Some people might see a dead garden as something to despair over, but for Joanna Gaines, it’s a lesson in patience.
“So you know I love the garden and I love to show you beautiful flowers,” she said in an Instagram video showing off her dead garden. “Especially when the garden is in full bloom, it’s quite glorious, but there’s also a season where it’s just tough. And we are in that season right now.”
While a dead garden is usually something people wait out until it’s spring again, Gaines explained that she sees it as an example of the importance of patience.
“This is the season that teaches me patience. Not everything’s gotta look good all the time, but there’s actually good things happening in the soil. Right now what we’re doing is we’ve cleared all the beds,” she shared.
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Gaines continued, “What I love about the garden is that it teaches us in every season that there are seasons of rest, there are seasons of failure, there are seasons of beautiful bloom and abundance.”
The caption of her video echoed that statement, with the former HGTV star writing, “I love how the garden teaches me something different each season. Even when it looks half dead, I have to trust there’s still good work happening beneath the soil. In time, all good things flourish again.”
In the Fall issue of Magnolia, the magazine she heads up alongside husband Chip Gaines, she reflected on what the autumn season means to her, and how it reminds her to slow down.
“Whenever people are gathered around my table — whether it is a planned or an unexpected moment — I’ll pull out the candlesticks with no end in mind,” Gaines wrote. “Instead of watching the clock, I watch the wax gather, then drip. I let it land where it’s meant to, and as for the evening, I let the same hold true.”
Gaines has been open about her decision to live intentionally and slow down to enjoy the little things.
“I think once you start realizing those moments of maybe burnout, you never really want to experience that again,” she shared on the JOY 101 podcast, recalling a break she and Chip took. “That three months was time for us to go, ‘We need a break. We need clarity. Why are we building this? What are we doing this for?’ And so that was three years ago.”
Gaines’ garden might not look beautiful right now, but as she explained, it’s just in a season of rest before it blooms again.
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