A Beautiful Garden Is Not Luck

Abundance did not simply arrive in my mother’s garden. She gives abundance to the garden, and it reflects forty years of care back to her.

Tauri Laane Originally published on Facebook on 9 May 2026 About 3 min read

My mother has a beautiful garden at my childhood home. In fact, she has several gardens, because many people no longer tend their plots and she loves the beauty of flowers, berries and all that. To an observer, it may look like luxury and abundance: she can walk out at any time and pick whatever she likes. Just last week, my mother picked 44 daffodils for me to take home. Most are still beautiful; I just sent her a video.

Right, but now let’s get philosophical, as I tend to do 🙂 Imagine some people looking at this gardener and thinking: oh, what a beautiful garden she has. She is so LUCKY. Beautiful flowers in abundance, delicious berries and strawberries — what abundance and luxury the world offers HER.

But actually... No. She has not simply been “lucky”, and the garden does not “offer” her abundance. She offers abundance to the garden. She tends it often every day, certainly every week, every spring, every summer. Not for four years in a row, but for forty. And if God is gracious, perhaps for a couple more decades.

Her garden does not simply “happen to be” beautiful. She CREATES that beauty. She plants. She weeds. She tends. She waters. The garden’s beauty is only a reflection of everything my mother puts into it.

And exactly the same is true of relationships — whether a couple’s relationship or a parent’s relationship with their child. It does not simply “happen to be” good. A relationship is only as good as the good things that have been planted in it, weeded, tended and watered. Not for a day, not for a week, not for a year, but year after year, without exception. Some relationships have been tended for a decade; others for decades.

My partner and I are slowly approaching our first decade together. So here is a small bow to my dear wife. Thank you for planting. Thank you for weeding. Thank you for tending our relationship, and thank you for watering it every day. And when you put down the watering can, it is my turn. She does some garden jobs better, and I do others better. We do not have to do everything equally, but both of us have to care. Teamwork.

If our next decade brought even half the joy this one has brought so far, I would already be very happy. With you, life is as beautiful as a flower and as sweet as a strawberry 🙂 Everything hallelujah!