The Apple Garden

Our house is on a corner lot where two streets meet. At this corner of our property, live two apple trees. They were planted in a set of three by the previous owners but one of them had died and was still standing there when we moved in. The dead tree was removed and the area mowed cleanly.

Mowing around the remaining two trees was a problem for my husband so I decided to create a small garden area under them. My first thought was to decide what I wanted to create. I decided on a football design with the area between them being wide and ready for some planting.

It was Spring and time to begin the digging. The temperature was in the 40s so I bundled up and headed out. First I dug around the area to do a lay out. Then I started to take the grass off the inner part of my design. These clods were tossed onto the yard and I spent most of the morning clearing the designated area. The design was perfect.

Then to get the area ready for plants, I had purchased a creeping Juniper to keep the corner low and visible for traffic in all directions.

First I dug up the ground and then dump a couple bags of peat and composted manure on the area. Now the best part, I got to mix all of this in with my hands. The soil was just right, it was like mixing biscuit dough. As I was mixing, I would throw the stones that I found out onto the lawn with the grass clods. Soon it was all mixed in. I stood back to admire the work that had taken me a long time to do and to my surprise, I found that there were energy waves rising from this little garden. They look like heat waves coming off black top roads in July and it wasn't that warm out.

I felt that I had to do something so I ran into the garage to get a slab of cement and brought it out to the little garden. After placing the cement between the two apple trees in this newly mixed dirt, I went around the whole garden picking up the little rocks and stones that I had thrown onto the surrounding grass. These stones were placed on this cement in a pile.
When I stood back this time, the energy had been grounded and the garden didn't look like it is about to float off into space. I was pleased with all of it and it was time to plant the Juniper.

The little garden looks wonderful and has done its job of keeping the lawnmower away from the base of the apple trees and the branches from knocking my husband off the little tractor.

Before I started this project, I had read a book called BEHAVING AS IS THE GOD IN ALL LIFE MATTERED, by Machaelle Small Wright. In this book she talks about communicating with the spirit guides of plants. I wrote to her and told her about this experience of mine and she wrote back telling me that she was pleased that I responded to the spirit guides nudging me to ground the garden. She explained that most people just read about this stuff but never do anything with it. It seems that these thoughts and feelings that we get are not always ours but help from other areas or beings.

Over the years this little garden has been enlarged bit by bit to encompass the trees as they grow. The garden also has a lot of wild violets living there along with some chickweed that I love to harvest. There is a lot of love and energy in that little garden and it tends to draw deer to it from the woods that are about half a mile from our house. The deer come in the spring for the violets. They love violet leaves. (I Have been told that violet leaves are very anti-cancerous, I wonder if the deer know this?)

The Chickweed, I like to harvest for all of its wonderful drawing properties. A few years ago some Columbine decided to live there and because I like their flowers, I leave them be. I do plant flowers on the street side of the garden, I like Calendula because I can harvest the flowers and the plant still puts out more. They aren't fussy plants and don't mind being neglected from time to time.

The Apple Garden gets visited by the deer in the fall too. They like the apples and we allow them to be eaten.

From time to time, I climb into the apple trees to trim the sucker out. What is the saying about apple trees? A bird should be able to fly through the center of the trees. This allows the sun and air to get into the tree and keep the trees healthy. I used to have a bird house in one of the trees but if finally fell apart. I really like bird houses and have only 3 on the premises at this time, will have to look into that. I do have a bee house in the apple trees at present so I probably won't put a bird house back there.

We have many small gardens in our yard so they all have their own names. The Apple Garden was an obvious name for this one.

Gardening is such a pleasure, one of the joys of life.