Gardening is a reflection of a person so let your personality and creativity shine in your yard and gardens. When you are starting to lay out a garden take in color, texture and smell. Fragrant flowers, particularly night blooming flowers add such depth and pleasure to the yard. Many people plant Moonlight Flower theme Gardens.

Use your favorite color or colors. This can be done with flowers or garden art. You can stick to a color theme or go wild and use all colors or clump them in color themes around the yard.

Need different ideas for your garden? Add candles and night lights, particularly the vintage style. You can easily make these with unique glass jars or tin cans. Add scented candles for aroma therapy and you have a magical relaxing area. By changing locations and lanterns you can change the look of your garden anytime. Try colored glass for your lanterns and you will have a festive look.

Candle lanterns are a favorite of mine because they have a natural look. I think they remind me of campfires and fireflies.

Aroma will broaden the garden experience. Add perfumed plants around the garden so you can have a variety of fragrances. Plant them near windows and doorways and close to benches so they can be enjoyed and touched. Many of these plants will release their fragrance when you pass by them or with a gentle wind. Roses, citrus trees, lilacs jasmines, honeysuckle, sweet olives, sweet peas, and night blooming flowers are great for this.

Herbs also add fragrance and if you plant them on a pathway where you walk you have a wonderful aroma all the time. My favorites are the thymes and mints. Rosemary is also tucked in may gardens in various places.

And don’t forget Lavender! Lavender has been a favorite aromatic plant for centuries. It also has crafting and herbal uses. Lavender is known for reducing stress and many use it for headaches. I just think it’s a wonderful plant! Fragrant and it has texture.

One of my favorite texture plants is the silver mound. It is so soft to the touch, grows well and has a great silver-blue gray look that adds accent to the garden and emphasizes other colors in the yard.

Garden accessories

Wind chimes are also a favorite of mine and they hang all over. One plus for wind chimes many do not think of is that they will deter some animals. I have several in my vegetable gardens to keep the deer and groundhogs away.

Bird feeders and birdbaths will add color and art to your yard and welcome birds. Birds add so much to a yard with their antics, beautiful song and keeping insects under control.

Night lights such as candles, lanterns and spot lights just give an air of mystery to gardens at night. For bigger parties I add torches!

Rustic garden art will add to flower and vegetable groupings. I like old barrels, windows, stumps, driftwood or what ever else you can salvage. Parts of old fencing also make great places for shade and vines to climb.

Mixing color and texture

Last but not least in my book is the use of flowers and vegetables together. There is something about the texture of mixing the two that stand out and the look will change all season long as the vegetables mature.

Two of my all time favorite vegetables to mix in anywhere are swiss chard in white and rainbow colors and any greens. Lettuces and lettuce mixes have such color and texture and just emphasis the other plants around them.

Gardening is like a blank canvas. There is no limit to what you can try and each year it’s a new adventure and look.

There was an article written in the Eureka Reporter in Eureka, Calif., about Marylee Bytheriver  who lives in Eureka. It was publish November 3o, 2007.

Its all about Ms. Bytheriver and her garden and how she enjoys working the property. When she and her husband first purchased the property there was no garden and not much of a yard, but Marylee started working the soil and by using composting techniques improved the property and set about growing plants. She also installed a drip watering method to make the garden work minimal.

She has enjoyed the growth of the garden and the neighbors reaction to her plants.  As it states in the writeup she considers her garden therapy and her gift to the community. It gives her great joy to see people smile as they take in the color and beauty of the garden. They travel quite a distance to view her gardens.

She feel a lot like me when it comes to gardening being a therapy. Sunshine, fresh air, exercise and enjoying the yard all make gardening fun. Yes, it’s work but even the work can be minimized with proper planning. The minute gardening stops being fun is when you step back and see how to simplify it.

Plus you can control time in the garden by how much you plant. Try planting a window sill garden, terrarium or container gardening if time is limited.

Bytheriver also uses found items as garden art. She has lined some of her gardens with wine bottle collected from a recycling center and has metal sculptures and newel posts in her yard. She even uses broken plates to line one of her garden areas. I have done this also and like the look.

Another friend of mine used plates and embedded them into a wall she was making. It’s a cross between mosaic and collage.  It took her about three years to finish the project.

Bytheriver uses many inventive garden techniques and plays with color schemes in the garden. She also tries to have something growing all year long in the garden.

If you would like to check out the entire rest article and catch more of her garden tips follow this link:

http://www.eurekareporter.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?ArticleID=31147

The future 

As with all die hard gardeners they have something new in the garden each year and love to share there ideas and tips with gardeners.  Bythervievers gardens continue to change abd grow and as long as people continue to enjoy the plants I’m sure there will be a garden.

Everyone has a path in life. We take twists and turns along our journey often not knowing what lies around the next bend but once we start there is only one way to go, forward.
photo credit: xmacex

A labyrinth is an ancient symbol dating back over 3000 years. It relates to wholeness and combines the image of a circle and a spiral into what looks like a wandering path. This path represents a journey to our center, who we are, and will return us back into the world in which we live.

Labyrinths are used worldwide. They can be found in parks, medical centers, retreat centers, prisons, back yards, sacred sites and churches. One of the more famous labyrinths is the Chartres labyrinth, which is inlaid at the cathedral in Chartres, France. It is made out of paving stones and dates back to around 1200.

The Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua New York has a Labyrinth, which was designed by Lisa Moriarty and is the Circle of Peace design. It is located under trees at the north end of Turner Community Center on Rt. 394 making it easily accessible and available to the community and public. The labyrinth can be used year long, unless covered and hidden with snow in the winter.

The current labyrinth was constructed in 2005 through the combined efforts of several Chautauqua labyrinth supporters. Special Studies classes, Chautauquans and the general public use it. It is used as a way to relax, to renew one’s spirit, as a walking path or a place to pray.

Debra Dinnocenzo is the Labyrinth Coordinator and offers an orientation to the labyrinth at 7 p.m. every Tuesday during the season. She feels that it is important that people realize a labyrinth is not a maze. There are no dead ends or tricks to it. It is one path that leads to a center. You use the same path to return, making it unicursal; the path in is also the path out. It is a “walking meditation” that affects each person differently.

Dinnocenzo presents a history of labyrinths at the orientation. She explains the three stages to the walk: “releasing” on the way in, “receiving” in the center and “returning” or taking back out what you received from the experience. “There is no wrong way to use the labyrinth, Dinnocenzo said.

After the talk, questions can be asked and people will then walk the labyrinth.

Dinnocenzo said participating in the labyrinth in a group is a very different experience. You know what you are feeling but you also see other people in various stages of the walk. You are all walking towards one point but because of the way the path is laid out you often look like you are headed in opposite directions. This is much like life, we walk the same paths but each person’s experiences are totally unique.

Dinnocenzo helped chose the location for the labyrinth by Turner Community Center when it was moved from Miller Park. They wanted it under the trees for shade but the location of the trees didn’t seem to quite work. They started working on finding the center of the labyrinth and as they worked out from the center, a tree fell exactly where they felt the alter should be. The alter is a term used for the open area just inside the entrance.

The entrance and alter were emphasized by the tree. It became a unique part of the Chautauqua labyrinth.

Dinnocenzo became interested in labyrinths when she took a special studies class 6 years ago from Harriette Royer called Sacred Circles. She has since walked Labyrinths all over the United States.
photo credit: Zesmerelda

For additional information on Labyrinths, visit on the Web:

www.labyrinthonline.com www.lessons4living.com www.labyrinthsociety.org

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