Over the years, I’ve researched the design and content of an English cottage garden. I don’t have the exact varieties of flowers in mine because the winters get so cold here. But I’ve attempted to replicate the look of informal design and many colorful flowers. I love the sense of nostalgia and romance of a charming and inviting flower garden. Working with the flowers (and my vegetable garden too) are my way to staying connected to the land, and in touch with the rhythms of planting and harvest that the various seasons offer throughout the year.
It’s been a work in progress because I’ve had to learn what deer like to eat. So aggravating! They have all the lush outdoors to choose from for food, and yet they still have to get in my flower beds!
Everything in these pictures deer will eat like it’s candy. The garden is all behind a fence five feet high. The white picket fence is ornamental, and then above it, as invisible as I could possibly make it, runs a green wire fence. Success!
I started doing full-time chaplaincy in the summer when everything was blooming and the days were long enough that I could go outside a while after I got home. Then late fall arrived followed by winter when the evenings were dark and cold and nothing was growing in the garden.
This taught me how much I rely on the beauty of the garden to restore me at the end of days spent near the hideousness of death and the moments of deep pain so many patients experience. Working in the garden is soothing and being surrounded by results of my labor is delightful.
I’m savoring each summer day of sunshine and blossom and thinking of creative ways to bring that delight indoors with me during the colder months.
