GARDEN SURROUNDINGS: Gardens and Nature Through our Lives
- Aug 1
- 7 min read
By Francesca Filanc, for Let’s Talk Plants! August 2026.
Gardens and Nature Through our Lives
Gardens and nature are woven through the fabric of our lives and experiences. Being exposed to gardens and nature from the time a baby is born gives the human being a lifelong love of the outdoors and peace and tranquility in difficult and sad times as well as happy ones.
Dr Carl Jung wrote: Very often a child abandoned by his parents, is adopted by Mother Nature. My mother, Pat Welsh has always felt that Mother Nature adopted her at a very young age. Also, my mother’s earliest memory is being in her pram for a nap, and waking to the sounds of birds singing. They were flying back and forth feeding their young. The pram was next to a wall of the house covered with Virginia Creeper. The parent birds were singing and flying back and forth feeding their babies in a multitude of nests on a several story high wall of the house.
"All My Eden’s: A Gardener's Memoir" by Pat Welsh (out of print but one can buy the book used online.) In Chapter 3, "Cottage in the Woods:"
Mum was a little girl, four years old; sitting at the tea table with her Mum, nurse Norah and Gran Emily. Mama overheard something that made her very sad. As soon as she could Mum asked if she could be excused from the table.
My mother Pat, overheard her Mum Ruth talking in whispered voices that Mum's mother was going to divorce her father and that she was marrying another man.
"One golden afternoon when we were still living at Hoyle Court or spending a holiday there, I’d pushed through the little gate below the Lily pond, slid down a bank beside the path, and discovered a small stream feeding a tiny pond. The water was crystal clear and surrounded by a sort of green grotto, every bit of it covered with moss. I was overwhelmed with delight. The voices of Gran, Mum and Norah floated down to me from the terrace where they were sitting at the tea table. I dropped to my knees on the grassy bank beside the pond to be alone in nature and hidden from view.
A small waterfall fell into the pond. On a round moss- coated rock under this waterfall sat a shiny green frog. It seemed to me that this place was sacred and that there had never been anything quite so beautiful. Time stood still. I was bathed in love, a deep understanding, and an awesome and comforting presence that went beyond words. I thought ‘This must be God.’ Then-splash!-the frog leaped into the water and swam straight towards me. The sudden sound destroyed the mood, but the memory remained.
After that experience, I always felt happy and protected in the woods and fields. When I was old enough to know my way around Loudwater, Nora gave me freedom to wander. In many ways during the 30s, even though we all knew that we were soon to be visited by a terrible war, we felt surrounded by a safe world. Every child knew the difficult times lay ahead, but I only thought of that when I heard the grown-ups talking or saw worried looks on their faces as they huddled around the radio listening to the news."
The first chapter of "All my Eden’s" is titled "The Path that Peter Built." Here is an excerpt from this chapter:
"Years ago, I was building a winding path of square stepping stones here in my Southern California garden. I was laying the stones diagonally point to point down a slope and filling the triangular spaces on each side of them with smooth blue -gray beach rocks. A young man called Peter who was sixteen years old and dating our eldest daughter Francie, also sixteen, came down the path and stood over me.
‘What are you doing? ‘He asked.
‘Making a path. Though I guess in my mind, I’m really building a grandchildren’s garden. Someday I’ll have grandchildren, so I’m making wandering paths for them to run around on and enjoy. But now I see I’ll never finish because I don’t have enough rocks.’
‘I have a truck,’ he said. ‘I’ll get you some.’
The next day, the young man showed up at dawn to collect my daughter. Together, they spent all day gathering, blue-gray Beach rocks - no law against it in those days where they went. That night they brought me a truck full of rocks, enough to finish the path.
Many years have passed, and the garden has undergone many changes. But there’s still a grandchildren’s garden, and now there are five grandchildren who play in it. And what of that young man who helped me build my path? He went off to school and then he traveled the world. Eventually, he came home again, married Francie, and gave me the first two grandchildren to go in the garden."
The year was 1968. There was only one covered hall at San Dieguito high school. I was wearing a faux fur leopard mini skirt. I would run through it because even though my father smoked 2 ½ packs of cigarettes a day, I hated the smell of cigarettes. Kids who smoked cigarettes would smoke in the covered hall. One day as I was running through the hall I guess I smiled at Pete. He told me years later that it went through his mind:
"I’m gonna marry that girl someday"
Pete asked around, one of his buddies introduced us. We met on a lawn outside of his chemistry class the next day.
Our wedding day was August 4, 1974.We were married in the garden where I grew up and mama still lives today.
Peter would be going back up to Berkeley to finish his engineering degree and so when Peter asked for my hand in marriage and then asked my father who was two years earlier appointed by Governor Ronald Reagan, Superior Court Judge in San Diego if he could perform the ceremony. My father was delighted.
We had a homespun garden wedding. Mama worked so hard with only two weeks to prepare. Mama cooked roast beef, turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans and made all salads and side dishes. About 40 people attended, all family. Mama’s close friend Marian Wood gave 6 dozen carnations to decorate the hedges of green around the garden.
We were married, not quite 33 years. Sadly, Peter died of cancer in May 2007. Eating outside and having parties with friends outside in the garden has been a thread through my whole adult life.
Despite Peter having the big surgery that was over eight hours long and being pronounced cancer free, he died four years later of stage 4 invasive bladder cancer. But during that time, he first came home from Norris cancer hospital in LA. After the period of time at the hospital Peter talked about how the beautiful garden helped to heal him from cancer.
There were fountains and bird baths and mulch paths that my gardener Sergio would make for me when lemon trees died. We were on a hill and at the bottom of the hill was where we kept our horses that Peter had surprised me with for my 40th birthday and I must say I was surprised! The house was a fixer upper that we had intended to tear down and to build another dream home on the property. We had 8 acres of dying lemon orchard. I had fun designing the Beautiful Garden that was in some ways reminiscent of Giverney, Monet’s Garden. Nasturtiums lined a main path down the hill side to the horses. Sergio and I had fun designing and putting in paths off the main path that led to vegetable areas to eat lunch and dinner bird baths fountains. I had a blank canvas to work with when Pete was healing from his surgery. He was supposed to walk some every day and he’d walk a little further every day. He said it was helpful because I had so many lovely places to sit.
Although we had the plans to build a dream home Italian style on the property, we ended up selling it and moving to another property because Peter’s cancer never went away.
After Peter’s death; working in the garden, sitting in the garden, just being in the garden was healing for grief. At my last house, there was a large balcony off of one of the bedrooms upstairs and I used to love to go and sit out there for hours at a time and listen to the birds. It was like a symphony of birds and I was so grateful to be there. It felt like being at the zoo except all the birds were wild.
I had fun building fairy gardens in areas for the grandkids and my kids to enjoy and friends and myself. More grandchildren were born and enjoyed playing in the gardens. In 2015, nine years after Pete died, I moved over here where I am now back in Olivenhain. I’ve done many projects to make the gardens beautiful (for example: Beauty In Nature Can Help Us Accept Change https://francescafilanc.com/garden-surroundings-beauty-in-nature-can-help-us-accept-change/). I have two 'Beverly Hills' Apple Trees in this garden. Because of climate change, they were early this year and so delicious. I didn’t make any pies. I just enjoyed eating them one a day as long as they lasted. My gardeners picked them and they were in my refrigerator so they wouldn’t get eaten by birds and other critters.
Wherever we are and wherever we live, it’s important to enjoy nature. Nature can be healing, physically and emotionally.
Enjoy August in your gardens.
Happy gardening!
Francesca
Artist, author, photographer, fly-fisher woman, Francesca Filanc grew up in old Del Mar and these days lives, paints and gardens in historic Olivenhain with her two dogs.
Find her art and writings here:
She can be found on social media:
"Live The Life You Envision with Fran" YouTube Channel:
Have gardening questions or want to learn more about Francie’s art?
Contact: Franfilanc@gmail.com
