Lessons From The Land

Today was a flower day in the biodynamic calendar – the flower parts of the calendar tend to be redolent of their namesake; fleeting and colourful, with bright yellow sunshine and breezy blue skies. It’s a great excuse to focus in the beauty of flowers, one of my greatest loves. I was a professional ecologist for many years and my main specialism was wildflowers and their habitats. Flowering plants have always enchanted me, with their impossible diversity, intoxicating scents and insane beauty.

At the moment the hawthorn blossom is still present and the elderflowers are blooming in an ecstasy of spring. These two floral scents alone can transport me somewhere other-worldly. Heaven-scent.

My intention for this year is to have a profusion of bright flowers amongst the veggie beds, so today Cat and I enjoyed creating a ‘flower strip’ at the centre of our main growing areas. It felt good to dedicate three lines of precious drip-feed to the ‘indulgence’ of mere beauty amidst the otherwise practical garden lay-out.

Alongside their more obvious garden roles such as attracting pollinators and distracting pests from the veggies, I can’t help feeling that flowers do an incredibly great service in the world, even if it’s not that tangible. Can you imagine life without flowers? Or birdsong? Our soul needs beauty to thrive and soar. Natural beauty is love, inspiration, hope, joy. Absorbing natural beauty elicits high vibrational states within us, when we are open to such experiences. And even when we’re not conscious of these experiences, the uplift us nevertheless. Flowers are universal mood-boosters.

So, I will nurture these seeds with a lot of love and appreciation and look forward to the feast of colour and beauty to come.

The garden today, with newly seeded and drip-fed central flower strip. I hope to do a glorious ‘before and after’ comparison once the flowers are in full bloom!