 It's the end of summer and as crazy as it might seem, now is actually the perfect time to start planning. Next year's Magical Gardens. Hey there saplings, welcome back to esoteric moment. I have been spending so much time this year focused on magical gardens and gardens in general, getting the land plan for our farm kind of figure it out. And I wanted to share some of the resources that I found really compelling for this project. The first book is Cultivating Sacred Space by Elizabeth Murray. This is mostly a personal kind of memoir book of the author's garden, finding her husband, losing her husband and that whole process. There are different gardens that the author describes and shows which might give you some ideas for your own garden. There are some general like correspondences listed. In general, it's a nice book, but maybe less design or plant focus. The pictures even are like kind of small and not as, I don't know, inspiring as some garden book. Solid, lots of good stuff in here, but definitely more for someone who's looking for a book with gardens, but kind of about other things. Spiritual Gardening by Peg Streep was really great. It's kind of what I hoped the other one would be like. This one has massive pictures, giant ones on almost every page and they're beautiful. A really wonderful inspiration book for the winter month. This one talks about the different ways to approach spiritual gardening and has about 10 or 12 example gardens that are really well described. You can tell the author enjoys gardening, knows what she's talking about and is keen on sharing the spiritual aspects of gardening with others. One of my favorite example gardens in here is the Gaia Garden, which happens to be in Wisconsin, but it's a good combination of food and plants and community and spirit. It just works really well. And I definitely took inspiration from that garden on some of our own plans here. Magical Gardens by Patricia Monaghan was a great read and clearly written for the pagan druid or witch in mind. This book spends a lot of time talking about spellcraft, ritual, how to utilize your gardens for your pagan practice. If you're like, I'm not really a gardener, but I want a magical garden. This might be a good place to start because it's really coming at this whole idea from a magical perspective. There are also some garden designs in here which have like a diagram and a plant list. And then they describe the intention and use of that garden. It gives you some really concrete ideas for your own magical space. I have the 15th anniversary edition. And what I really wish would have happened is to have some pictures of how these garden plans had adapted and grown in real life. It would have been beautiful to like see how the person living and working and practicing in that spiritual space, how that had translated over the years and what had changed. But that's the only downside really is that there wasn't that year long or actual photographic evidence of those gardens. Garden Awakening by Mary Reynolds was probably, like this is almost number one. I couldn't decide really, such a great book. I found Mary Reynolds on Pinterest of all places and had no idea about her work with Wild Gardens. Winning the Chelsea Flower Show, all of that was very foreign to me here in the US. Her book is just packed with land spirits and wildness and real concrete understanding of how to work with a landscape to create sacred space. There is hardcore plant lists and gardening ideas and garden diagrams that are very in depth. But still this feeling of like you are working with the land. This is how you communicate and do that. I think it's a great read for anyone who likes to like walk the land and connect with the land or just enjoy garden. It's very fascinating read. There's also a bit of permaculture in this book Forced Gardening describes kind of the different ways that that might work. Not in depth permaculture by any means but definitely a nice tidbit. And you can't beat the garden diagrams in this book. She does like an earthworks version and then this version where you see all the plant and kind of an above typical garden plan and like plant lists. It's really detailed. It would be hard I think for the average gardener to recreate this type of plan. It does give you like go bold, go big, do what you want for your magical and spiritual space. Finally, number one creating sanctuary by Jesse Bloom. This one wins out mostly because I think it's the most approachable for many people. It talks about permaculture and design ethos. It talks about how to utilize all those elements in daily practice as food, as medicine. It's not just about design. It's not just about magic or spirit. It's also about like what you do with it afterwards which is perfect and beautiful. A friend of mine had this on their coffee table at book club and I just like fell in love with it on that day. When I purchased a copy I sat on my garden bench and devoured it in like a whole evening. It was just such a fun read. So inspiring and just like good for the soul kind of reading. It has enough pictures too that you get a real understanding of like what the author is doing in their garden and how you might recreate it in yours but still very approachable, very down to earth. All right, there you have it. My top five books for magical gardening. I am so curious. Let me know in the comments what book looks the best to you. Have you read any? Let me know your thoughts. This week's Sapling Shoutout goes out too. Thank you so much for your comments. If you wanna be a Sapling Shoutout, definitely talk to me below or over on Instagram. That's how I can get ahold of you and learn about your practice and your gardens and whatever you're up to. Thanks for watching. And as always, may you find peace in the sacred grove.