Ep 218. Nature Teaches Endings Bring Beginnings

Mary Stone reflects on how birthdays encourage us to pause and reflect, change, and maybe plant new seeds. She shares the outcomes of her book proposal to Hay House Publishing, which, although initially disappointing, inspires other ways to share The Lesson of the Leaf. She concludes with a heartwarming story about the restoration of a Welcome Home Clematis and a surprise late nesting of cardinals, teaching how endings give way to beginnings. 

Related Stories: 

Nature Teaches Endings Bring Beginnings - Blog Post

Birthday Reflection Pulse Check (2021)- Blog Post

Ep 37. Merry Season of Love Over Fear

Merry Season of Love over Fear (2021)- Blog Post

Ep 38. Plants Inspire Turning Over a New Leaf

Plants Inspire-Turning Over a New Leaf (2022)-Blog Post

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  I'd love to hear your stories about your garden and Nature, as well as your thoughts on topics for future podcast episodes. You can email me at AskMaryStone@gmail.com.

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Mary Stone, Columnist & Garden Designer
                                           AskMaryStone.com

More about the Podcast and Column:

Welcome to Garden Dilemmas, Delights, and Discoveries.

It's not only about gardens; it's about nature's inspirations, about grasping the glories of the world around us, gathering what we learned from mother nature, and carrying these lessons into our garden of life. So, let's jump in in the spirit of learning from each other. We have lots to talk about.

Thanks for tuning in, Mary Stone
Garden Dilemmas? AskMaryStone.com
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Transcript

Ep 218. Nature Teaches Endings Bring Beginnings

Sat, Aug 23, 2025 4:27PM • 12:37

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Garden dilemmas, nature inspiration, birthday reflection, Jolie, rescue dog, Hay House Publishing, book proposal, new beginnings, cardinal nesting, clematis plant, pruning mistakes, seed samplers, garden workshops, AI tool, Garden of Life.

SPEAKERS

Mary Stone

Mary Stone  00:00

Mary stone, Hello, fellow lovers of all things green, I'm Mary stone, and welcome to garden dilemmas, delights, and discoveries. It's not only about gardens, it's about nature's inspirations, about grasping the glories of the world around us, gathering what we learn from Mother Nature, and carrying these lessons into our garden of life. So let's jump in, and the spirit of learning from each other. We have lots to talk about. 

Mary Stone  00:26

Hello there. It's Mary Stone on the screen porch. And once again, it's a drizzly day, boy, we need this rain. It has been so, so dry after such a wet spring. But that's how nature is. It has its own cycles. So thank you for joining me. Jolee is with me as well. She turned five this week. Of course, you never really know when you have a rescue how old they are, but they can pretty much guess within a range of time. Happy birthday, Jolee. I want to thank those who reached back after our last talk about Moth Surveying in a New Jersey Mountain Meadow, and I want to thank you, Blaine. I know you'll be tuning in to this for your kind words about how I assembled the highlights of the evening into the podcast, much of which was your doing. I loved the audio that we captured of you sharing your passion and the wisdom that you graciously gave all of us who tuned in, along with your gorgeous images. 

Mary Stone  01:25

Speaking of birthdays, I have one coming up, and it seems appropriate to revisit, in a way, a pulse check I had a few years ago. And it starts like this.

Mary Stone  01:37

 Hello, fellow lovers of all things green, birthdays have a way of encouraging us to pause and reflect, don't they? We may consider changing a few things or planting a few new seeds. A few years back, I shared a birthday reflection pulse check themed around the nine-plus years of our weekly chats in gratitude for what I've learned from all of you. It was the year after Miss Ellie, our column mascot, passed away, and it felt like it was time to change the photo to Jolee, though neither can ever fill the other's paws. You helped me choose the image with Jolee's ears standing tall, well, fairly tall, as opposed to her usual flat-on-her-head style, making her look earless most of the time. Jolee turned five this week. Hard to believe. I took a selfie for the occasion with her ears up and sporting a smile. She's come a long way since she arrived riddled with fear from her first five months on the streets of Biloxi, rescued from death row, she taught me to choose love over fear. What a gift. I shared this story in Episode 37 Merry Season of Love over Fear. I invite you to tune in to, and I'll put a link in the show notes. In the pulse check, I shared my dream that Hay House Publishing would publish my book, "The Lesson of Leaf: How Nature Gardens and Rescue Dogs Help Heal and Grow Your Life." It shares a journey from loneliness and loss to love and hope, inspired by the wisdom my beloved brother left behind. You may recall, I shared the quandary of how to format and find time to complete the book. Your feedback encouraged me to pepper nature and garden stories into the personal story, a brilliant idea. Thank you for that. 

Mary Stone  03:23

The book proposal was submitted, and I recently learned that Hay House didn't accept it, at least not this time. Of course, I felt disappointment, but was quickly reminded we can't rush seeds, and maybe, like the zucchini in my vegetable garden, it would take more time for the flowering before the fruit sets. It was exciting to harvest my first zucchini of the season yesterday. Weeks of anticipation make the harvest that much more rewarding. Maybe Hay House will be the right fit someday. But why not plant seeds elsewhere, approaching other publishers, or self-publishing, or perhaps create an e-book or audiobook and see what grows from there? Someone suggested I start lesson of the leaf workshops, combining nature, walks, and garden visits with reflection or a garden dilemmas, delights, and discoveries. Garden club with a lively virtual Q and A each month. What do you think? Kind listeners? I'd love to hear your thoughts. If you'd like to be part of the beta testers, you can email me at Ask Mary stone@gmail.com. Hmm, maybe we'll call it something else, seed samplers instead of beta testers. What do you think?

Mary Stone  04:37

 Speaking of new beginnings, I've been watching Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal outside the kitchen window. A few weeks ago, I suspected there was a nest underway as I watched them come and go with bits of grass. But I thought how odd it was to have a nest so late in the season. We are in late August. After all, sure enough, their abode is nestled in the rhododendron. I am adoring watching the mama and papa working as a team, feeding their young, their heads popping up on cue. Cardinals have the softest little chirp, hardly noticeable. But of course, when Mr. Cardinal flies in with that flare of red, I think, oh no, no predator gets a look at that. Mrs. Cardinal has those brown feathers that seem to blend so discreetly into the shadows of the shrub. My neighbor Monica wonders if it's the same family whose young fell from the nest in spring. The parents were distraught for hours, unable to get the little fella in the nest, she said, so she intervened with gloves on, putting the baby back. The parents returned, realized the baby had died, and flew off in closure. Maybe this is their second try. This time they have two babies.

Mary Stone  05:51

 Nature reminds us that endings give way to new beginnings. As you know, I conclude each podcast episode reminding you to embrace the unexpected in the Garden of Life. This principle also applies to unexpected endings or losses, because from them comes new growth. Thank you, kind readers and listeners, for encouraging me through 13 years of columns and all the lessons I have learned from your sharing of the dilemmas, delights, and discoveries in the Garden of Life. I look forward to where we grow next. Garden Dilemmas? Ask Mary Stone.com.

Mary Stone  06:29

 As I was preparing the story, I used AI to see if there were other posts that I should integrate into this one or that were related to this one. And you know, as a writer, AI is a variable that's a little intimidating, but what a useful tool to gather information from the Internet, and in my case, from my very own website. One of the stories that came up was from January 2022, celebrating a new year. I'm going to visit that again. And it starts like this, a new year, just as birthdays, gifts, the opportunity to start fresh, maybe to begin new things or improve upon others, a chance for turning over a new leaf, as they say. One new leaf I'd like to turn over is sharing more about how plants inspire our lives. Let's begin with a beautiful story about a welcome home clematis. 

Mary Stone  07:17

I go on to share the origin of the term turning over a new leaf. That's quite fascinating. Again, I'll put a link in the show notes. I adore hearing about gardens and plants that make a difference in our lives. The same is true of nature's stories. In August, I asked about favorite columns and lessons gained from nature or gardens as part of a birthday pulse check. Then came a beautiful note from a dear client when they saw their property for the first time. 

Mary Stone  07:45

It was late fall, the gardens were dormant, but on July 1, when they closed on their house in Blairstown, the most beautiful purple clematis welcomed us to our home, Pat writes, and each season, the royal blooms serve as a reminder that another year has passed in our little paradise. Sadly, they had to dig up their adored plant as it was in the way of a planned renovation. They put it in a pot in the middle of their yard, where it sat from fall through spring. I had little hope it could survive, Pat said. When Mary designed our new gardens, we gave the clematis a new lease in a prominent place beside the addition, and survive and thrive she did. The beauty and ornamentation remind me of the first day we met, and it says, You're home. I take much joy from seeing the blooms every summer and reflecting on time past and with it, the changes in me and my garden. 

Mary Stone  08:39

Isn't that beautiful? It's true, by the way, that clematis liked cool feet, and so I transplanted her amongst other plants in the new garden, and watching it grow on this obelisk along with the neighboring plants, it embraces them with such a cloud of glory; it's so beautiful. But then came the most captivating part of Pat's story when she wrote - clematis has the clever ability to send their tendrils around a trellis and around other foliage, which reminds me of all the people past and present who have wrapped themselves around me. It fills me with gratitude and love—so beautiful, Pat.

Mary Stone  09:21

So now this is the punch line. This year, actually, sometime in early summer, maybe mid summer, I went over there to help with some pruning in the back garden, and in so doing, I cut what I thought was the dead wood out of that clematis, and a few days later, maybe it was a week, Pat sent me photos of what looked like a totally dead plant. I was embarrassed and devastated, and maybe someday I'll write a story about the different ways to prune clematis, depending on the variety, but I thought I was doing the right thing. And so, in embarrassment, I bought a new clematis. I planted it next to the mama plant. But keeping it in its pot, because my hope was the other one would recover. So when I checked in with her this week, I got photographs, and let me say I am so relieved to tell you that that beautiful plant is blooming again. I was relieved and I was delighted. 

Mary Stone  10:17

So when I got the images, I wrote back to Pat that the mother plant looks beautiful and in bloom again. It warms my heart, an unintentional rejuvenation, pruning with a happy ending, no more dead wood. She asked about pruning in the spring, which you normally do, cut dead wood out of a clematis to make it look fresh. And I said, No need for a spring haircut. But I did tell her, the one in the pot looks kind of sad, like, you know, a little too tight in its jeans. So I'm going to go ahead and plant that new plant in its permanent spot. So there you go. Sometimes you can make mistakes in life, or choices that may have been the right choice at one time in your life, but time grows forward, and sometimes you have to change things, and sometimes with good communication or a good dose of fertilizer, things that look spent and worn and too late to survive can resurrect itself and go into bloom again. And sometimes you have to replace a plant or move on in your life; it is indeed part of life in this garden that we share together, the Garden of Life. 

Mary Stone  11:24

So thank you for joining me. Jolee has been sitting here quietly waiting for me to take her on the road. I don't know, she's been getting a little lazy lately, partly because I haven't had much time to walk her, and she enjoys gallivanting around the yard instead, which I can't blame her for. Anyway. Thank you so much. I so enjoy our time together, and I'd love to hear from those of you who'd like to be beta testers for those ideas that we chatted about, or seed samplers. Oh my goodness, I just looked up, and on top of a branch on the tulip tree outside of the screen porch is Mr. Cardinal, that flare of red just stands out. Have a beautiful day. 

Mary Stone  12:06

You can follow Garden Dilemmas on Facebook or online at Garden Dilemmas.com and on Instagram at hashtag. Mary Elaine Stone. Garden dilemmas delights, and discoveries is produced by Alex Bartling. Thanks for coming by. I look forward to chatting again from my screen porch, and always remember to embrace the unexpected in this garden of life. Have a great day.