The Garden Holds Its Breath: Possibility in the Pause

It was the Summer of Gardening Hell. Nothing I attempted, did well. Most of the seeds I scattered, you know those easy peasy Cosmos, died. Again.

The condo board decided to chop a bunch of trees down and in an afternoon I went from having a dappled shade garden with a bit of sun at the front to blazing sun everywhere.

Away went the hostas, back to the Collingwood Garden Club / Horticultural Society for next year's plant sale.

All of the vegetables I planted in the vegetable garden were sour, I have no idea why. So strike two, my front porch planters which are usually putting on quite a show by July, had to be ripped out, and start over - which I did, with some cheap geraniums I found on end of season sale at Canadian Tire.

It was too hot, and how we have frost. As the final petals fall and the air sharpens, the garden shifts into quiet.

What once shimmered with colour and movement now rests under a blanket of stillness. There’s a sadness in that — the loss of abundance, the retreat of life beneath the soil. But the garden, ever wise, reminds us that rest is not the end. It is preparation.

Where once I would have cleaned up each dead seadhead, now I am guided by Piet Oudolf's famous quote, "A plant is only worth growing if it looks good dead."

Each seed head left standing holds a promise — a hidden blueprint for next spring. Beneath the frost and fallen leaves, roots continue their slow, secret work. Dormancy, after all, is not death.

It is faith in return.

This is the gardener’s season of trust. We tuck bulbs into the earth knowing we won’t see their faces for months. We leave the soil a little wild, giving shelter to insects and birds. We gather, reflect, and imagine what the next bloom might bring.

I've added more Allium, more than I need, is there such a thing. I gathered Liatris seeds from my StepDad's beautiful garden. I shared them with my neighbour Louisa's garden, then they came with their massive blowers and blew them away. Good thing I have lots. Start again.

The garden teaches us to see beauty in pause — the skeletal grace of stems, the quiet hum of life beneath stillness. There’s melancholy, yes, but also hope. For every fading bloom, there’s a seed dreaming of sunlight.

For the lover of garden, there is no Winter. With hands in our pockets and hearts open to the chill, we carry the garden’s lesson: that endings are simply beginnings disguised. The ideas for next spring already stirring beneath our feet.

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