THE LOVE
OF GROWING
Photo: PXhereSean ErasmusA lot of people have a green thumb or some dirt under their nails, especially in a world where we are stuck at home with nothing else to do. As a species, we've always seen plants as a resource of food, medicine or even shelter.
We have been using plants for centuries as a means to exist up to the point where the world can't function without them.
But the roots of those reasons grow a little deeper than we thought. Over the centuries we have developed an unspoken bond with nature.

It has grown from being a need for our survival to a passion that burns in many of our hearts today whether we cultivate, farm or even when we work up a sweat in our very own garden.
"A garden requires patient labour and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfil good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them."
- Liberty Hyde Bailey
Some people would compare the act of nurturing a plant to that of raising a child, but clearly, these people are not parents. Not that they are entirely wrong. Plants, just like people, require attentive care towards every need whether it is water, a bit of sunshine or even a bit of compassion.
"Most young people find botany a dull study. So it is, as taught from the textbooks in the schools; but study it yourself in the fields and woods, and you will find it a source of perennial delight."
- John Burroughs
And the best part of it all is the feeling we get. That feeling of bringing a new life to fruition, quenching their thirst, bringing them to the warmth of the sun and giving them their first breathe of fresh air. To take something the size of a seed and to give it purpose so that it may bloom with the grace of time. Even if that purpose is one of joy.
"I grow plants for many reasons: to please my eye or to please my soul, to challenge the elements or to challenge my patience, for novelty or for nostalgia, but mostly for the joy in seeing them grow."
- David Hobson
So, the next time you plant a seed, remember that it is planted with not only effort and time but our hopes and aspirations as well.

And though the plants we give life to may outlive us, they will carry on everything we were and could have been, making us one with mother nature in eternity. 
"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."
- Greek Proverb
Photo: Airin Party