Report From An Opinionated Gardener – January 28
This coming week I’m speaking about consultation/garden coaching services at New England Grows, a trade show in Boston. As I practice this talk one point that I repeatedly come back to is that people move toward pleasure and away from pain.
As a garden speaker/writer/radio host, this is important to keep in mind. If I think that gardening is important (I do) and if I think that it’s good for people (ditto) then my ultimate goal will be to help people be successful in their landscape. If they are effective and even have a bit of fun with their plants, they’ll want to return to the garden again and again.
Not to say that we can guarantee that every plant will live and there will be no pests and problems. This is real life, after all, not a fairytale. Still, if we approach our interactions with others from the knowledge that they will move toward pleasure and away from pain, aren’t we already moving in the right direction?
Sometimes plants die. I've found, however, that my customers and consultation clients are more accepting of this if I first acknowledge that is just a fact of life, and secondly help them to problem solve about why this might have happened.
