What’s Inspiring?

Summer’s dwindling, there’s already less light in the evenings, the weather is surely doing unruly things that it wasn’t doing a month ago, and life’s pace is altered. Before I became a gardener, I might not have noticed subtle natural shifts like 10% less humidity or the leaves turning in a slightly different direction, or the 15 extra minutes I am comfortable enough to give the garden, or the 15 I am not.

Maybe you’re not quite ready to let Summer slip away, and you’re digging your heels or your trowel in to try to keep it close.  Maybe you’re torn, you love the slowed down ease of Summer but you’re ready to cool off some and have less weed work.  When we’re wading toward and through the in-between phase and we’re distracted by back to school planning, we like to remember what inspires us to garden at all.  Connecting with our source, or our roots, can help us easily find where we want to direct our next effort.  This is a good time to consider what’s next, without pushing too hard toward it.  It gives us space to continue to enjoy what’s happening now and also find something exciting to half focus on at the horizon.  We encourage you to slowly evaluate what’s going on in your garden now, what space might you have to dedicate to a new project or what existing area might you choose to enhance?  If it’s obvious, do you know exactly what you want or are there some obstacles to determining that?

It will only be a couple months before there are veggie starts and Fall favorites and less weeds and more color and we will all be busy with a new school year in full swing and these simple, sweet sunny moments that are our present will be behind us.  To slow time a bit around The Garden Center, we asked our staff what inspires them most about gardening and we love the collection of reasons we assembled through this discussion.