“You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose” (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince).

For ten years this statement tugged at my heartstrings. My grandmother, Plum, died in 1999 while I was teaching at Piedmont Virginia Community College, and with donations for a garden in her memory on the campus, my students and I broke ground that autumn. What I imagined as a small area of two flower beds took on a life of its own—from rose bush and forsythia to dogwood and weeping cherry to student-made soapstone benches and picnic table to tulips and irises to big rocks for sitting and stone paths for walking. “Plum’s Garden” served as an outdoor classroom, backdrop for graduation, quiet and party time, a sanctuary for birds and students.

When I left the College in 2010, I took comfort in the knowledge that gardens grow. On occasional visits over the years I watched it expand—thickening and darkening in its center, wild and untended—still a beckoning place despite weeds and overgrowth. “You are responsible for your rose,” it would whisper as I turned away to leave.

And then. A colleague wrote in September to ask about the chances of shaping up the Garden again. Was this my opportunity, I wondered, as I headed back to the familiar hilltop? With one look at the lovely jungle, it was clear to me that this job required strong-backed, equipment-savvy, imaginative and knowledgeable professionals. Though I knew the Garden by heart, I was disoriented while trekking in waist-high weeds and suddenly coming upon mysterious piles of rocks. Straggly branches reduced walking to wary crouching on uneven turf—the large stones and the ground itself invisible. Trees and bushes bent lopsidedly in their futile thirst for light.

But there it was, now at eye level, the rosebush in all its mighty, full-blooming glory.

After a walkabout with Ed from The Garden Spot, the nursery that was the source of all the original plantings, he and I agreed on an optimistic, albeit iffy, plan. The cry “We gotta get some light in here!” rang out for two days in early November as a crew of five practiced the art of resurrection. A flurry of nonstop action hummed along—chain saws, pickaxes, tarps, weed eaters, pruning shears, rakes, shovels, dump trucks coming and going, laughter and conversation. We enjoyed quiet, solitary lunches while soaking up the mountain view and admiring steady progress. Bit by bit, more light—bit by bit, I felt a gentle thrum through the soles of my shoes, the earth invigorated and shaking herself loose. Pruned trees shouted to the sun, countless iris tips poked through the soil, uncovered hostas and ferns breathed. I squinted through sunglasses as the bluest sky hung over liberated, newly thinned crape myrtles. Years of chestnut shells vanished, the beech and the magnolia took on svelte shapes, the big rocks and benches readied for company. All the while, the birds belted out a full-throated medley of ancient songs.

We stood together in silence before saying our goodbyes—six visitors beholding The Comeback Garden of the Year. I remain spellbound and besotted.

A week later, I returned to Plum’s Garden. Everything stood taller, less bowed, stretching skyward. I walked. Sat. Walked. Sat. Out of a seeming nowhere, I recalled this line from Michael Ondaatje’s The Cat’s Table: “We all have an old knot in the heart we wish to untie.” It stuck with me. Strolling by myself though far from alone in the restored garden, I thought about gardens of all kinds, and how they, too, require the full attention bestowed on this one.

Relationship is a garden. Awareness. Trust. Flexibility. Wisdom. Opportunity is a garden. Character. Humility. Perspective. Freedom. Simplicity is a garden. Dignity. Humor. Persistence. Gratitude. Daring is a garden. Peace. Truth. Gratitude. Love.

Democracy is a garden.

“We’ve got to get some light in here.” The gardens of our hearts beg for starting over, untying knots, pulling weeds, letting go, opening up. Reaching higher, turning over, clearing away, giving thanks, unwinding brambles. Laboring today for tomorrow’s promise.

Since 1939, Marian Anderson has sung “My Country (’Tis of Thee)” from the Lincoln Memorial, her voice reverberating through the years: “From ev’ry mountainside / Let freedom ring.” Despite the prospects of “a long cold lonely winter,” Richie Havens taps and strums music to delight gardeners of all kinds. “Here Comes the Sun.”