Your garden, regardless of the form it takes, is the visible symbol of your
commitment to making room for the spirit in everyday life.
—Peg Streep, Spiritual Gardening
I have always thought that a garden is the perfect metaphor for life. Nearly every part of the garden can reflect the various stages of our physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual lives. On a physical level, gardens are typically started by seed (or bulb), and the seed germinates and grows. As time goes on, the seed becomes a plant, the plant produces and reproduces, and eventually it dies or goes into a reduced state for winter. However, I find that gardens really reverberate with humans when we look at them on an emotional and intellectual level.
Emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually, we grow from seed. We are on a quest to grow, to thrive, and we seek the sun. We chase what sustains us, and sometimes we have some bumps along the way. With neglect, it is all too easy for our gardens to become overgrown with weeds. These weeds can look like negative habits, toxic surroundings, self-hate, or doubt. Weeds, when left unchecked, can overtake a once thriving and beautiful garden.
The weeds of negativity are not easy to tame! There is a very real and prevalent spiritually bypassing dialogue in the witchcraft community that says there is no room for negativity. We need to be love and light 24/7. However, those of us who are grounded know this is neither possible nor healthy. A healthy mind stays rooted in what is real and processes one's thoughts and feelings without the lens of guilt that “love and light” often brings with it. Weeding the garden of our soul is time-consuming, hard, and absolutely worth the effort.
Gardening to the witch should not be purely a physical experience but a soul-deep interaction. It is where we give ourselves freely to the earth, and the earth gives itself, its bounty, and its energy back to us. In this way, the relationship between the gardener and their garden is much more spiritually tuned. Including our garden in our daily spiritual practice takes it out of the realm of chores and puts it into the realm of enlightenment.
Before you begin working on planning and planting, you will need to take a good look at what your overall goals are for your garden. Well-tended gardens become a sacred space, a place where one can retreat from the noise and pressure of technology and daily life. When you think about your garden, what images come to mind? Do you see tons of bright flowers? Vegetables and fruits? Or lots of lettuces and herbs?
If you don't have a green thumb or the ideal gardening space, don't worry. There are going to be times when for a variety of reasons you can't have a traditional garden, or perhaps you live in an apartment and only have access to a patio. I have been gardening for more than ten years and have found some techniques that really work for all types of gardening. And no matter the size of the space, someone who is dedicated to growing can truly flourish no matter the situation if they put their mind to it.
Regardless of size, space, or climate, every witch has the ability to make their own little sanctuary. Whether you have a windowsill, a patio, a backyard, or acres, you are able to make any space your own. When planning for a spiritual garden, there are some important factors that will help you build and grow your space in a conscious and sustainable manner.
When you're first setting out a plan, grab a notebook to write down notes for current and future use. To begin, where do you think you could grow your garden? Physically go to that space and see how you feel in it. While you are there, take a look at where the sun is in relation to the time and where you would want to put your plants.
The sun has a large role in the overall success of a witch's garden. Too much or too little sunlight could stunt the growth of an otherwise healthy plant. Taking the morning, noon, and afternoon sun into consideration, as well as where the shade hits for microclimates, will allow for a better planned witch's garden. Are there any existing plants where you want to grow your garden? Would you want to incorporate these plants or remove or relocate them?
Most importantly, consider which element your spirit connects to the most. With which element do you feel most confident and comfortable? This is important because it can help determine what kind of garden you build and how you build it in order to invoke certain elements. For example, I am drawn to fire, so I plant a lot of red, orange, and yellow flowers to invoke warmth and passion.
Next, decide what type of garden to build and grow for your life and spirit. There are many options, such as a tranquility garden if you feel as though you are often overstimulated. There are healing gardens, where you can grow herbs for the physical and spiritual body. Or perhaps a meditation garden, were you could go at any time of the day and just sit. Additionally, you can have a god or goddess garden that connects to the spirits of the land, your ancestors, your guides, and your gods. There are also aromatherapy gardens, which have different plants for the purposes of creating incense and resins. This type of garden has proved especially useful to me personally, as I connect to it in its practical uses for spiritual and mental health purposes.
It's important to decide early on whether you're going to plant in the ground or in containers. Each method has its benefits and complications, but at the end of the day a successful garden comes down to working with what you've got versus against it. Let's start with container gardening, because it's the easiest and most accessible way to garden for the modern witch. You can have a successful container garden without purchasing expensive supplies or relying on good weather and ground conditions.
There are tons of containers that you can turn into pots—but it's important to make sure that whatever you choose has proper drainage. Closed-bottom pots are known to cause many issues, such as poor drainage and root rot. The leading cause of root rot with indoor plants has everything to do with overwatering and using closed-bottom pots.
I love using old yogurt containers and egg cartons to start my seeds indoors because they are small and easy to replant. I tend to get my eggs at Trader Joe's, which have containers that are for the most part biodegradable so I don't have to worry about pulling my little seedling out of its container prematurely. It is important to think about future transplanting, because if seedlings are moved too early it may shock them, which could cause death.
I like to leave my containers outdoors whenever possible for direct sun exposure as well as fresh air and rainwater. Living in South Florida, we get a lot of rain, which is awesome but also somewhat stressful for planting conditions. There is not only humidity but also rain, leading to moist soil conditions. This is another instance where good drainage is key to plant health.
Another positive benefit of container gardening is that you don't actually have to work with this season that you're in. While I do highly recommend gardening intuitively based on the season around you, I recognize that that might not always be possible. Growing your plants in containers allows you to garden during more extreme conditions, such as deep winter or deep summer.
All of the best plants for witchcraft can be grown through containers exclusively, regardless of season. Starting your herbs from seed that you've grown yourself not only allows your energy and magick to touch the plants that you're going to be using, but it allows your magick to transcend levels through your spellwork that you did not even know you could reach.
When planning your outdoor garden, the most important factor is your specific climate. Different regions have different climates, so it's important to dive deeper than just the four basic seasons. Plants also have different needs for sun, water, shade, soil, and nutrients.
The easiest way to learn about your specific climate, and determine which plants will thrive there, is to look up your hardiness zone. Hardiness zones were developed by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and include thirteen zones that range by a temperature scale. Throughout the years, other hardiness schemes have been developed and adopted for other parts of the globe, but the USDA scale is the most common.
Equally important to planning a successful outdoor garden is looking at various environmental factors, including soil type, soil moisture and drainage, humidity, nutrients, light, temperature, and duration of exposure to extreme heat or cold.
When it is time to sit down and plan an outdoor garden sanctuary, it is a good idea to look back at your earlier notes about your ideas, senses, and elemental preferences. Then it is time to decide a method of attack that is not only effective but efficient. Do you want to start from seed or seedling? If from seed, are you starting indoors in accordance with your zone or are you waiting late enough into the season to avoid frost for direct sowing?
Personally, I grow a small garden in my patio and front walkway. The number of plants I keep is fairly small, so I tend to buy seedlings that have been started already. There are two main reasons for this: first, they are more economical, and second, a seedling already has a leg up, with a healthy start from the nursery.
Take a look at all of the plants you would like to grow this season. On the back of the seed packet make sure to review the sun, soil, and watering requirements. If a plant calls for partial shade, it is typically a good idea to give morning sun versus afternoon sun, as the afternoon sun can often be too harsh for sensitive plants.
Looking through the requirements, you get to make the choice of surface planting, raised-bed planting, hill planting, or mound planting. If you decide to go with surface planting methods, you can choose between single, double, or any type of row planting scheme that your heart desires. As a word of wisdom, it is easier to maintain and care for two shorter rows rather than a single long, continuous one. Surface planting with rows is probably the quickest and easiest method for a new gardener and requires little expertise. Plant the seeds directly into the soil after the last frost, then weed, water, and watch your garden grow!
Earlier, we went over the practical applications of intuition, but the garden is one of the most useful places to pull out that intuitive tool kit. Plants can be tricky, and every now and again everyone has questions and doubts. Did I overwater? Underwater? Are my plants lacking nutrition? How can I keep pests from eating my plants? The practical use of our intuition is not only necessary, it is required. There is no time more relevant for the practical use of intuition.
Through time, practice, and trial and error, you will learn what works and what does not. In spiritual gardening, it is important to use the tools your intuition is calling for. Don't worry about what anyone in real life or on the internet has to say—follow your guides for your individual path and space. The more you pay attention to this, the sooner your crafted space will manifest before your eyes.
When first beginning to use plants and herbs magickly, it is common to lean on literature for guidance. You could do a quick search and find information on tons of common plants or go to the library or local bookstore and check out books on green witchcraft. However, what these books don't teach you is how to figure out that information for yourself.
Say you come across a plant, search for it, and see that no correspondences have been written about it. You wonder, Can this be used magickly? The answer is a resounding yes! Just because you can't find an “official” source on the magickal uses for a particular plant doesn't mean that it doesn't serve a purpose both practically and magickly. The internet is not the be-all and end-all of witchcraft, nor it is the endpoint of information for our journey.
There are a few things to look at when you first start to decode a plant (or any material for magickal use, really). The basics to this theory are that the witch follows a set of general guidelines to get them to the point of understanding. There's a checklist I like to use when I start working with a new plant or material.
CORRESPONDENCE CHECKLIST
What type of plant is it (family, genus)?
Is it poisonous? (Research this answer if you aren't certain.)
Is it native?
Is it edible? (Research this answer if you aren't certain.)
Is it flowering?
How healthy does it appear to be?
How is it used? (Possible uses could include medicinal, food, cleaning.)
How is it used magickly?
How will I use it magickly?
How do I feel when I'm working with it?
By answering a few basic questions—as many as you can—you'll get a good feeling for the plant or material before you start working with it. This knowledge will allow you to intuitively use materials that benefit and strengthen your overall goal.
Let's work through a few examples of how to use this basic correspondence building technique. First off is cannabis, my most requested plant from students. We'll also take a look at snapdragons and sponge gourds. Neither really has a lot written on them, but there's so much we can do with them that they're useful as examples of underdog plant potential.
Believe it or not, the most common plant that I get requested to go through for magickal purposes by my students is actually cannabis. I am not a cannabis user, but I do know quite a bit about the plant, so finding its properties for a spiritual purpose was actually pretty easy. In this regard, spiritual purpose is referring to external, ritual-based uses, not recreational or medicinal use.
Most of us understand what cannabis is and what it does. It has recreational, commercial, and medicinal purposes and is quite popular. To look at the plant, you would really be considering the different varieties: Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica, Cannabis ruderalis, and hybrids of these.
Let's take a look at the family tree to start. We can see that cannabis is actually part of the rose family. This basic information gives a pretty big lead about the uses for this plant. While a lot of people assume that cannabis would have applications in protection spells, this plant is actually better suited for other purposes. Cannabis is also related to hops (as in beer), elm (hackberry), and figs (distantly). We know that hops are good for health and wellness spells, as well as dream work. (It's also been said that hops is a good anti-aphrodisiac, but I don't know how accurate that is.) Elm is well known in love and fertility spellwork. And figs are used for divination, prosperity, fertility, and love.
Knowing that cannabis is in the Rosales order, meaning that it is directly related to roses, is a pretty good first indicator that this plant has strength in love and healing. This does not necessarily mean romantic love but can also mean self-love as well. Cannabis is also a potent medicine, used to solve various ailments throughout history. In today's world, cannabis is a hot topic, with people on both sides of the fence. Whether you use it in your spiritual craft or not is your personal choice.
After looking at the related plants and how they are used, it is time to examine the actual plant in question. Start from the roots and work your way up. What does it look like, and what does it smell like? These are both pretty obvious questions, but it's good to know whether the roots are long and deep, or spread out like a big tree. Also make sure to take note of the overall health of the plant. It's best to only work with healthy plants that have the extra energy to lend us in our magick.
Each plant has different strengths than the other varieties. For example, take a simple rose. One could give a yellow rose to a friend and a red rose to their partner or lover. Different variations of plants all have different strengths and weaknesses, and plants like cannabis are no different.
Snapdragons are easily one of the coolest types of flowers. Not only do they have a beautiful bloom, but when they die, the husks of their flowers look like little skulls. Snapdragons self-seed, dropping seeds from the skulls of the flowers that came before. I've personally never had an issue with them coming back in my garden every year.
There are some important features to take note of before you start looking at the actual family order of this plant. These are tenacious, beautiful plants. They show both life and death within their flowers and are equally balanced in both ways.
Looking at the family tree of snapdragons shows us that they are relatives of the foxglove. Foxgloves are common in magickal practice, but they require extra care because they are highly toxic. Foxgloves are closely related to fairy lore but have also been used in shadow work and intuition. Due to its toxicity this plant cannot be ingested, and it is not good to handle frequently (but it is useful magickly). During Beltane, when the wall between our world and the fae is thinner, foxglove makes a great offering.
Snapdragons, on the other hand, are not poisonous—so they are a lot easier to work with and can be used more universally. Snapdragons can be used year-round for altars and offerings and can be used to symbolize life or death, depending on the face of the planet. If the flowers are blooming, they make a great altar offering and decoration. If the flowers have died and you're left with the dried skulls of the husk, snapdragons become the perfect Samhain altar offering.
Last but not least is the sponge gourd. This might seem like a random choice, and honestly it kind of is. Here is my sponge gourd story: I accidentally ordered a ton of seeds for sponge gourds one year and was left with a bunch of plants that I didn't really know how to care for. I didn't know how to use them, and I didn't know if they had any real purpose aside from making a bunch of zucchini-looking plants that you can't actually eat.
What I learned, however, is that every plant has its purpose. The vines and leaves on the sponge gourd are some of the most breathtaking I've ever seen. They grew along my fence line, completely enclosed my garden, and made it look like the most beautiful fairy space I've ever seen. On top of that, they produce beautiful flowers.
Sponge gourds are related to other gourd and melon plants such as cucumbers and watermelons. Cucumbers are used in healing and fertility work, and watermelons are used for growth, fertility, lust, and peace. What separates sponge gourds from these other gourds, however, is that sponge gourds are inedible. Their primary function is as literal cleaning sponges made from the dried gourd. This shows that its practical and magickal use most likely lies in the hearth and home. Bring sponge gourds inside to dry to promote prosperity and fertility throughout your household.
While many correspondences have been written, rewritten, and cross-examined, there are so many wonderful plants out there just waiting for you to notice them. Each of us lives in a unique place, surrounded by unique flora. Challenge yourself to branch away from plants with common associations and see what you can get into!