To make the decision to garden, one opens personal space to admit a few, or even hundreds of plants which will hopefully grow to exude charm, pleasure, beauty and oxygen as well as generate conversation, friendship, and a sense of confidence with each small success. This is why, in essence, folks garden.

Spiritually, a garden philosophy is as simple as placing a seed or cutting into the ground and recognizing that God has given us the physical ability to plant, tend, cultivate, and harvest limitless green treasures. In return for this invaluable gift comes the responsibility of sharing with others—both the bounty of the garden, as well as teaching friends and family how to grow and cultivate their own treasures. By this process of helping and sharing with our neighbors, we become friends, we share our stories, we share our common needs, and we gain self dignity that growing together as a gardening community provides.

Jarmora Valrie has learned well all of these lessons as she has grown and harvested in her Daphne garden for the past 17 years. When she and her family—husband, Melvin, children Aren and Caleb, and honored Golden Retrievers Buddy and Spike—moved to the Eastern Shore in 1998, Jarmora viewed the large empty yard and began to envision a garden full of beautiful flowers and verdant shrubs. She began the happy task of acquiring the plants of her vision from giveaways dropped off by neighbors and friends, purchasing end-of-season plant leftovers from Lowe's at reduced prices, and even gathering cast-off, fungus-ridden hydrangeas from a countryside nursery which she carefully nursed into bloom-producing beauties. Digging and planting in the hard clay formation in her yard, this gardening novice dwelt in the realms of patience and possibility as she planted and replanted, constantly experimenting with what would grow and thrive in her yard's conditions. Throughout these 17 years, she has become addicted to gardening, claiming that everyday garden work has become therapeutic and calms the intensity of her spirit. Jarmora says that gardening is a maturing process and that by observing all of life in the garden, we get a picture of who we are and how we fit into this garden called life.

Through careful observation and rumination, she has learned that when the butterflies, or the bees, or the birds won't come, something is wrong, or out of place in the garden. As in life, we need to study to discover what the problem may be and "take the weeds out" to insure healthy growth and bring the living things back again. She has learned to appreciate and love the process of gardening and the balance and joy it brings into her life.

From the empty landscape and hard clay soil she first encountered in 1998, Jarmora's garden has blossomed into a neighborhood showplace and a personal retreat of solace and sustenance for both her and her family and friends. She now works four large beds, weeding and watering one daily to give proper attention to each. Jarmora chooses plants that she loves and that love her back by growing well in her garden conditions of both sun and shade. Beside her favorite, beloved hydrangeas, she has incorporated camellias, azaleas, crape myrtles, dogwoods, potato vines, geraniums, lantana, Gerber daisies, and ornamental grasses into a color-packed garden oasis that is her "happy place."

When plants thrive and bring joy, it means that the gardener is learning to solve the initial problems of soil, site, environment, and the infinite mini-disasters caused by all kinds of pests. Jarmora has made a bargain with God and Mother Nature. Nature abhors any system which is out of balance. Knowing this, she does not like to use chemicals in her garden and uses instead techniques and strategies for dealing with pests such as choosing plantings which attract beneficial insects and birds which, thus, do the work of insect control.

Jarmora loves lots of color and continues to enhance her garden with pass-a-long gifts from neighbors, a landscaper friend who shares extra plantings, and at flea markets, where she finds bright perennials at great mark-downs. She continues to entertain her dream of filling her yard with colorful, joy-producing blooms and foliage. This gardener loves being outside in the sunshine and fresh air and as she examines her garden daily, she finds it is indeed a metaphor of life. Her garden menagerie consists of showy, proud hydrangeas, the temperamental, difficult-to-sustain roses, as well as the easy-going, minimum care and always beautiful blooms of native azaleas and camellias. The folks we encounter in life can also be showy, temperamental, proud, difficult, or easy-going while beautiful and giving. And so the gardener prunes, weeds out, or tries again another day, both in her garden and in life.

Jarmora shares gardening advice once given by a friend at a garden party as a practical gardening tip. "To give a plant new life and keep it looking beautiful, cut off the spent blooms to allow the leaves to fill out and transform into a more vibrant showing once bloom-time is over." Sounds like another valuable life lesson in there somewhere. Jarmora mulches her beds with fallen oak tree leaves, valuable gifts from Mother Nature.

Thus, there is a bit of history in Jarmora's gardening practice. She grew up in a family with nine brothers, who, of course, loved to eat. Her mother, out of necessity, closed the kitchen each night at 8pm. Jarmora, being the only girl and almost the youngest, often was given short-shrift at the table with so many male mouths to feed. The little nine-year-old watched a neighbor who grew corn, watermelons, and other vegetables and decided that here was a way to augment the measly helpings her brothers allowed her. She planted and harvested her own garden of fresh corn and watermelons and enjoyed her own healthful snacks--even after 8pm! Gardening has sustained this lady in so many ways!

The design of anyone's garden should look pretty to the gardener, be simple and provide space for creativity and learning--providing color and allow for having fun and a satisfying interest in the plants themselves. Jarmora begins each day by looking around in her outdoor space and taking care of what God has provided for her attention. She advises not to fuss too much in the garden, but don't stop dreaming of what could be. Be adventurous and host more plants than you can easily care for--it makes the occasional losses seem smaller. A gardener must come to realize that she cannot have any more control over her plants than in any other element of life, but there is no employer more benevolent than Mother Nature.

This sage gardener advises us to learn from the garden, as in life. Everything that happens should be for growth. The pains in the garden and in life help us become softer, gentler, wiser folks. She reminds us to "redeem the time" that we have on our planet. Use it well--it surely is a limited resource. The landscape that Jarmora has fashioned in her yard and in her life represents the footprint she will leave behind her on this earth.

So many gifts are garnered from gardening. Individuals are typically overcome with pride--a healthy sense of self--worth when they look on as a seed grows into a plant and produces a beautiful flower that can be shared or a crop that can be eaten at their own table and shared with neighbors, family, and friends. There is an incredible sense of individual and community fulfillment that comes from enjoying this work with our hands, as God blesses our endeavors with sunshine, soil, and rain. The wisdom of the garden gives everything its place and its short time to remind us of temperance, patience, and the chance to begin again.

Gardens, like life, are a work in progress. They become what you make of them. Scattering seeds and cuttings with abandon can provide a reward of unimaginable beauty. Early on, Jarmora jumped right in--with no formal plan, no expectations, and plenty of enthusiasm. Gardening has become an integral, essential part of her life--a real connection of spirit with the soil that so nurtures her soul.