Gardens captivate us from east to west and north to south. We cultivate the land around us and make it as charming and pretty and soothing to the eye as our imagination – and purse – will allow us to. Some let nature grow by itself around them, only clearing spaces where needed.

Gardens draw us into another realm of life as we watch them grow, with or without our effort. Our minds are drawn to many analogies, on the whole therapeutic but sometimes jarring, as we wander through the many layered facets of our lives.

Therapeutic analogies make us swim in the sea of calmness, delight and inspiration but the jarring ones make us stop to think deeply about life issues. Like the one mother posed to us in her stress and grief when we, her children in our youth, would go off the rails, ‘You’re destroying the beautiful garden I have been nurturing!’ – echoes of that First Garden that was lovingly created and nurtured only to be destroyed by disobedience.

This was a deeply-rooted emotion and vision of a mother nurturing her children into adulthood as one does for gardens. The analogy of joyfully nurturing growth, well-being, beauty and progress is surely the genius of creativity within gardens the world over.

Throughout history, wherever people have migrated to, nurturing gardens in their new lands has not only sustained them physically but emotionally connected them to the lands they’ve left behind.

Yet, the best of gardens need pruning and shaping after they have been nurtured so tenderly from the sowing of the seed onwards. For some foliage just a light trim is necessary but for other more sturdy growths, the jarring need of a harder prune is necessary to encourage healthy growth.

How does your garden, or gardens in general, nurture your inner being? How do they inspire you? What realms do you ‘fly’ to in your imagination and creativity? How do they build you up and take you forward in your life?

For me the genius of gardens is in the creativity of an amazing Creator – the sheer scale, breadth, height and depth of beauty I witness every time I step into a garden, leaves me speechless.