Dear Human Friends,

I have spent the last month intensely involved with my plant friends. Ample rain and the odd spell of sun and heat have stimulated vigorous plant activity.

As I observe the new growth of this spring, I am gratified and challenged in my role as plant care provider. Amazed by plant responses to my previous years' involvement, I am observing the individual plant species interpretation of my gardener's chant: "grow and be happy".

Form many plants, growing and being happy involves abundant expansion and propagation, recreating many times their original number, either by sprouting from their seeds cast on the ground or walking their roots underground into new territory.

So now, how do I engage with this plant population explosion?

Obviously, in places where space is not a consideration the new plant growth is welcome. It becomes a different sort of concern when it infringes on the space of another plant species. How is it that some plants can  hold their own space, while others are overwhelmed by enthusiastic neighbours "growing and being happy"?

In one of the gardens I am hired to work in, there is an imported grass that grows ten feet high and makes beautiful decorative plumes. To support this height, its roots go deep into the ground. Growing and being happy, these roots are walking about under other plants, periodically sending their grass shoots up. seemingly oblivious to the needs of the plants above them. In fact, I cannot remove these roots from under the twenty foot high spruces. The grass roots are deeper than the tree roots. Are the spruces going to be able to hold their own space against these grasses or will the grasses slowly push the trees up and out of their soil? As the caretaker of this situation, what do I do?

I wonder where these grasses grow naturally in the wild on this planet? No doubt there are no trees among them or some tree species that can inhibit their growth or co-exist with them. So, I am talking to these grasses, as I clip the shoots coming up under the trees, explaining to them, that here, in this new environment in a Canadian garden, there is a different pecking order and grasses are not supposed to grow under the trees. So my mantra expands to "grow and be happy and respect the right of all your plant neighours to do the same".

Considering my engagement with the plants, it is not surprising to me, that my personal spirit guidance is presented to me in the vocabulary I use to describe what is happening in the plant worlds.

Over the past few months, when I have asked for perspective about my life's challenges, my spirit guides have explained that I am a transplant and thus my purpose is to grow roots and hold my own space in this new place hat I have been transplanted to. Just as plants send micro-organisms out into the soil, to attract what they need to grow and be happy, so I send my thoughts and intentions out into the human community which then responds by engaging with me, hopefully to feed my needs and eventually allow me to thrive in my new environment, duly respecting the right of all my neighbours and relations to do the same.

Rita