Sommer Duenow

I’ve reached a point with my garden where all I feel is overwhelmed – and a little sad. This isn’t what gardening used to be for me.

Gardening has always been part of my life. It feeds my soul, sustains my body, and roots me in the rhythms of nature. But somewhere along the way, the joy began to slip. What once felt light and grounding, started to feel heavy – like something I had to carry, instead of something that carried me.

It’s not that I didn’t try.

For eight years, I’ve coaxed this space, season after season, hoping to shape it into the abundant, lush garden I saw in my mind. But every Spring, the weeds came back stronger, more stubborn and the layout fought me, never quite aligning with the vision I held. No matter how hard I tried to meet it where it was, the garden kept pushing back.

Last season made it painfully clear: something had to change.

When we renovated our home, we were intentional about aging in place. Every choice – every material, every design – was made with ease and longevity in mind. But somehow, I forgot to bring that same care outside, into the garden.

If we could shape our home to fit our lives, surely we can do the same with the land it rests on.

Even through the hard seasons, the garden has taught me how precious my energy is, and how much I want to spend it on what restores me, not what wears me down. I want this space to feel like a gift again, not a weight.

And maybe it’s not just the garden that’s shifting.

I feel something shifting in me, too; a slow turning toward a life that feels more rooted in enough, and less driven by more. I crave slower sunny mornings, deeper understanding, and more grace. Or maybe what’s really happening is that the garden is finally catching up to the kind of life I’m trying to grow.

So this year, I’m choosing something different.

I’m choosing destruction.

Necessary destruction.

I’m clearing out what no longer serves – the weeds, the paths, the structures that don’t belong. I’m letting go of the version of this garden that only ever lived in my head – the one shaped by perfectionism, comparison, or the pressure to do it all. 

It feels strange to enter a season of growth by tearing down instead of building up, but I see now that breaking down is what makes space for something truer to take root.

And I can already see the new garden beginning to form in my mind…

Elevated raised beds with drip irrigation. Pebble paths that crunch softly underfoot. Cold boxes. Trellises climbing toward the sky. A potting bench for quiet tinkering. Rain barrels, and a rain chain or two, to honor the cycle of water and bird feeders to invite in life.

I see a place where heirloom flowers unfold freely, and herbs and vegetables grow side by side. Lilies-of-the-valley whisper beneath taller stems while blueberries, strawberries, red currants – and maybe even dwarf cherries – ripen under the warm sun.

I see a garden built on simplicity, self-reliance, patience, and veneration. It feels like everything I’ve spent years learning is finally coming together.

Eventually, I dream of a greenhouse. A cedar pergola with climbing roses framing the garage doors. Solar panels. String lights. And the return of my prayer flags; I haven’t had those up since we moved here in 2015.

All of this – the beds, the paths, the trellises and birdsong – is about creating a space that makes me want to breathe deeply, out there. To feel peace instead of pressure. I want a garden not just for growing food, but for growing patience, wisdom, and compassion.

It won’t all come together, this season – and that’s okay. Some parts will take time. But the vision is clearer now, and that clarity feels like progress.

It would feel wrong to gloss over how grateful I am for the version of me who knelt in this soil, years ago – full of hope, and not yet knowing how hard it would be. She planted more than seeds, back then; she planted persistence.

She showed up, season after season, even when things didn’t go as planned. She believed in something better… And that belief carried me here.

This is my season of necessary destruction.

The soil is ready. And so am I.