Yesterday we experienced a Christmas ice storm. After the worst of it ended, I stepped outside with my camera to capture the effects of it in my tiny corner garden. To my absolute delight, all of my plants and trees were covered in tiny ice crystals creating a beautiful kaleidoscope effect in the waning afternoon light. In this I see my very own, personal Christmas miracle – though I had assumed that my garden had given up its best for the year, it had one last surprise in store for me before we round the wheel and move on into 2022.
I should not sell this garden short – it has a spirit all of its own. When my partner and I decided to reclaim it after it had been left derelict for a number of years (and cut down the ground every season by unconscionable groundskeepers), we had no idea what we were about to get ourselves into. A number of hearty perennials had survived the years of misuse and with tender care, they made themselves known with great flourish. The Whorled Coreopsis, shown above covered in ice, is one such garden friend. Our first year was mostly spent in a mad fight against the invasive weeds so that we could give the surviving plants room to grow.
In that way, the dawning of the 2022 growing season felt like our first true experience as intrepid garden growers. We had decided to tackle the garden until partway through 2020 after a friend gave us fresh herbs from her garden which couldn’t survive in the shadow of the garden boxes we had been tending outside our backdoor. I wrote about the beginning splendor of watching the garden spring to life as our very first bulbs of snowdrops, crocus, and hyacinth appeared with the ground thaw. It was truly magical and I meant to record more, yet, the year got away from me. My garden exploration photos mostly ended up on Facebook and Instagram rather than here.
I suppose though it’s not every plant that needs its own post on my witch blog but more the talk about the magic of growing my garden itself. I knew that, since I would use so many of the botanicals grown in my garden in my craft, I should begin the season with a beautiful spell for growth and prosperity for all plants within. For this, I choose to use and enchant a beautiful gnome candle as my garden is home to many a tiny garden gnome.
The gnomes in our garden came to us unbidden but ready to do their tasks. My partner was helping a friend clear out some old junk piles on his new property and found them scattered amongst the rubble, begging to be brought home and loved once more. We were more than willing. We have five in total though not all of them wish to be photographed and shared. I knew to honor them and their help in protecting my tiny sacred space, my candle should also be a gnome. Once I had received this guy, I set him to charge out in the garden with the other gnomes for a week.
I chose the Spring Equinox for my spell as it seemed a fitting day to work on growth and abundance, not just for my garden but for all wild things. I choose to work with botanicals that I had grown or foraged myself: dahlia petals from the bulbs shared by my partner’s co-workers (one of our first additions to the garden), blue sage collected from the fields at my farm share, and purple deadnettle I had foraged and saved from a neighbor’s yard. Each was a plant that I had worked with extensively during 2020 and energy that I wanted to bring with me into my garden in 2021, and beyond. Because I used a beeswax candle and natural botanicals found in my area, I buried the remains in my garden when I was done.
The results were, in a world, spectacular. My black locust tree bloomed for the first time, my garden herbs produced an abundance that had us cooking with fresh botanicals far into the fall, and all of the beautiful flowers that we had planted for the bees and butterflies in 2020 came back and made a beautiful show and enchanted us (and the whole neighborhood) all throughout the season. Even the mysterious iris which hadn’t bloomed during the 2020 season came back to life and wowed us with its gorgeous yellow hues.
As the season progressed, we became THE place to visit if you were a native bee or butterfly which is pretty much my whole goal in life. I have never seen so many different types of bees in my whole life – I am deeply grateful for my coven mate Dora who donated some Rattlesnake Master and Sea Holly (local natives that the bees absolutely adore, apparently) to the garden cause. We even planted some wild lupins for the native blue karner butterfly (though that should actualize next year – always think about the future!).
Still, my not-so-secret goal since I was a very young child was to spend every summer gazing at and talking to the beautiful monarch butterflies that were so prevalent in my youth. The milkweed growing in my garden is a volunteer but one that we welcome readily. As a green witch who works, constantly, to localize her practice, feeding and caring for these endangered creatures is so very, very important to me. My milkweed bloomed and…nothing. I was so afraid. Finally though, as my zinnias grew and matured – they appeared!
Truly that made my whole year. I am so grateful for this year, this moment, and the quietude that inspired my partner and me to take up gardening. It has given me so many moments of peace and a type of centering that I had not realized was missing from my life. Oh yeah, and basil. Lots of basil.