There is probably no time when the healing power of a garden is more welcome and soothing than after the death of a loved one. Again and again, people have told me heartrending tales about the crucial role gardening played in their recovery of equilibrium after the passing of someone special.

“My husband died suddenly on my birthday,” Evelyn told me, “and I went out and made a garden. Now you must realize that I had never cultivated a garden in my life. It was my salvation.

“I started digging and planting and tending. Before I knew it, I had put all of my love and all of my sorrow into the earth. The plants got me through my sadness. I’m sure I could not have made it without them. That’s how I learned that a garden can heal the spirit.”

—From Tending the Earth, Mending the Spirit by Connie Goldman and Richard Mahler (Hazelden Press).