Is Your Garden Spilling Your Secrets?

“When you see a garden, you see a culture,” Vera Gordon, who visits the world’s horticultural wonders, explains in a Travel & Leisure piece. “Through the formality or informality (of the landscaping), or the plants a country has chosen to import and show off, you see how it wants to be seen.”

What does your plot of land say about you? Do you plant only your favorite flowers? Are they untamed and wild, or well-groomed and orderly? If a stranger were to visit your garden, would they learn more about the gardener?

How does your garden grow? Have you unknowingly planted your birth month’s flower?  June babies are represented by the rose, which, according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, has as many meanings as there are colors: the red rose says “I love you,” a white rose signifies innocence, while the yellow rose denotes jealousy. (Reading this, I’m even more confused by the jumble of rose colors from that boyfriend, years ago.)

July boasts two flowers, the larkspur and the water lily. Depending on the color of the larkspur, you might be growing a happy nature (white) or fickleness (pink). The water lily packs quite the punch, standing for purity and majesty.

What is your birth month flower? Roses are notoriously difficult, but with the right choice, you can change up the mood of your garden with their meaningful colors. Take a look at Sunset’s six disease-resistant roses (I’m partial to the Julia Child variety, but perhaps that’s because it makes me think of cooking and butter).  Back to flowers! If you’re a July baby and want to plant larkspur, wait a bit, as it is best planted from seed in spring or fall.

“It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.” ~ Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

(Photo courtesy TwitrCovers.com) Take a walk through National Geographic’s Top 10 Gardens, here.