Do you think of your garden mainly as a place where you escape from other people? Are you happiest dwelling in quiet solitude, or with, at most, another special friend, communing with flowers, worms, butterflies and other quiet things which tend not to argue back or give you grief? Then you need an introvert's garden.
Or do you think of a garden as a gathering place, where you can enjoy the company of others against a background of the scents and sounds of nature, slapping happily at mosquitoes and drowning out the perfume of lilies with barbecue smoke? Then you need an extrovert's garden.
Create your garden for the wrong personality type and you will never quite enjoy it. You will either find yourself languishing in solitude in your tranquil, shady haven when what you really crave is a party, or wishing you could vanish behind a too-small shrub because you crave peace and quiet and revelers have arrived again to hang out on your oh-so-inviting deck.. A garden's atmosphere can drop some heavy hints about what you appear to want from it, and from others. Create a garden, and you create a special kind of world with a special vocabulary. Make sure yours is speaking the right language.
Psychologists talk about extroversion and introversion not so much in terms of shyness or gregariousness as in terms of "our favorite world - that which energizes us." The introvert's favorite world is one that includes no more than two or three other kindred souls; solitude is a comfortable state as long as they are surrounded by things (or plants) that they treasure. The extrovert is energized by other people and enjoys the chaos of a constantly swirling, ever-changing parade of people and situations.
My husband is an extrovert; I am an introvert. Obviously, we need very different kinds of gardens. Even more obviously - and fortunately for our marriage - we are lucky to have a large enough yard to accommodate both styles very nicely.
Mine is a secret garden, surrounded by stone walls, and tall hedges. You must enter by going through a wrought iron gate that leads through a vine-covered arbor. There is a back way -actually, two back ways - but you would need to be an intrepid garden explorer, or have me take you on the whole garden tour to discover them. I don't point them out to just anyone.
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