Resilience in the Garden

The ginkgo tree all but given up for dead (twice in two years), a fig tree cutting planted “temporarily” in the corner of the garden away from the drip system, and a beautiful horse chestnut that shot up in late spring and then waned and burned through those scorching hot days.

All of these plants had been almost given up on during summer; and yet in early autumn, they all started to sprout new life.

It got me thinking about the resilience and the intelligence of our neighbours in the plant kingdom.

Here were trees that seemed to persevere through the hottest and driest of summers and then at some point during that time, when they could carry on no further, decided that they were going to retreat to their “core”, take care of what was important and let the leaves and flowers wither in return for taking care of the whole.

We gave them little chance of surviving.

The chestnut leaves were burnt to a crisp. The ginkgo had been through tough times already and there was no way it would survive another harsh summer; and the fig just didn’t get any water.

It just looked like it was too much to come back from.

But they have returned, and they have survived.

And yet the trees do not fear another harsh summer, and give up or complain – they grow no matter, they just carry on with the resilience and a faith that all will be well.

There was something in that for me. Our family also has endured a harsh summer, it seems to be the order of the day for many of our friends, that the beginning of this year has thrown up its fair share of challenges (sometimes I would say “more than fair”), and yet we carry on.

We retreat to our core, to what is important – friendship, family, integrity, truth – waiting for the storms to clear and for the weather to turn favourable again, so that we can sprout new leaves, new ideas, new aspects to our lives, and rediscover the reasons for “being”.

I wish this for all of us for the rest of this year.