The Well Gardened Mind

offenders who continued relentlessly on a criminal path characteristically had what he called a ‘condemnation’ script of their lives. By contrast, those who changed their lives managed to adopt a new more ‘generative’ narrative in which past mistakes could be integrated into a more hopeful story.

This pattern of growing special plants long before staples is particularly well documented in Mexico. Here the chilipepper, the avocado, the bean, several species of squash and a number of fruit trees, such as cosahuico and chupandilla, were domesticated several thousand years before such staples as maize, millet and amaranth.

All gardens exist on two levels: the real garden on the one hand, and the imagined or remembered one on the other. This grove has an existence all of its own in my imagination and I can turn to it at any time of year.

The differentiation between a retreat on the one hand and a refuge on the other is important because they have different psychological implications. A retreat is a defensive move, generally in a backwards direction. A refuge is a stopping point, a place of respite from which we can emerge feeling strengthened and able to re-engage with life.

There is a devaluing of the slower rhythms of natural time, not only of plants but of our bodies and minds. These rhythms do not fit with the ‘quick fix’ mentality that has come to dominate so much of modern life.

Both daydreaming and playing are increasingly recognised to contribute to psychological health and these benefits do not stop with the end of childhood.

he described gardening as an activity ‘that brings the individual close to the soil and close to Mother Nature, close to beauty, close to the inscrutable mystery of growth and development’. He recognised that an important kind of intimacy can be experienced in the garden and it is an intimacy that is not about other people.

At the start of the nineteenth century only 3 per cent of people on the planet were living in urban areas; now more than 50 per cent do. This figure is projected to rise to 70 per cent within the next thirty years and has already been exceeded in the US where 80 per cent of the population are living in cities.

At some point in the course of evolution, the human mind became receptive to nature’s patterns and people started imitating them. The forest-dwellers would have observed how the burnt ground that followed lightning strikes gave rise to a tender flush of new vegetation. Nature created the first ‘gardens’ and, in doing so, provided the model. As fore