growth

When starting any permaculture project, you must have a plan. If you want to start planting trees, you need to decide what the trees function will be, is it for shade, will it give you food, or do you want a wind barrier? If you are like me, you need all of these things, but you need to pick one and start there. You can easily search for the best variety for your specific function in your specific growing zone on the web, or you can call your local nursery. I purchased a great book on Amazon called Gaia’s Garden by Toby Hemenway, he has really done his work and this book has many guides and lists to finding the right tree to fit your needs.

One thing to remember though, is that when you decide on a specific type of tree, you want to make sure that it’s a tree that doesn’t grow too fast. There are many new varieties of trees that have been engineered to grow very fast in a short amount of time which leads to root systems that are not mature enough to handle the fast growth of the tree, this can lead to weak root systems that will not be able to support the tree in high winds.

storms of life

These rules can easily apply to life as well, we should not focus on growing too fast, we should focus on growing steadily so our roots will easily support our growth and we will not fall during the storms of life. It’s so easy to get caught up in the instant gratification of our society, but true and lasting growth or enlightenment, whichever you want to call it, takes patience and develops over time.

I will be the first to admit that I am not a very patient person, I like to have what I want now or in the next few months, it’s hard to wait and wait for what you want. But what I really need is to grow at a steady rate and not worry about growing as fast as I can. Also, we need to envision ourselves as already being what we want to be, so envision your garden in the end now, live as if it’s already there and manifest what you see in your mind, into reality.

Be happy for every small step in the right direction, and don’t get caught up in what you think is failure, true failure is when you sit and do nothing, not when you try something and it doesn’t work out, when things don’t work out, that is when you really learn. Be happy in what you do, every thing in life starts with a small step and is only built by setting one foot in front of the other, not by forcing yourself to run to the next level.

If you really want to have those fast growing trees, make sure to plant slower growing trees nearby, so when their root systems become well established, they will intertwine with the roots of the faster growing trees and they will help anchor their root systems better.