the beauty of natural order…

Welcome to Tuesdays with Chel.

Each week Chel Micheline of gingerblue dot com will offer her perspectives on our Bliss Habits. Please enjoy the wisdom and clarity she offers.

I’ve been gardening every single day for the last year and a half. When I started this hobby, I never thought I would get so much from it. I thought I would end up with some pretty flowers and that would be the reward.

Instead, I continuously learn things from the process of gardening- of tending to the earth and the plants and being part of something so much bigger than I am. I can plant the seeds and provide the water, but the rest is rewally up to Mother Nature.

And one of the most profound lessons I have learned from my garden is this:

There is a natural order to life- a natural order to the events of life- that sometimes we just can’t change. 

Everything happens in its own time. Sometimes that’s a good thing, and sometimes it’s a bad, frustrating, and heartbreaking thing. But patience is almost always rewarded, both in the garden *and* in life. Let me explain…
I live in Southwest Florida. We have sunshine, warm weather, and great conditions for gardening year-round.

When I first started gardening, it was early autumn in 2010. Fall is good season for gardening here in Florida, since we have lots of sunshine and mild temperatures. It’s pretty much idea gardening weather year round, give or take some heat and some rain.

So when I started gardening, I disregarded all the information on the seed packets and plant labels and just went for it.

And, as you can guess, several things didn’t seem to “take”. They didn’t die or wilt or turn brown, they just did *nothing*. No growing, no blooming, no sign of any change whatsoever. The plants just stayed exactly the same as they were at the nursery, and the sprouted seeds popped through the soil but basically stayed small and, well…. pretty boring.

Since I was new to gardening, I just assumed it was something *I* was doing wrong. I thought maybe I was giving those plants too much sun, or maybe too little, maybe my soil wasn’t great or the fertilizer I was using wasn’t the right kind.

I’ve always approached gardening as an adventure- I find things I like or that look/sound interesting, and I plant them and see what happens. As the days pass, I shift things around a bit, water a little more, water a little less, whatever. I follow my intuition, which is *very* odd for me since I normally don’t trust my intuition at all. Everyday, I just go out back, see what’s happening, tweak and prune and water and fuss with things until it feels right. I just do what I can, and hope I don’t kill anything.

I did that for several months. Some plants did well, but many of them did a whole lot of nothing.

All of the sudden, in the spring of 2011, everything changed:
– The big pot of wildflowers I’d planted from seed went from being completely green (and looking a lot like a giant bowl of weeds) to having a bunch of tiny little colorful buds.
– The orchids that I have had for YEARS, which have done nothing since I got them, shot up spikes.
– The nasturtiums created tiny little buds which bloomed into gorgeous, fragrant flowers.
– The bachelor’s button (which has been an ugly, root-y, bare looking thing and very difficult to maintain because it needs water a zillion times a day) shot up a flower almost overnight and redeemed itself.
– The begonias came back.
– The snapdragons all exploded into color and flowers.

It was a fairly gradual process, all this blooming and growing and changing, but when I stopped and took it all in, I realized everything had really come to life in my garden.

At first I wondered what exactly I did right. Was it better soil? More water, maybe less? Different fertilizer? Was I finally getting the hang of it?

But then it hit me- everything was blooming because it was spring. It was the *natural* time of the year for things to come to life in the garden. (I know you are thinking “DUH, you moron!”, but bear with me for a second!!)

Here in Florida, I can convince myself that its spring pretty much any time of the year. A little sunshine, a little cooler weather, and it’s a spring day for me. But no matter what I tell myself about the weather conditions, there are some plants I just couldn’t cajole into doing their thing any earlier than they were *supposed* to.

These plants knew exactly when to start their cycle, and they did it when they are supposed to. End of story. Before spring came, I gave them sunshine out the wazoo, great fertilization, cushy soft soil, warm air, anything a plant could want and need. But there was nothing I could do (besides set up some sort of scientific greenhouse and literally simulate EVERY aspect of spring including time and angles of sunlight and tides and whatever else it might require) that could speed things up or inspire things to happen any sooner than they should. Those plants followed the natural order.

And I wasn’t necessarily *thrilled* by this, because I like to make things happen. I will readily admit to being a bit of a control freak. But, sometimes the natural order of life, of events, of the way things are *supposed* to go overrides my desire to have control.

Some things just have to happen in their very own time. You can create the right environment, the right conditions, but if it’s not time, it’s just not time. That’s all there is to it.

Since experiencing spring in the garden, I try and remind myself of the “natural order” every day. Spring is on its way once again, and once again I’m reminded of the natural order of life.

When I want something to happen but it doesn’t, when I can’t find my place in the world, when I’m confused about the pace of life, when I don’t know if things I am doing are really working… I have to remind myself to be patient.

One thing I have learned from gardening, is that patience is almost always rewarded. And I’ms tarting to learn that it holds true for day-to-day life, as well.

So I pass this on to you: Just keep putting in the hours, the love, the energy, and the time. I promise you that spring will eventually come, and whatever seeds you are sowing in your “garden” (whether it be real or theoretical) WILL come through and bloom for you. There is a natural order to everything. We just need to have some patience and see it through.