Except for agreeable but modest purchasing forays into garden supply and plant stores, I'm not at all fond of shopping. Even when it's basic necessities I'm buying, the excessive number of choices is uncomfortably distracting. A dozen incomprehensible variations, with new ones added regularly, to my brand of toothpaste is far, far more choice than I want or need.

Every trip through store aisles beside shelves groaning with largely superfluous "stuff" brings to mind lines from Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey: "The world is too much with us; late and soon,/ Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: / Little we see in Nature that is ours;/ We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!"

That feeling of worldweariness, for me, is effectively balanced out by time in the garden, which provides grounding and healing sanctuary for disillusioned spirits as well as for stressed minds and unfocussed hearts.

Here is a place to reclaim our mental and physical powers. Even a simple plot of favourite vegetables and flowers, unencumbered by extraneous expense or constraints of "design," is a significant creation. It yields pure food to eat, and blooms for colour, fragrance and nourishment for the soul.

A productive garden plot represents constant renewal and in that sense embodies the spirit of Easter. Tending such a garden is to become immersed in its measured rhythms -a pace that soothes and calms. Contact with the soil is good medicine.

Garden for relaxation. Garden for strengthening exercise. Garden for real food and beauty. Garden for a healing connection with the Earth.

Garden for sanity.

Without madness. If the general craziness of life is getting you down, consider planting sweet alyssum, a small and simple, historic annual flower whose name means "against rage or madness." Its common name is madwort.

The full Latin name is Alyssum maritimum, the descriptive term indicating a seaside plant. Alyssum is common beside the Mediterranean and is naturalized in many coastal locations.

In the language of flowers, sweet alyssum stands for "worth beyond beauty." For gardeners, that beyond-pretty worth is significant. Sweet alyssum is quick and easy to grow. The plants bloom in as little as six weeks from sowing, and transplants are easy to find wherever plants are sold.

The low, cushion-forming plants are handy for edging beds, for use as filler plants in containers and the open garden, for seeding over beds of spring-flowering bulbs and for rock gardens.

Best of all, alyssum is a favourite of bees and it is one of the very best plants for attracting and feeding beneficial insects, whose healthy populations help to keep gardens clean of insect pests. Alyssum is especially effective at attracting aphid predators and parasites.

White sweet alyssum seeds itself modestly in my garden, and on warm, sunny days I love the rich honey perfume the plants release into the air. Alyssum is available in colour mixtures with pinks and violet-purple. I'm growing a new alyssum I found listed in the Chiltern Seeds catalogue. Easter Bonnet Violet is a deep violet alyssum that is both a Fleuroselect and a Royal Horticultural Society Award of Merit winner.

Easter. A very happy Easter to all my gardening friends. Enjoy your gardens on this holiday weekend as you participate in creating and renewing life.

hchesnut@bcsupernet.com