How to Dream a Garden

There still may be snow on the ground for some of us, but it’s not too early to begin envisioning the beauty of a new garden, no matter how cold it may be! Curl up by the fire and begin to dream the colors and scents of spring right now. As Maria Rodale reminds us, the best gardens begin, continue, and thrive with dreaming. Even before you start picking out your favorite plants or seeds, take the time to design and plan for the coming year.

Here are the easy steps:

1. Spend some quiet time sitting and looking out your windows. Make yourself comfortable, have some tea, and get a blanket if you’re chilly. What do you see? Are you happy with what you see? What do you wish you could glimpse out that window?

2. Start visualizing what you’d like to see. Think big. Don’t limit your thinking to the way things are now or the way they have always been. Imagine your ideal garden. The glorious thing about your garden is that your wishes can come true.

3. Remember all the best outdoor places you’ve ever loved. The woods, the desert, a secret walled garden, the beach, a tropical paradise, a lush British cottage garden, a farm…what made you love them? Of all the things you have seen and places you’ve been, what do you wish you could have outside your door?

4. Now think of all the places in the world you’d love to visit. What seems to draw you there? Is it water, mountains, your ancestral home, the food, the light?

5. Make a list of everything that you’d like to have in the yard of your dreams. Include pictures from magazines, from your travels, and from catalogs, or even from drawings.

Once you have imagined, you can begin to make your dreams into reality!

Read more: Nature, Lawns & Gardens

Adapted from Maria Rodale's Organic Gardening Companion by Maria Rodale (Rodale Press, 2000). Copyright (c) 2000 by Maria Rodale. Reprinted by permission of Rodale Press.
Adapted from Maria Rodale's Organic Gardening Companion by Maria Rodale (Rodale Press, 2000).

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Kenneth D.

11:49AM PDT on Mar 19, 2012

thank you

send a green star

KS G.

5:15AM PST on Dec 30, 2011

Thanks for the article.

Jennifer C.

4:23PM PST on Dec 8, 2011

Thanks.

Michele W.

2:40AM PDT on Nov 5, 2011

Thank you

Cheryl B.

5:25AM PDT on Apr 11, 2011

thanks, I need a garden

Camila K.

1:55PM PST on Mar 6, 2011

thank you for this article. Everything begins with the imagination and dreams, leading to the world we will be facing soon. We can dream up amazingly beautiful gardens and whatever we touch from that point on will be inspired from that dream. It can only be better than what's there now. Everything is this way.

Silvia M.

2:34AM PST on Mar 5, 2011

thank you!

S R.

6:31AM PST on Jan 5, 2011

Done

NO EMAILS P.

12:20AM PDT on May 28, 2010

Ellinor S.

7:44AM PST on Feb 18, 2010