It’s been a rough few months in the 505. We’re having a challenging gardening season, to say the least. Dry. Hot. Intense. The unraveling of our climate has been on full display.
Whether you’re choosing more adaptive plants and creating habitat or beginning your gardening journey, no doubt you’ve lost plants this summer — or worried about it. I’ve been calling it the Summer of Feeling Like a Not So Great Gardener.
Just to put this in perspective, I’ve been gardening for over 30 years and I’ve struggled and learned a lot this summer. Learning to steward land in a way that’s in alignment with our changing climate is not easy. But it’s crucial.
In the midst of these challenges, you might be experiencing more emotions than you’re used to — anxiety, for example? Frustration, perhaps. Confusion about where to start. Sadness at all the loss and devastation. Feeling alone. Lack of confidence. Overwhelm. Anger. Dread.
So, what’s a gardener to do? It’s easy to think our emotions are totally separate from the scorching heat. We’re used to compartmentalizing — experiencing emotions and deep spiritual questions in one part of our life and tackling complex external issues, like choosing climate-ready trees to plant, in another part of our life. No matter how well we’re dealing with these emotions, they’re bound to creep into our external gardening. What if, instead of shutting ourselves down in order to accomplish the daunting task of adapting our urban forest to the changes before us, we actually bring our emotional and spiritual selves into the garden? This is precisely the zone where deep and meaningful climate resilience awaits us — in the cultivation of our Home Gardens with our Inner Gardens. We grow an ability to weather storms, to adapt as things unravel — in both our inner and outer landscapes.
For example, let’s look at overwhelm, which is so common these days and to which we gardeners are not immune. We might be asking, “Am I doing enough? Am I making the right changes and adaptations? Which do I do first — spread mulch or create ways to passively harvest the rain?” We might be worrying about how much water we’re using or that we’re not using enough. There are so many decisions to make, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.
Here’s what I recommend for dealing with overwhelm:
Notice: Take a deep breath and recognize, “Ahh, this is overwhelm. That’s all it is. It’s happening in my inner garden, inside my heart.” That’s the first step. Pause. Notice it. Take a breath with it. The inner garden is what is happening in our consciousness — which primarily lives at the level of our heart (not our brain). There’s a lot of fertile ground to work with in there.
Just be: Next, take 15 minutes and just go outside and sit in the garden. Find a place to just be. Don’t plan or make any lists, just sit and breathe. Don’t skip this step, it’s the most important one. Listen to the sounds, feel the soil, notice the smells. What insights come through?
Create: Then, find a special place in the garden and create something to help remind you of what insights came up. It can be very simple, just something that speaks to you — a gathering of stones, an arrangement of leaves, a circle of flower petals. When we take the time to tend what’s growing within our inner garden, we have more inner space to effectively handle what’s happening in our outer garden. This is resilience.
Reconnect: The next time you’re doing a garden task — like weeding — briefly pause and reconnect with your inner garden in your heart. Set a simple intention to help shift the pattern of overwhelm, such as “This garden belongs to all who live here, human and non-human. May my activities today bring benefit to all the beings here.” And then carry on weeding, but with this intention.
An intention like this can shift our state of mind away from overwhelm and into a place of gratitude and caring. From this place, we’ll make better gardening decisions. We might notice that the birds need more water and fill an old Frisbee with water and put a rock in it. We might start giving ourselves the space to be imperfect in our gardening. We might begin to see ourselves more as a caretaker of the space and less as the “owner” — ”our” garden becomes “the” garden.
The inner garden and the home garden have a profound and interdependent relationship. As we tend both of them together, we cultivate a deeper resilience in both gardens. This adaptation and flexibility then ripple from our own hearts out into the world, so in need of our tending and care.
Learn more about specific types of gardening here:
Author: Corva Rose is a certified arborist and owner of Tree School in Albuquerque. Have a question about the article? AskAnExpert@abcwua.org
Water-Wise Vegetable Gardening
With our hot summers and low precipitation, growing vegetables in NM can be challenging. This talk will provide strategies and recommendations for growers to cultivate a thriving vegetable harvest in the region. Discussion will include irrigation and infrastructure suggestions, as well as selection of vegetable varieties that are well-adapted to the area.
Instructor:Stephanie Walker, PhD. Professor and Vegetable Specialist, New Mexico State University, Extension Plant Sciences Department.
Maintaining Tree Health During Drought
Learn from Albuquerque’s leading tree expert how to identify drought stress in trees, understand their responses to drought, and implement strategies to keep them alive and thriving in hot, dry weather.
Instructor:Joran Viers, Board Certified Master Arborist and Municipal Specialist, International Society of Arboriculture (ISA). Senior Arborist, Legacy Tree Company, Albuquerque. Former City Forester, City of Albuquerque
Creating a Drought-Tolerant Refuge for Yourself and Wildlife
Instructor:Laurel Ladwig, M.S. She is the ABQ Backyard Refuge Program Director for the Friends of Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge, a part-time faculty member in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, and Associate Director of the R.H. Mallory Center for Community Geography at the University of New Mexico and is enthusiastic about all opportunities to encourage people to develop a relationship with our wild neighbors.
Designing Resilient Landscapes: Plant Adaptations, Communities, and Selection for Arid Environments
Instructor:Maria Thomas is the Curator of Plants at the ABQ BioPark where she manages the botanical exhibits, plant collections, horticultural staff, and related programs for the 150-acre public park and garden. Additionally, Maria is an Adjunct Professor at the University of New Mexico in the Landscape Architecture department.
Climate-Ready Trees- Planting for a Warmer and (Hopefully) Shadier Future
Instructor:Marisa Y. Thompson, PhD Extension Urban Horticulture Specialist. New Mexico State University Department of Extension Plant Sciences, Los Lunas Agricultural Science Center, Think Trees NM, President of the Board (2023-current).
Plant Adaptations to Heat & Drought
Noticing the Ways Plants Thrive in our Yards and Natural Areas Learn how to Recognize Drought-Adapted Traits in Everyday Plants all Around Us.
Instructor:Marisa Y. Thompson, PhD Extension Urban Horticulture Specialist. New Mexico State University Department of Extension Plant Sciences, Los Lunas Agricultural Science Center, Think Trees NM, President of the Board (2023-current).
Hose Bib Tree Irrigation System for Your Trees: Simple Systems for Thriving Trees!
Instructor:Richard Perce has twenty years’ experience working with trees and irrigation here in New Mexico. He is a former certified arborist and currently holds the Irrigation Association’s Landscape Irrigation Auditor certification and is a certified QWEL irrigation instructor. He worked as a landscape contractor for more than a decade and is the Water Authority’s former Irrigation Efficiency Specialist. He also has a Masters of Community and Regional Planning from UNM and currently works at Anthropopulus Design + Planning.
Passive Rainwater Harvesting
This workshop introduces participants to the principles and practices of passive rainwater harvesting. Attendees will learn how to capture, slow, spread, and infiltrate rainwater into the landscape using simple, low-cost methods such as swales, berms, and basins. The workshop emphasizes working with the natural flow of water to reduce runoff, prevent erosion, and support healthy soil and plant life. By implementing passive rainwater harvesting, participants can conserve water, and create more resilient, self-sustaining landscapes.
Instructors:Anthony Luketich, Natural Resource Scientist, Anthony Luketich is a Natural Resources Scientist for Bernalillo County where he is focused on water conservation and water-wise landscape practices. He received a degree in Watershed Management and Ecohydrology from the University of Arizona where he studied the relationship between trees and water. Anthony has worked across the Southwest US as a research scientist as well as a water harvesting field technician where he became a certified water harvesting practitioner.
Bobby Mullin, Natural Resource Scientist, Bernalillo County Stormwater Quality Program Bobby Mullin is a Natural Resource Scientist for Bernalillo County in the Stormwater Quality Program. He focuses on improving stormwater quality in the Middle Rio Grande Watershed and promoting sustainable and resilient landscapes using Green Stormwater Infrastructure and rainwater harvesting. Bobby received his Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science from Bucknell University in 2011. Before joining Bernalillo County, he had worked as an environmental consultant remediating contaminated soil and groundwater and as a Research Scientist studying the impacts of climate change, drought and plant mortality in New Mexico ecosystems.
Xeriscape: The Desert Friendly Yard
Join us for learning all of the tips, and benefits of our Xeriscape program!
3 Steps to Landscape Success
Service, Settings, and Selection are the keys to landscape success!
