Creating Beauty - Reclaiming a Barren Space

My personal and professional goal is to create balance and harmony in the world around me, this includes home, work, personal relationships and my immediate surroundings. It was under this premise that I noticed an unattractive area in my neighborhood, a common ground where a huge tree had been cut down several years before. Weeds were growing unattractively in that space, the landscapers were ignoring the area and carelessly just cutting the grass around it. I thought to myself ... "This area is common ground so I will do something about it to make it beautiful." Why, you may ask if it didn't belong to me nor was I responsible for it?... Well, for no other reason than to CREATE BEAUTY, simply ..... for beauty's sake.

As I reviewed this unattractive area in my neighborhood last Fall, I went into action. The dirt in the area was badly indented, but I thought this could be a plus and help it retain the rain water. After removing the weeds I decided it was still too indented so I set out to find unwanted dirt to fill it. After filling the depression, I went to another garden in which I also volunteer. There, I cut back the dried purple coneflowers and shook the seeds upon the new garden. My hope was to get the seeds to germinate in the new garden. I also removed rootings of purple coneflowers from the mother plants to make sure this particular plant would be the "queen of the new garden". I then transplanted chrysanthemums, lilies, liriopes, coreopsis, black-eyed susans and other perennials which would bloom at different times to have continued color in the new garden.

When Spring arrived this year I bought a package of multi-color zinnia seeds, and when they were ready to be transplanted I did so. As luck would have it, I timely received a free package of Cosmos seeds which I decided to plant in the new garden for the purpose of adding color and texture.

While the garden is not really finished, it is coming along nicely. Actually one is never really "finished" gardening. Gardening is a wonderful process of creating, nurturing, polishing, moving plants around for balance and color and so on. The bright and cheerful zinnias provided the biggest and most rewarding surprise! It is hard to believe that for under $3.00 (and a lot of hard work and fighting mosquitoes none of which I regret) one can create a beautiful area for all to enjoy. The neighbor closest to the new garden has been very happy with it and allows me to water this area using her garden hose. As a matter of fact, the new unexpected garden has been a source of joy and pleasure to all the neighbors in the surrounding area.

So, the moral of the story is ..... IF YOU WANT BEAUTY AROUND YOU THE POWER TO MAKE IT HAPPEN IS WITHIN YOU. Happy gardening!