Sangha of Auspicious Companions

Peaceful Flower Garden Becomes a Free ‘You Pick’ Haven

After wildfires and flooding tore through her northern Arizona community, Cindy Wilson faced a choice about the flowers she had planned to sell: hold on to what she’d built, or open her gate. She opened it, inviting displaced neighbors to her backyard garden on Butterfly Lane, “hoping that I could just bring a bit of kindness and maybe a little joy.” What began as a retirement hobby has since grown into weekly “you-pick” events, where strangers wander rows of blooms, fill wicker baskets, and leave with handwrapped bouquets, all free of charge. There is something quietly instructive in the way Wilson’s garden took its true shape not from a plan but from a disaster, as if generosity needed loss to find its direction. Each summer, when the bell rings and the gate swings open, the Garden House on Butterfly Lane becomes a small, sturdy argument that giving that which we could have kept for ourselves multiplies its meaning and deepens our interconnections in perpetuity.

Be The Change

Gift someone a flower or a small act of care today.