Many of you will be familiar with some version of the Chinese proverb, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now.” While motivating for some, the saying also feels reductive, as if there’s nothing in between the opportunity you didn’t take twenty years ago and the small opportunistic window of right now. In reality, opportunity, creativity, and progress follow a far more non-linear timeline, one I believe we should support in gentle, non-linear ways. 

“In reality, opportunity, creativity, and progress follow a far more non-linear timeline, one I believe we should support in gentle, non-linear ways.”

That’s why I love my “idea garden,” a beautiful new quiet trend that encourages us to create a dedicated area for our ideas and goals, so that we can tend to them like plants in a garden. It’s also a timely activity — perfect for cultivating those late-winter-into-spring feelings of rebirth, renewal, and inspiration. 

In essence, an idea garden is simple: A space to house your ideas and check in on them, developing them as they progress into more fully formed entities. Your idea garden can be a physical place like a file, a drawer, or a shallow box; or it can be a digital one, like a folder on your computer or a notes app file on your iPhone. Your idea garden’s foundation begins with this space, an entry point for the collection of the ideas that flow through your conscious mind, right now. In my opinion, it should be a sacred space — perhaps even secret — to make sure your garden feels like your own judgment-free world, keeping your ideas protected and safe.

Then, it’s time to plant your garden with seeds: kernels of images, words, newspaper clippings, photos, written-out notions, and documents that inspire you, that have larger ideas (or potentially larger ideas) behind them. They can be goal-oriented, aesthetic, conceptual, or a little of all three. Whatever you decide to be a seed in your idea garden, is, in fact, the perfect seed for your idea garden. 

How to plan your idea garden

Unsure of what seeds to plant? Don’t overthink it. In fact, the less you think about what “should” go in there, the better. Look around your world. What strikes you, conceptually, and why? What words do you use frequently, and how do they make you feel? What quote motivates you to finish that project, and how do you feel when you read it? What part of nature fills you with awe? What piece of journalism or book do you keep re-reading, and what does it bring up for you? When you think about your inner happiness, what do you visualize? All of these questions are starting points for where you can find fertile, healthy seeds for your idea garden.  

“When you think about your inner happiness, what do you visualize?”

Whatever they are and wherever they come from, these seeds should excite you to your very core, and should be things you think about often and long to nurture. Like actual seeds, you can immediately see some type of potential, or imagine what they might grow into. It should feel electrifying and fun; ideally, you will feel delight in the possibility of what fruit or blooms these seeds might someday produce. 

Some things you decide to include in your garden might have longer explanations; for others, the answer might be, “just because.” Trust yourself in knowing why you’ve chosen these seeds — because you see their potential. Once you have some good seeds, start populating your young garden with them. Find a way to date and label however you like, separating them so you know exactly where they are. Like a garden, you’ll need to know what idea exists where, in order to better nurture the seeds to growth. 

“Whatever they are and wherever they come from, these seeds should excite you to your very core, and should be things you think about often and long to nurture.”

Author and fellow idea gardener Charlie Gilkey wrote in his article, “Why You Need an Idea Garden,” that he created a digital file with a brief summary of what he was thinking when he “planted” one of his seeds. The summary of his seed is the phrase, “the tension between incubating ideas and dwelling upon them.” The seed itself is a paragraph about this topic, specifically exploring the paradox of holding on or letting go of an idea. 

He writes, “There’s a very delicate balance between giving some time for incubating ideas and dwelling upon them for too long. If you try to push the idea out before it’s ready, it lacks the richness of a well-formed idea. On the other hand, if you hold on it too long, it loses its power and can become forgotten. Learn how long to hold onto an idea before sharing it — because great ideas are a social product.”

Clearly, this concept is one Gilkey had been ruminating on for a bit, but he needed to articulate it and garden it before he could figure out what the seed could become. So, you get your garden ready, find your seed, and then plant them. 

But that’s just the beginning. 

Tending to your idea garden

Once all your seeds are rooted in your idea garden, put it someplace accessible, but not where you’re tempted to linger. Someplace beautiful and sunny is preferred, but not required (especially if it’s digital). Like a regular garden, you don’t want your idea garden in your way, but close by for (semi-easy) access.

Then, you stay away from the garden. I mean it! Let what seeds you’ve planted sit. Let your brain think on them independently, not looking directly at the garden, not messing with it, nothing. Give it at least a month of existing on its own before you revisit it and see where your seeds are at. When you do, you’ll be surprised at how much differently you interact with your seeds and how much they’ve grown and evolved already, without any intervention. Some of your seeds might not even be recognizable as a compelling idea anymore — others might feel more vibrant than ever. 

“Like a regular garden, you don’t want your idea garden in your way, but close by for (semi-easy) access.”

Now you’ll prepare for the “watering” phase. First, you create a schedule, a time to go back to your garden and work with each of your seeds. Pick the same time every week, two weeks, or month to do this — whatever feels less obligatory and more compelling or intriguing. This watering is a kind of visitation, like with plants, you’ll have to keep it consistent in order to see results. 

On the first watering day, you’ll come armed with something to write with. It can be your laptop, a pad, or Post-Its; often, it’s whatever you used to originally catalog your seeds. You’ll mark this watering’s date, and, one by one, go through each of your seeds, freewriting or creatively brainstorming on that specific one. This could look many ways — for Gilkey, it could be a document that gets longer and collects more thoughts. But it could also be a homemade photo collage based on one of the seeds, a drawing, or an object collected that feels like an expansion of your initial seed, one that you leave in your idea garden during that watering (that’s important, leave the product of the watering IN the garden, where it belongs). Some seeds you may not feel compelled to water at all, and will choose to skip until the next watering or let alone entirely. It doesn’t matter, as long as it feels like you’re following some of the seeds’ growth.  

As you continue to do this, you’ll see the idea garden evolve just as a physical garden would. Some ideas thrive immediately, growing organically and furiously. Other ideas wither or stagnate, and might eventually lie dormant in the garden. Some seeds, at a certain point, are even plucked out for new ideas to be planted. However your idea garden evolves, it becomes a living, breathing library of your metamorphosing ideas, a place where you can actually chart your ideas’ growth and progress, watering to watering.  

If you’d like, you can give yourself a “harvest time,” a time when you can take your seeds and their attached content and growth and graduate them to creative projects or activities. You can also keep growing your seeds, using the process itself as inspiration. Even still, you could start over, using the idea garden itself as an exercise in idea generation.

Why it works

For Gilkey, his initial idea became his seed, which became his article. He then retired his initial seed in a “completed posts” folder. But the fruits of an idea garden can range widely from person to person, garden to garden, even idea to idea. The possibilities are powerful and limitless; the process truly reflects the love and care so many put into physical gardens.

“It employs the principles of structure, preparation, and incubation, three things crucial to the human process of creation.”

So, why does the idea garden work so well? Because it employs the principles of structure, preparation, and incubation, three things crucial to the human process of creation. First, the idea garden has a concrete structure. While flexible, it is designed by you and both consistent and easy to execute once conceptualized. Second, you have to create time to prepare and set up your idea garden. It’s the hardest part of the process, really, gathering all your seeds…but once that’s done, the incubation period begins, allowing you the time to tend to your garden without much work or pressure, other than building upon the work you’ve already done. 

Idea gardens are popping up in many creative circles, but are they here to stay? One can only hope. It’s a thought-provoking, gentle, and generative process. For me, it has been a supremely safe space to play and explore, a hub for emergent ideas to grow and to thrive. Like a physical garden, an idea garden has to be the right fit for you…but when it is, it can be magic.

Rebecca Leib is a writer, podcaster, and comedian who’s appeared in the AV Club, Bustle, and Marie Clare. Her writing is in VICE, Reductress, LAist, Los Angelino, LA WEEKLY, Art Etc. and on NatGeo, NBC + NBC Digital, Disney, Investigation Discovery, and CBS. Most recently, she worked as a writer/producer on National Geographic’s “Brain Games” reboot with Keegan Michael Key. Check out her comedy/history podcast, “Ghost Town,” and find her on Instagram and X at @RebeccaLeib.