week 41: what the flowers told me
this week on the little dream farm
If you’ve been hanging around with us for any length of time—either we go way back or you found us by way of cat rescue or you’ve joined us for the ride here on the Little Dream Farm, then you know by now I’m always and forever asking the questions,
So what’s the lesson from this?
So what did I or did we learn?
So what did this have to teach me or us?
I would say I’ve always been a curious person by nature. It also happens to be one of the things I love and admire most about Chris, too. He’s one of the most endlessly curious people I know and he has the most remarkable way of absorbing and storing so much knowledge, information, history, and memory.
I guess that’s why it felt so natural for us, two suburban kids who’ve lived in cities all around the world, to pick up our big city life and move it to a farm in the country, knowing that we were way in over our heads in the has some semblance of a clue what they’re doing department.
That’s the thing about curiosity, though, isn’t it? The desire or the need to want to know more, or to see how it goes, or to figure it out.
We told ourselves back then that it was the only thing required of us to take the leap—a curious mind, the willingness to try, and to see where it might take us.
Fast forward, and I remember the way the little tug on my heart felt when I first started visualizing the Cut Flower Patch of 2023. It was like a little flutter…just this whimsical fanciful playful idea: what if I were to learn to grow a giant patch of flowers from seed so I could stand among them and just enjoy the process of learning to grow them at scale?
I got asked countless times,
“Are you planning to sell the flowers?”
“Are you making up bouquets?”
“Are you hosting photo sessions?”
“What are you doing with all those flowers?”
They’re all valid questions, and certainly I asked them too since I was going to be putting in so much effort, but the better question, upon reflection is, What were the flowers doing to me?
As I’m getting ready to wind down the Dahlia Patch for the season, I’m thinking a lot about the lessons.
This week I’d like to share with you some of the gems I’ve collected during my two-year love affair learning to grow, tend to, and enjoy the wonder of growing flowers.
My biggest takeaway? The lessons are universal. We likely will see ourselves in them all.
Perhaps one of them, though, is just gentle reminder you were needing.
Before we dive into our lessons I’d love to stress the importance of getting adequate Vitamin D as we head into the winter months.
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And now onto the lessons…
Here’s what the flowers have told me:
The day you plant the seed is not the day you harvest the bloom (or the fruit or the veggie, for that matter).
In today’s attention and focus-starved world, I think a lot about the way that the instant gratification from so many of today’s conveniences actually hurts us. Isn’t it funny that you’d never plant a seed and then sit there and stare at it and demand it to be a full-grown blooming plant any sooner than it’s expected date-to-maturity? It makes me think about the areas where I expect this from myself or others in my life and how I can ease up on that.
July 18 With decent soil, decent water, and decent sunshine, even the least likely to thrive will still grow…and thrive.
Ahh yes, the trap of waiting for everything to be perfect so that we may feel ready to begin or try or go for it or take the first step. What if instead, exactly where we are right now…exactly where our feet are now planted (for the record, I always intend my puns, hehe)…is the perfect condition in which we are to thrive? Even if we feel behind or too late or don’t have everything we need, it helps to get going, because I’ve seen even the most miserly of baby plant starts turn into the most beautiful of blooms, even in the toughest of conditions. It makes me think—yeah, we’re like that, too.It only looks hard if you think of the whole…anything is doable in small increments of effort.
“That looks like so much work!” is a common thing I hear about growing lots of flowers. But I’ve found that every real and true good and authentic and honest thing in my life was earned through doing the work. Looking at the whole picture—yeah, that’s incredibly daunting. But Step A to B is only one step. Step B to C is only one step. I have to remind myself of this countless times a season. The lesson? I have such renewed confidence to try anything “hard” because I know if I just break it down into it’s component parts and take it step by step…I can do it. So can you.
Just because you can’t see the growth doesn’t mean it’s not happening.
That’s why progress photos are pure gold. Day to day it looks like the plants are sitting there doing just about nothing. But we all know that isn’t true. Little by little, day by day, they’re transforming. And when you look back through the progress over a whole growing season it’s so evident they were steadily transforming into full bloom all that time. We’d be wise to remember that now and then. Are you taking note of it in the photos? When’s the last time you took note of it about yourself?
August 26 The flowers are going to do what they’re built to do…flourish.
It’s fun to say, “Look at these flowers I grew!” but we all know who is doing the real legwork here. It’s the seeds. It’s the tubers. They’re potential is innate. Their being is innate. They are meant to thrive, meant to grow, meant to bloom, meant to blossom, meant to flourish. It’s baked into the essence of what they are. It’s what they’re built to do. Best not to forget it’s baked into you, too. It’s what you are built to do.
Sometimes things are best enjoyed just as they are.
Every time I went to the patch to cut myself bouquets this year, I just simply couldn’t do it. I snipped a few flowers here and there and made myself one bunch of Cafe au Laits to enjoy, but each time I stood out there in the patch I just wanted the dahlias to be as they are…not to deadhead them, not to pick them, not to cut them, not to trim them, not to sell them…not to touch them. It made me think about the ways through the years I tried so hard to “fix” myself. It’s been a long slow road to this lesson, but maybe the flowers helped me finally see it more clearly. So I started to ask myself, “What if I’m absolutely fine just the way I am?” And then a follow-up question, “What would it look like if I allowed myself to believe it?” I offer that to you now for your own contemplation.
September 10 Smooth seas don’t make skilled sailors, and perfect growing seasons don’t exist.
Chris took a much bigger role in tending to the fruit and veggie garden this year while my focus was on the flowers and other parts of the farm. He got to learn a handful of lessons for himself this year, spending more time tending to living plants and growing food. At first, I’d feel bad when he’d get disappointed about the woodchucks eating our melons or having certain crops of things not perform so great or trying to battle back the weeds but somehow always getting behind. It’s hard not to get disheartened in the garden—you start out the season with big hopes and pretty little dreams in your head and the reality is that the garden hands you a whole different set of lessons each year. I’ve come to appreciate that part of gardening the most. It means I cannot fail (unless I quit being a gardener)…I can only learn more and more and more and more and more. And I love that. I’m glad Chris got to learn it this year, too. I just kept repeating to him, “It’s ok if stuff goes wrong.” And it felt good to see how it allowed him to enjoy the wins despite the losses. That’s powerful stuff right there.
You can’t have the blooms without the growing season.
Maybe this sounds similar to previously mentioned lessons but what I mean in this instance is that it’s easy to think of the time the tubers are planted to the time they’re in bloom as waiting for the arrival of blooms, but I think it misses the point. We often get tripped up in life when we put all our cards on climbing the mountain and arriving at it’s peak, forgetting that the journey was where all the good stuff happened before we get to the view. The blooms, yes, they’re the icing on the cake…the summit of the mountain, if you will, but they’re as special as they are when they arrive because they were an entire growing season in the making. Why do you think most gardeners fuss over their gardens and share every little thing that grows and gush all about how it’s going and how good the freshly-grown produce tastes? It’s because they had a front-row seat to tending to and watching what it took to get there. Good food for thought.
Surely I may not have said anything new…anything you don’t already know or haven’t heard before. But our lives are always speaking to us, whispering or shouting depending on how stubborn we are to heed what it’s saying.
The flowers have been talking to me and reminding me of all these things I know to be true, but their presence helps make the lessons connected to something real, something tangible, something earned.
Now, I’d love if you’d tell me…
What’s something you’re working on or working through that’s hammering home some lessons for you? Care to share? I always love hearing from you.
I’m working through a totally different process, trying to trust that over time there will be some healing. My husband passed away in February and along with other family issues it’s been a terrible year. However, I trust that over time things will gradually improve. I know this grieving thing will never be over but it will change and be less painful. And one other thing: I’m so thankful to have my cat who is currently asleep and purring on my lap.
As I was reading through your farm note, I noticed the transitions in the photos of the Dahlia patch and it made me think of the process of making bread. Starting from making the dough to watching it proof and expand, and then forming the loaf and baking it to a beautiful golden brown loaf of fresh bread 🍞 The process is fascinating to me to see something come together from simple ingredients and turn out to be something so delicious!
I love the photos of your dahlias! They’re so beautiful and colorful 🌸🌼🌺