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Dear Friends and Clients,

Last week my friend Merry asked, “Why don’t you ever write about your garden?” She knows how much energy I invest in the expansive garden surrounding our farmhouse in the Virginia Blue Ridge. In truth, from mid-April to early June I’m obsessive, spending many days at the home we call “Buckeye Farm” and waking up early, eager to get my hands in the dirt.

I’ve built gardens before, but this one is different. The scale is large, the mountains and river are beautiful, and the varied plantings attract amazing bird and animal life. Providing structure is a massive old stone retaining wall that helps us to feel rooted in the past.

After years of work, it’s become the kind of place that garden clubs visit and catalog companies rent for photo shoots. On a more fundamental level, I believe that our Buckeye Farm garden has wonderful energy, and I want to share it. Working in this garden helps me to feel centered, and watching its rhythms connects me with the rich natural world.

The creation of the garden has become entwined with the course of my career. It was the pull of the garden that gave me the strength to leave the corporate world and develop a work style that would allow me more time outdoors.

With the garden I thought big, abandoning the caution that shaped my years as a lawyer. I pursued a garden vision that a reasonable person would have declared beyond my reach. And along the way I became better at pursuing the kind of life I want, and growing more like the kind of person I respect.

Merry suggested that the garden is so significant in my life that I can’t express my own truths without touching upon it. So in this issue, instead of quoting the experts, I’ll share some of the lessons that I learned in building the Buckeye Farm garden.

But first let me mention that, as always, I’ll take a break during July 4th week and the next issue of Bev’s Tips will be on Tuesday, July 15.

Warm wishes,
Bev

Creating a Garden
Offers Lessons for
Creating a Career

June 17th, 2008 * Number 84

Developing a garden landscape is a complex process. If you’re focusing on a couple of acres, there’s plenty of room for many distinct areas, known to garden designers as “rooms.”

Our three long flower and shrub borders, each running parallel to and beyond the 100-foot stone wall, act as boundaries for some of our rooms, ranging from the sunny daylily banks to the shady woodland garden. The walls of a room are critical, whether designed to keep out critters, like the fence around the vegetable garden, or simply intended to provide a sense of enclosure, like the shrubs near our old front porch.

Most of all, a garden needs paths, to encourage exploration, lead to spaces for viewing and lingering, and foster a sense that each room is connected to a whole. As with many gardens, our paths vary from somewhat formal brick-lined gravel walks, to meandering woodchip, grass or gravel walkways, to stepping stones set amidst low growing plants.

For 15 years I’ve been digging, shaping, making mistakes, calling in experts and working to bring to life my vision of what this garden could be. At the same time, I’ve maintained an active work life, first moving up the corporate ladder, then stepping away from the business and legal world to establish a different kind of practice.

Many lessons from the garden have underscored what I’ve learned about leadership and corporate success, as well as the creation of a deeply fulfilling life. Among them are these:

Have a big vision. When I started out, there was no way that we could afford -- or I could manage -- the kind of garden I had in mind. But the picture in my head was so clear that I just started digging my way toward it. While progress has come slowly in areas of my life where I’ve taken hesitant, cautious steps, the garden resources have just turned up as needed. My experience has taught me that there are many times when the best thing to do is just go for it.
Choose optimism. So many things can go wrong for gardeners, like bugs, blights and too much or too little rain. And when we make a mistake we may have to wait another year before we have a chance to try again. Pessimists may conclude that the only sensible option is to try another hobby. But if we choose optimism and push on against the odds, the rewards can be spectacular.
Use what you’ve got. When we don’t have the resources we think we need, it pays to think about alternative approaches. I began the garden with little money or time, so I couldn’t extend flowerbeds using techniques recommended in the books. What I did have was a great deal of space and lots of “organic material” in the form of weeds. So I built large compost piles in the places where I wanted new planting space, and all summer I’d throw on weeds and clippings. In the fall I added leaves. By spring the plant material had broken down into rich soil, making it easy to plant with seeds gathered the year before.
Get expert advice. When I started the garden I wanted to do it all myself – this was to be my chance to really test my skill and create something special. But there were so many things that I didn’t know much about, like pruning shrubs, laying paths and managing irrigation. I found that the fun really began, and my vision came closer to realization, when I could bring in experts to advise and help on various projects. As with so many things, gardening alone is wonderful, but you can achieve so much more when you find ways to turn it into a team activity.
Meditate. I found that gardening intensely all weekend helped me to be more insightful and incisive during the week. At first I didn’t realize that the all-consuming, repetitive gardening motions, combined with the peaceful outdoor setting, became a form of meditation. But I did know that gardening made me feel better and more effective at my day job. I explored meditation, yoga and other centering techniques so I could cultivate that gardening feeling of peace, even when I was on the road. Now, as a coach, I have many opportunities to observe how practicing one of the many forms of meditation can help clients to be happier and more productive.

Want More Insights Related to Your Work Life? In addition to providing executive coaching, Bev is available to speak to your group about a broad range of issues related to productivity and leadership. For reviews of helpful books and an extensive archive of Bev’s newsletters, go to Bev’s Website. Visit her website at www.ClearWaysConsulting.com or email to Bev directly. Bev is associated with Executive Coaching & Consulting Associates.

Bev’s Tips for a Better Work Life is published on the first and third Tuesday of each month by Beverly E. Jones of ClearWays Consulting, LLC. Bev is a lawyer and former executive who now coaches accomplished executives and other professionals to bring new direction, energy and enjoyment to their work lives.

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