What the garden teaches us:
Spring has a way of making everything feel alive again. Trees regain their color, flowers begin to bloom, people start walking outside, windows begin to roll down, and suddenly the world feels softer after months of brutal Minnesota cold. Around this time of year, it’s easy to notice the growth happening outside of us. What’s harder to notice is the growth happening within us.
Gardens are often seen as peaceful places, but growth isn’t always that way. The Lyndale Park Rose Garden is a place I find myself often. Whether it’s roaming through the columns of roses or resting on a patch of grass, people-watching, I consistently return to the same thought pattern: before flowers bloom, they spend weeks hidden underground. Roots stretch quietly where no one can see them. Growth begins long before it’s noticed. Students are similar in that way.
Throughout the school year, we spend so much time dwelling on visible achievements: grades, awards, sports wins, college decisions, leadership positions.
A lot of growth is quieter than that. Sometimes growth is learning how to manage stress better or becoming more confident. Sometimes it’s making it through a difficult year.
Gardens also teach us that not everyone grows at the same pace. Some flowers bloom in early spring, whereas others take until summer. Yet no one looks at a tulip and asks why it’s not a sunflower. Growth has never meant to look identical for everyone.
Comparison is inevitable in high school. It’s easy to believe you are falling behind because someone else seems more successful, more confident, more put together, or more certain about their future. If anything, the garden teaches us that growth is personal. Some people bloom loudly and early; others grow quietly, needing more time, more rain, and more sunlight. Their journey to blooming doesn’t make their growth any less meaningful. If anything, it makes it more gentle, complex, and admirable.
Gardens can also survive storms. Heavy rain, strong winds, and harsh weather do not prevent growth; sometimes, they strengthen it. The difficult moments we experience —stress, grief, failure—often shape us in ways we have yet to understand.
Perhaps the most important lesson gardens teach us is that growth never truly ends. New cycles begin, more rain will fall, and the sun will always come again. There will always be new seasons of becoming, rebuilding, and beginning again.
As the school year comes to a close, maybe we should give ourselves the same patience we give nature. After all, flowers don’t bloom overnight. And neither do people.
