‘Creating a garden can bring joy and it can be a garden of remembrance. It can be planted with flowers that symbolically connect to the person who has died. Some that might be included are: snowdrops*, the first flowers of spring that represent beginnings after a period of bleak darkness; pansies, whose name comes from the French ‘pensée’, thought;forget-me-nots and rosemary for remembrance.
There is a healing power in the natural world, as Richard Mabey (2006) reveals in Nature Cure, and being in natural surroundings as well as planting and tending can bring both emotional and physical benefits. The bereaved can make a living shrine, for example by planting a wood or building a dedicated feature in a garden.’
Mallon Brenda, Dying Death and Grief: Working with adult bereavement (1ed, 2008) SAGE Publications Ltd
*Note: Snowdrops need a cold winter to grow well so they are only suited to the southern states of Australia. They are temperamental and difficult to grow in most Australian gardens and go dormant over Summer.
