V: The Garden as Verb - Green Rootly

Prologue: Beyond Gardening

We have treated gardening as a noun—a thing we do, a place we make, a collection of plants. But what if the essential truth is that garden is not a noun but a verb? Not something you have but something you participate in? This single-letter perspective—V for Verb—changes everything. It transforms gardening from maintenance to relationship, from control to participation, from a human activity imposed on nature to a mutual becoming.

This is not gardening as you know it. This is gardening—the active, present participle form that acknowledges we are always in process, always in relationship, always co-creating with systems more intelligent than our plans.

Part I: From Having to Participating

The Linguistic Shift That Changes Everything

Language shapes reality. When we say “I have a garden,” we place ourselves as owners, the garden as possession. When we say “I garden,” we become participants in an ongoing process. But even this is incomplete. The most profound shift comes when we recognize that “garden” is what’s happening—the verb that includes soil, plants, insects, weather, and human attention all participating together.

Three Levels of Linguistic Consciousness:

Level 1: “I have a garden” (Ownership consciousness)

The garden as object
The gardener as subject
Relationship: possessor and possessed
Goal: control, improvement, productivity

Level 2: “I garden” (Action consciousness)

Gardening as activity
Gardener as actor
Relationship: doer and done-to
Goal: skillful action, good practices

Level 3: “We are gardening” (Participatory consciousness)

Gardening as mutual activity
All elements as participants
Relationship: co-creators in process
Goal: harmonious participation, mutual thriving

Level 4: “Gardening is happening” (Process consciousness)

Gardening as emergent process
Gardener as participating element
Relationship: all elements flowing in shared process
Goal: alignment with natural intelligence, graceful participation

The shift to Level 4 transforms everything. You are not managing a garden; you are participating in gardening—the ongoing verb that includes everything happening in that space.

Practical Implications of the Verb Perspective

Watering becomes: not “I water the plants” but “watering is happening through me as conduit”

Planting becomes: not “I put plants in the ground” but “planting is occurring through this collaboration of my hands, the plant’s readiness, the soil’s receptivity”

Weeding becomes: not “I remove unwanted plants” but “editing is occurring in this plant community, with my attention as part of the selection pressure”

Harvesting becomes: not “I take produce” but “fruitfulness is being received, with gratitude as part of the nutrient cycle”

This shift from actor to participant doesn’t mean doing nothing. It means doing with different consciousness—recognizing that your actions are part of a larger process, not the origin of it.

Part II: The Five Verbs of Intelligent Participation

1. Attending: The Primary Garden Verb

Before you water, weed, or plant, you attend. Attending is active, receptive presence. It’s not passive looking; it’s engaged perceiving.

How to Attend:

Multi-sensory scanning: What do you see, hear, smell, feel in this moment?
Temporal awareness: What stage of process is each element in? (Germinating, growing, flowering, fruiting, dying, decomposing)
Relational noticing: What connections do you perceive? What patterns of influence?
Intuitive sensing: What does your body know before your mind articulates it?

The Intelligence of Attending: When you attend deeply, the garden begins to “speak” through patterns, anomalies, synchronicities. That patch of struggling plants isn’t just “having problems”—it’s communicating about soil conditions, microclimate, relationships. Your attending becomes part of the garden’s self-awareness.

2. Facilitating: The Art of Enabling Processes

Facilitating recognizes that processes want to happen—seeds want to germinate, plants want to grow, soil wants to build structure—and our role is to remove obstacles, provide resources, create conditions.

Facilitating vs. Controlling:

Controlling says: “I will make this happen”
Facilitating says: “I will create conditions for this to happen”

Facilitation Practices:

Water facilitating: Creating systems that capture, store, and distribute water according to natural patterns
Soil facilitating: Adding organic matter, minimizing disturbance, encouraging microbial life
Pollination facilitating: Planting sequences, providing habitat, avoiding pesticides during bloom
Decomposition facilitating: Creating composting systems that mimic natural processes

The Intelligence of Facilitating: Good facilitation works with natural tendencies rather than against them. It asks: “What does this system want to do? How can I help it do that better?”

3. Conversing: Dialogue with More-Than-Human Persons

When garden is verb, every element becomes a conversational partner. This isn’t metaphorical. Research shows plants respond to vibration, touch, even intention. Soil microbes respond to chemical signals. The entire system is in constant conversation.

Conversation Practices:

Verbal toning: Some gardeners speak or sing to plants; research suggests certain frequencies may affect growth
Intentional touching: Pruning, harvesting, or even gentle touching with clear, respectful intention
Chemical listening: Learning to read plant signals—color changes, growth patterns, insect interactions as chemical “statements”
Energetic exchange: Practicing presence that acknowledges the vitality and consciousness of other beings

The Intelligence of Conversing: Conversation implies both speaking and listening. Intelligent gardening develops capacity for both—expressing our intentions and needs while developing sensitivity to the garden’s expressions.

4. Timing: Dancing with Temporal Patterns

Gardening as verb exists in time. Not clock time but process time—the right timing for each action relative to multiple cycles: daily, lunar, seasonal, successional.

Timing Intelligences:

Phenological timing: Planting peas when forsythia blooms, corn when oak leaves are squirrel-ear sized
Successional timing: Knowing what follows what in natural progression
Developmental timing: Intervening at the right moment in a plant’s life cycle
Cyclical timing: Working with rather than against natural rhythms

The Intelligence of Timing: Perfect timing isn’t about calendars; it’s about sensitivity to multiple overlapping cycles. It’s the difference between watering because it’s Tuesday and watering because the soil and plants are ready to receive.

5. Reciprocating: The Gift Economy of the Garden

Gardening as verb recognizes exchange: we give care, attention, resources; we receive food, beauty, learning, peace. But deeper still: the garden gives to itself, and we are included in that giving.

Reciprocity Practices:

Giving back more than you take: Composting, mulching, planting perennials
Thankfulness as practice: Genuine gratitude changes the relationship
Leaving gifts: Some indigenous traditions leave tobacco or other offerings
Receiving fully: Not just taking produce but receiving lessons, beauty, connection

The Intelligence of Reciprocating: Reciprocity creates sustainable systems. Linear taking depletes; cyclical giving and receiving maintains. The garden teaches this constantly if we’re listening.

Part III: The Garden as Verb in Practice

The Daily Verb Practice

Morning (10 minutes): Attending

Walk without purpose
Notice what calls attention
Feel the day’s potential in the air, light, soil
Set intention: “Today I participate in…”

Midday (Variable): Specific Verb Engagement

Choose one verb to emphasize today: Facilitating, Conversing, Timing, or Reciprocating
Engage in activities aligned with that verb
Notice how focusing on one verb changes your experience

Evening (5 minutes): Integration

Review: “How did gardening happen today?”
What verbs were most present?
What did I learn about participating?
Record one sentence in verb form: “Today, gardening happened through…”

Seasonal Verb Emphasis

Spring: Facilitating

Creating conditions for emergence
Preparing soil, planting seeds, providing protection
Emphasis on enabling processes

Summer: Conversing

Deep listening to plant needs
Responsive watering, feeding, supporting
Dialogue with pests, diseases, weather

Autumn: Reciprocating

Harvesting with gratitude
Giving back through composting, planting cover crops
Receiving lessons from the season

Winter: Attending & Timing

Deep observation of structure, patterns
Planning based on observations
Timing preparations for spring

The Verb-Based Design Process

Traditional garden design asks: “What do I want to have?”
Verb-based design asks: “What do I want to participate in?”

Design Questions from Verb Perspective:

What processes do I want to facilitate? (Decomposition, pollination, succession)
What conversations do I want to enable? (Between specific plants, with specific insects)
What timing patterns do I want to dance with? (Seasonal sequences, daily rhythms)
What reciprocity do I want to establish? (Giving/receiving patterns)
How will I attend to this space? (Observation paths, sitting areas, sensory elements)

Example: Instead of designing a “herb garden” (noun), design for “herbing”—the process of growing, harvesting, using herbs. This might mean:

Planting near kitchen for easy harvesting (facilitating use)
Including seating for morning tea with herbs (conversing with plants)
Planting successionally for continuous harvest (timing)
Composting herb trimmings (reciprocating)
Creating a path that winds through herbs for brushing against them (attending through scent)

Part IV: The Science of Gardening as Verb

Ecological Processes We Participate In

When we garden as verb, we’re participating in documented ecological processes:

1. Succession: The predictable sequence of species colonization. We can accelerate, slow, or redirect but we’re always participating in successional processes.

2. Nutrient Cycling: The constant movement of elements through living and non-living components. Our adding compost, harvesting produce, even our breathing are part of these cycles.

3. Energy Flow: Sunlight converted to chemical energy, moving through food webs. Our pruning, planting, and even our presence affect these flows.

4. Information Networks: Chemical, electrical, and even potentially quantum information exchange between organisms. Our actions add to this information flow.

Human Participation as Ecological Factor

Research increasingly shows humans aren’t separate from ecosystems but keystone participants:

Human microbiome exchange: Our skin, breath, and touch transfer microbes to plants and soil
CO₂ enrichment: Our breath locally elevates CO₂, potentially affecting plant growth
Attention effects: The “observer effect” in gardens—documented cases where measured plants grow better when regularly observed
Intention studies: Controversial but persistent research suggesting focused intention affects plant growth

The Physics of Participation

At quantum levels, the distinction between observer and observed blurs. Some researchers suggest this applies biologically:

Quantum biology findings: Photosynthesis appears to use quantum coherence; bird navigation uses quantum effects in eyes
Biophoton emission: All living things emit faint light; these emissions may facilitate communication
Resonance phenomena: Systems tend to synchronize—heart rates with plants, brain waves with soil microbes?

While speculative, these frontiers suggest our participation in gardens may be more fundamental than we’ve assumed.

Part V: Obstacles to Verb Gardening

The Noun Traps

Ownership Trap: “My garden” thinking creates separation and responsibility without reciprocity.

Product Trap: Focusing on yields, beauty, or other products makes the process a means to an end rather than an end in itself.

Control Trap: Believing we’re in charge makes us anxious when things don’t go according to plan.

Expertise Trap: Thinking we need to know everything before participating prevents beginner’s mind.

Cultural Conditioning

Consumer culture: Teaches us to have things, not participate in processes.

Industrial agriculture model: Presents nature as raw material for human purposes.

Time poverty: Makes us want quick results rather than slow participation.

Separation worldview: Divides human from nature, mind from body, spirit from matter.

Overcoming the Obstacles

Practice humility: Start sentences with “The garden is…” rather than “I am…”

Develop process appreciation: Learn to enjoy weeding, watering, observing as much as harvesting.

Embrace not-knowing: Let the garden teach you rather than always trying to teach it.

Cultivate patience: Allow processes to unfold at their pace, not yours.

Part VI: Advanced Verb Practices

Deep Participation Exercises

1. The Elemental Immersion:

Spend one hour being just one element: water (feel flow), soil (feel receptivity), air (feel exchange), light (feel energy)
How does participating as this element change your perspective?

2. The Speed Shift:

Garden in extreme slow motion for 15 minutes
Garden with deliberate rapidity for 15 minutes
Notice how speed changes participation

3. The Role Reversal:

Imagine you are the garden and a human is tending you
What would you want from them?
How would you communicate?

4. The Verb Journal:

Keep a journal using only verbs and gerunds (ing words)
No nouns allowed as subjects
Example: “Today, composting happened through turning, heating, transforming…”

Teaching Verb Gardening

To children: “Let’s go see what the garden is doing today!” not “Let’s go work in the garden.”

To beginners: Start with attending. Just observe for a week before doing anything.

To experts: Challenge: garden for one month without using the word “my” about the garden.

Part VII: The Future of Gardening as Verb

The Cultural Shift

As more people experience gardening as participation rather than possession:

Garden sharing increases
Community gardens flourish
Gardening becomes therapy, meditation, spiritual practice
The line between garden and gardener softens

The Technological Integration

Technology that enhances verb gardening:

Sensors that help us attend to what we can’t perceive
Apps that teach us to recognize patterns and processes
Tools that facilitate without controlling
Networks that connect participants in global gardening

The Philosophical Evolution

Gardening as verb contributes to:

Ecological consciousness
Post-humanist philosophy
Process theology
Deep ecology movements
Indigenous wisdom revival

Conclusion: We Are Gardening

After exploring gardening as verb from every angle, we arrive at the simplest and most profound realization: We are not gardeners. We are gardening. The distinction between us and the garden was always an illusion of language, of perception, of culture.

The soil is gardening.
The plants are gardening.
The insects are gardening.
The weather is gardening.
And we, with our human consciousness, our hands, our hearts, our attention—we are gardening too.

Not separate. Not in charge. Not owning. Not controlling.

Participating.
Co-creating.
Becoming-with.

This changes everything and nothing. You still plant, water, weed, harvest. But now you do it as one element in a symphony of participation, one voice in a chorus of becoming, one movement in a dance of mutual unfolding.

The anxiety falls away: you’re not responsible for everything.
The pride falls away: you’re not accomplishing alone.
The separation falls away: you were never outside the garden looking in.

You were always in it. Of it. With it.

Gardening.

So tomorrow, when you step outside, don’t think “I’m going to garden.”
Instead, feel yourself already gardening.
Already participating.
Already verbing.

Notice what wants to happen through you today.
What facilitating wants your hands?
What conversing wants your attention?
What timing wants your sensitivity?
What reciprocating wants your gratitude?

And most of all: what attending wants your presence?

The garden isn’t waiting for you to tend it.
The gardening is waiting for you to notice you’re already part of it.

Participate consciously.
Verb fully.
Garden.