious) ones once they’re gone. The weeding is a constant process because my sin keeps coming back and needs continual pulling and poisoning with the Word. He prunes me through trials and temptations, causing new growth to spring up from the places that he cut back. He digs into the soil of my heart, showing me what is in there (more concrete slabs?!?). He causes the seed of his Word to sprout and bring me life. And, like a garden, I am also a work in progress that needs constant tending by Him.

So I’m glad that I developed this gardening craze – who knew that this hobby would come to have such immense value not just to my physical body, but to my soul?