What are you planting in your 'Jardin Secret'?
It's March, Spring is the perfect time to think about your Jardin.
March is the great month of transformation! This is the month we start seeing signs of the heavily anticipated Le Printemps.
March means Spring. I know it is still chilly and whatnot, but with the Spring Equinox on the 20th and the time change at the end of the month, we know we are in a new season.
Of course, Spring makes me think of gardening. As we emerge from winter, having thought about the seeds we may want to plant, March is the month to do just that. Many moons ago, at this time of year, my grandmother would start discussing her gardening plans, even though, without fail, I only ever recall her planting one thing—string beans.
So, March also makes me think about all the baking I did years ago in my grandmother’s garden.
I have made hundreds of mud pies.
Rumor has it that I have a degree in Pâtisserie. I don’t. But for those of you who have wondered about my culinary background, I used to be one heck of a mud pie maker. I’ve made hundreds. On a warm, slow summer Sunday - I would happily smell like grass and wet soil - slinging mud pies until the fireflies came out.
Growing up, I spent a lot of time with my grandma. She was fixated on food—in a way that annoyed me then, but now I understand it. If we went to a restaurant, she would still make her dinner and leave it on the stove…just in case. She loved to cook, and everything was done by hand, with measurements from a chipped lilac mug that was her official measuring cup. I still have that cup; wouldn’t I love to see it in her hands just once more, scooping a heap of flour.
Over time, I realized that she loved cooking because she loved feeding her family; the only thing she loved even more was feeding us from her tiny garden plot.
So, while she was toiling over arranging for her rows of future beans—I was in my part of the yard taking orders for my mud pies (I’m an only child, so I had quite an imagination.)
Years and years later, miles away in distance and miles away in my mind, I think about my grandmothers’s garden. I also think about all the things I learned about life from gardening.
But it seems my Grandmother wasn’t the only one concerned with her garden; Voltaire was too.
In fact, we all need to be concerned with our jardin - garden. We all have one, even if it is figurative.
‘We must cultivate our garden’ - Voltaire
The French would call my grandmother’s garden a Potager (a garden for growing food). We never really had a Jardin (what the French would call a space for aesthetics and flowers—examples being the Jardin des Tuileries, Jardin du Palais Royal, etc.). Any flowers my grandma had, and she had quite a few, were pretty darn self-sufficient—I guess a lot like my grandma.
It’s hard to imagine that forty-plus years later, I can see the parallels between working in my grandmother's garden and the gardens I pass through on my errands in Paris.
As she aged, the importance of gardening slipped away, but every once in a while, she’d look out of her back door window and tell me what she would plant if she could…
Today, I ask myself: was she thinking about the garden, or her dreams?
What was growing in her ‘Jardin Secret’ - her secret garden?
It’s a term I hear my French friends use ever so often. If you search the internet, you’ll find plenty of interpretations and definitions of Jardin Secret.
Cosmopolitan France even wrote a piece on how to maintain your Jardin Secret and why it is so vital: Comment préserver son jardin secret?
What is a Jardin Secret anyhow? For me, it is simply a Germination Box of your ideas and dreams—where you plant and cultivate your precious little idea and dream seedlings until you are ready to bring them into the world.
Above all, I have learned that maintaining your Jardin Secret is the same as maintaining your physical garden. It needs to be cared for rigorously.
What I have learned about tending a Jardin Secret
If a seed is cared for, it will become a sprout, but you cannot always see that from the surface. A lot goes on beneath the soil. When trying to effect change and growth, we look for quick results and often look in the wrong place. It
Growth takes time. It takes a long process to transform a seedling into a sprout and then into a beautiful flower. Nothing grows overnight.
You need to plant it in fertile soil. Sometimes, to have fertile soil, you must let it rest for a bit. Soil that is overused and exhausted of its nutrients cannot grow beautiful gardens. Resting is a powerful part of the growth process.
You need to tend to it regularly. Nourish it, love it. A jardin that is ignored never grows into something magnificent.
You need to prune sometimes. Trimming an idea to its core may help it grow bigger. You may also need to prune away things that do not serve your jardin's growth.
You need to watch out for mauvaise herbes - weeds. Letting mauvaise herbs (bad ideas and bad people) into your jardin will kill it. You must stay vigilant and pluck them out every time you spot them - the trickiest ones often look like they may be a beautiful flower.
You can always plant new things in your jardin. Different flowers can grow at different times of the year. And frankly, you can even overhaul the whole darn thing from year to year.
Winter is a very important part of the growth of your Spring. And if you happen to be in the later years of your life, you may be in your best spring yet!
Speaking of Spring….
The Winter of your life is your second Spring - François Maynard
How does a seedling transform into a flower?
It’s magic. As magical as the little seedling that once was you, and now a fully grown human reading this newsletter.
We’ve talked about what we need to care for our jardin to ensure our seedlings grow, and I’ll argue that to make real change, perhaps some experimentation is called for.
Think of all the beautiful flowers that we now have, thanks to experimentation. Tangelo Tulips and Gold Medal Roses are great examples of flowers made from cross-breeding, i.e., experimentation.
Did you know that one of the most famous experimental grounds in France is thanks to Louis XIV? It’s the Potager du Roi in Versailles.
If there is such a thing as the original foodie (not really a term I like, but I think it is universally understood), it would be Louis XIV. It’s said that the Potager was a 40th birthday present to himself - it was built between 1678 and 1683.
To oversee the creation of the Potager, Louis XIV asked his lawyer, Jean de la Quintinie, to lead the effort. Beyond all of the magnificent things they managed to create in this relatively small space, the Potager du Roi was not just a garden of food - it is a beautiful example of transformation. Perhaps one of the most magical transformations was de la Quintinie transforming himself from a lawyer into a gardener.
Because he loved to experiment, de la Qunitinie transformed what was barren swampland into a fruitful garden producing tons of fruit a year. He was able to design one of the first garden irrigation systems, and he was able to transform trees into works of art through pruning (as in the photo below)…and not just for beauty—he realized this allowed them to create superior fruit!
To do that, he even made a special tool, what we know today as pruning shears - again, thanks to his many experiments on the best way to trim plants.
And guess what? This relatively small plot of land transformed the way people ate in France. All because of a few experiments. All because he decided to test and fail and learn and test again.
Jean de la Quintinier still overlooks his garden today, holding the tools he developed nearly 400 years ago. This magical plot of land is now the most famous Horticulture school in France (and perhaps Europe), l’École nationale supérieure de paysage. You can still visit it today, just near the Château de Versailles.
If you have known me for a while, you’ll know that I love how the nuance of the French language can be used to say one thing but mean another. So, while I love the Potager du Roi and have been there many times, you’ll know I am not just talking about how to garden - I am talking about our personal transformation. Our Jardin Secret is critical to that transformation.
Your Jardin Secret is where you plant your seedlings and test them…very much like de La Quintinie did those many years ago,
Transformation is a beautifully messy process. To make all these great changes, Jean de La Quintinie must have failed many times. But he continued to return and, along the way, used a bit of creativity. Not only would he work to change this plot of land, but let’s consider the work, retraining, and personal discovery he went through to become a new version of himself.
Just think about the transformation he underwent at age 52 from a lawyer into a gardener and one of the most prominent figures in Horticulture.
In my opinion, to do so, he wasn't just running experiments on the potager; he was running experiments on himself. He’s not just one of the most excellent gardeners of the last 400 years; I believe he is one of our great Scientists (even if he was considered a Mad Scientist from time to time).
Speaking of being a Scientist…
Why we all need to be Scientists
What if you approached your dreams like a scientist? Scientists don’t start with the answer—if they already have it, there would be no point in running their experiment! They have a hypothesis, and then they test it. And if that test doesn’t prove their hypothesis, they run another experiment and test it again. Experimentation is a natural and fundamental part of their journey. Wouldn’t we feel so differently if we were creative and courageous enough to run little experiments on our dreams?
So, the next time you have a new idea or that little dream that keeps bubbling up, I hope you’ll put on your scientist hat. As a scientist, you won’t expect to have the complete answer. As a scientist, you will run creative experiments to test if your hypothesis is correct. You won’t consider it a failure if it doesn't work immediately. You’ll see your failures and mistakes as valuable data to help with your next experiment. And as a scientist, you’ll know that a mistake might become a great success, maybe even the best thing you have ever done.
Take a lesson from Albert Einstein's cosmological constant, which he called his "greatest blunder"… and what a fabulous blunder it was!
And as a Scientist, you would know that those experiments don’t have to be big; they can be tiny.
Speaking of Tiny Experiments…
What I am reading
I have been following Anne-Laure on Instagram for quite some time, and I love her work. I think you will, too. I was so pleased to talk with Ann-Laure for my podcast (see below; it is coming out on Monday). She is as delightful and warm as you will find her online.
She has a fascinating history, another beautiful story of transformation, from Google executive to entrepreneur to Neuroscientist!
Anne-Laure’s book, Tiny Experiments, is coming out in just a few days—get your hands on it now and you can benefit from the pre-order bonus. You’ll also want to look at the wonderful community she created called Ness Labs.
Her book is an excellent tool for thinking about being a scientist—and perhaps it will even prompt you to consider how you can be a scientist running experiments in your Jardin Secret that would make Jean de La Quintinie proud.
Happy gardening.
A prompt I’ll leave you with:
What are you planting in your ‘Jardin Secret’? And what little experiments will you run to cultivate your seedlings?
With that, see you next time. Á bientôt mes amis.
Jane
Don’t forget to join me on my podcast:
Keep an eye out for my newest Podcase with Anne-Laure Le Cunff! It will be released on Monday, March 3rd, on all platforms. You can find my podcast here.
Or maybe join me in Paris:
The March GenerateHER retreat is now closed, but you can get on the waitlist for the next dates!
Great newsletter Jane! I have always loved that Voltaire quote and really appreciate how you used it, which changes how I always thought of it. Thank you for that!
This is my prompt for my journal session today 🌸 💕