"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."
