In the book ‘A Gentle Plea for Chaos’, the author Mirabel Osler describes the way her garden evolved and how, without meaning to do so, she let it take over her life. She suggests moving away from planning, regimentation and gardening with the mentality of a stamp-collector. The alchemy of gardens and garden-making are not so diff erent than our thoughts and how they shape us, just as fertilizer grows the borders, but the discipline of shears need to trim them from time-to-time, so that they do not grow in wild abandon. Life is full of gardening metaphor, but none so rich as the fact that slow growing plants live the longest and furiously fast growing plants also die the fastest. Slower, well considered, well-watered and nurtured thoughts eventually become wizened banyan trees in our minds and in our lives. Flash-in-the-pan ideas emerge fast and also die fast like seasonal fl owers. They appear more attractive for a while than the slow growing trees, but they are ephemeral. They too have a purpose as the seasonal fl owers, for they remind us that beauty is fl eeting and we must enjoy it in that moment, trying to catch a butterfl y or pluck a fl ower only leads to its premature death