spirituality and aesthetics

Retrieved on 29th Sept 2011 fromwww.koanga.org.nz/koanga-institute-collection
 27th September


Silly to say that it isn't  too hard to think about gardening without thinking about the potential to express beauty .
Norfolk (2000) "Gardeners are like landscape painters.Their canvas is soil, their paints the vast array of living, flowers ,trees and shrubs" 
This is the time of year where the first flower especially from the veggie garden are starting to come.Sad but true part of my work on my veggie garden this week was hoeing my broad bean plants and I was getting quite excited about seeing the flowers as it will sign of beauty is also a sign that it all go for the growing season   YAY !!!! .

retrieved on the 28/09/11 from id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkas:Broad_bean.jpg

My concept of beauty definitely links with my view of spirituality and respecting the environment that you work in  that you allow the plants to grow the way they want. I cant see beuty in a garden that obviously has blue nitrogen pellets that has perfect rows(this is an aeshetic rebellion as my father was one for strings and lines.
I can only see beauty in vegetables that are not hybrid x coming from the netherlands .We live in NZ so use the beautiful seed and plants that come from companies such as Koanga gardens using varieties that work here

retrieved on 29th Sept 2011 fromwww.koanga.org.nz/koanga-institute-collection

• that you plant flowers next to vegetables i.e nasturtiums take pests away from cabbages and other brassicas.
• that gardens dont look aesthetic unless mulched with something like seaweed ,compost .
• that you use as natural things as possible no platic poles net for beans.

 I am lucky I inherited a beautiful garden and it is easy for me to create beauty by weeding  and giving the plants space .The beauty and spirituality is increased by the olfactory extras including oregano, thyme, a lemon verbena tree, lavender ,a bay leaf tree .

• which i have aesthetically experimented on and have shaped it in a topiary manner as a lolly pop styled tree( must be the ordered English aesthetic in me)
  

For someone that is not very aesthetic i definitely see gardening as a way of creating beauty .but as every thing I do i probably err on the edge of chaos and scruffiness. let plants go to seed and stuff coming up every where




I  find it hard to take away gardening from spirituality as a culture that has tried everything to distance itself from the earth that sustains us as somone that always tries to live in the country .I know that i am not grounded if i don't spend time labouring gardening or eating food from the garden

Susan Bowden who is an important advocate for the healing properties of garden argues things well "gardens are a means of enriching our spirituality and possibly our faith,being involved in the process of gardening is a vital tool to counteract the many stresses and demands of the world in which we must live and enable us to become fully and maturely human".

The quiet garden movement have been influential in many green space s in towns especically in schools and prisons

I still think that neil from the young ones sums up the spirituality of gardening the best

Reference list


Bowden,s. Quiet gardens :the root of faith?. London. U.k: Pickstock


Norfolk, D. The thereapeutic garden. London . England: Bamtam Press.