Gardening is Art

‘The art of creating stimulates dopamine production, providing us with a sense of pleasure and motivation to continue our artistic endeavours.’(APA)

fish flying over yellow leopards bane

I was on my kneeling stool, hands deep in a thicket of overgrown Daylilies when it occurred to me how much gardening is like writing.  I start with an intention and often end up in the wildest places. When writing it could be that a drift of crab-traps on a dock morphs into the time I bought a purple sweater in Camden Town and later missed my train. Much the same with my circuitous journey through my garden today.

Rose Campion

I had gone to the garden with the intent of deadheading Rose Campion and other past-their- prime summer flowers when I spotted the Mexican Feather Grass that had seeded itself in the gravel driveway. In a flash, I was away. New plan. I will pot up those grasses. But as I was revelling in the vision of clay pots filled with waving grasses artistically placed around the potted Rosemary it was suddenly: SQUIRREL! Look over there! Daylilies dead and dying. I must cut them back. I gathered my gardening tools and began hacking back the foliage, the delicate grasses temporarily forgotten.

That is how I garden and that is how I write. (Actually, that’s also how I talk. Drives some people crazy; not mentioning names here.)

When I am fully involved, gardening and writing are calming. With my mind focussing on a single task, another layer of my brain seems to engage leading to a burst of creativity enabling wild ideas to surface.

According to the American Psychological Association (APA), ‘when we engage in creative activities our brains enter a unique state and the Default Mode Network becomes highly active, allowing us to generate new ideas by connecting disparate concepts. The Default Mode Network is most active during mind wandering or daydreaming.’

pot of Osteospermum from my sister and self-sown brown sedge grasses on the gravel drive

I could landscape a whole new garden or write pages and pages of mind shattering prose if I could stay in that creative space.

So, if you see me lolling around, drinking coffee, staring into space, know that I am working! Truly!

Writing is Art

If you want to read more about creativity, my friend and writer Lois Petersons’ beautifully illustrated book Creatively Human – Why We Imagine, Make and Innovate is available for pre-order.

https://www.amazon.ca/Creatively-Human-Imagine-Make-Innovate/

If you enjoyed this and are curious about more content from an Island Crone, please subscribe from my web page/blog sidebar. I promise to post at least once a month and sometimes more. But not often enough to bore.

~ Island Crone by Liz Maxwell Forbes

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17 thoughts on “Gardening is Art”

  1. How cool! How insightful! What a relief to know that reflecting on flowers on a dinner plate to remembering my mother showing pre-school me how to make a snap dragon bark to wondering if the car is due for an oil change is not preparing me for a white jacket with long sleeves. It is just me being creative! Whew! Great writing, Liz. 😊

    • isn’t that encouraging? We can ramble and be creative, because we are creative…oh the doors this opens!!!.thanks Sylvia.

  2. Love reading this from my cheap hotel in Aachen..with drying laundry scattered on every possible sill and eating sliced cheese on German bread..drinking bio orange juice and yoghurt from a container..because we have no spoons in our carry-on

    • ah you got it!!! the creative mind….you painted a beautiful word picture from your cheap hotel. everyone needs to stay in cheap digs…love Liz

    • Thank you Lou, i love it when one of my lovely friends is in tune with me and shares the dreams…love your garden photos too…

  6. Picking beans, sorting beans really bumpy with with next years seeds ( sigh)
    blanching beans ( ok I didn’t blanch and freeze… my lovely Noel volunteers to do for me …So I can keep flitting about the garden🙏🏽💜: snip lavender, into a cardboard box ( for what?)
    haircut to hedge of parsley ( hoping to dry and make herb sel) , pot of soup made(turnip, cauliflower carrot and dill, including a couple of Parmesan rinds for flavour)

    Oh! marvel at carrots from last year going to seed now five feet tall, (hidden among this years bushy abundance)
    oh ! forgotten back corner of the yard: all the lunaria I “ let grow “ there… uproot from dry soil and whack whack whack til the dirty looking seed holding paper flys off to reveal luminous pearlescent paper inside. Place some for the Buddha by the door…
    Near dusk I take pictures of zinnias and nasturtiums and pull up a chair to watch for the blooming of the evening primrose but oh ! it was too slow , though I reeealy did watch and wait…
    That was a good day and surprisingly included a leisurely swim , though it’s September today.
    Yes, Liz, I got the healing’ and the dopamine . It was my kind of follow your nose day. Xoxo

    • just read this Cheri…love your ramblings from cooking to garden to swimming…made me smile…love you…

  8. Liz, a very welcome and invigorating post. Not unlike the scent in the air today which speaks to the fullness of this seasonal time.Yes, snipping, digging, repotting, finding words, adding lines, following the muse with its heady scent leading me hither and tither. Oh the abundance.
    Thanks for this

  9. Walking in others’ gardens – both literally and figuratively- is such a pleasure and a privilege. .And your analogy re writing is spot on.

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