7 Principles of Gardening

"My first principle is to learn gardening from the wilderness outside the garden gate. As I work to keep the links alive between the wild land and the cultivated row, I get my clearest gardening instruction from listening to the voice of the watershed that surrounds our garden. I know that January is the time to prune our Japanese Elephant Heart plum in the garden, but just when in January is always linked to noticing when the first white blossoms appear on the wild plum tree. I mark it on my calendar and sharpen my red pruning shears, because in two weeks the Elephant Heart plum will flower in turn. In honor of wildness inside and outside the garden gate, every spring I leave a random corner of our garden untended. I let it go into a neglected tangle. Throughout the growing season I pass by this fallow spit of wildness and it feeds my somewhat fierce soul." 

Buddhist teacher and organic gardening mentor, Wendy Johnson shares more in the following excerpt from her exquisite book, "Gardening at the Dragon's Gate."