Gardening, not architecture

Gardening, not architecture. This phrase is written all over my internet presence. It’s on my instagram bio, it’s on my Strava, it’s now living here, on our blog. When I first heard it, it sounded like such a simple concept, hidden in a simple but somehow complex phrase. Gardening… not architecture. What does that mean?

First things first – where did I hear it? Have you ever watched the ‘Explained’ series on Netflix? It’s a group of shows all titled ‘something’ explained. I am a sucker for well-done documentaries and especially of  documentaries about cults, so when they announced The Mind Explained, I knew I’d be into it. 

Flash forward to the episode about creativity – Brian Eno does an exercise with people he’s collaborating on music with, where they choose a card from a box and do it what it says. One of those cards is ‘Gardening, not architecture’. 

So, what does that mean, exactly? Well, gardening by nature is planting seeds and encouraging them to grow by watering them, keeping out the local neighborhood rabbits, putting them somewhere with lots of sunlight. When you plant something, you don’t know exactly how it will turn out. I’m sure you can picture what you think it will look like, especially if it’s a certain bulb or seed you’ve planted. But you can never be certain what will end up within your garden bed.

And architecture is the practice of meticulously planning out a way to build. Knowing exactly the measurements, angles, materials, and other things that are necessary in designing and building a home or structure. You take lots of time to think about every which way something could go, and eventually land on the correct one for your project.

So, with these things in mind, gardening not architecture is a little like a choose your own adventure. Plop some seeds down and see what happens, don’t stifle it by planning every single detail.

Here at recreative, I like to think that we do this on purpose. Unfortunately, that is not the case. More often than not I am gardening, but I’m gardening because we don’t focus on our own identity enough. The hardest thing in business, especially when your business caters to others, is to focus on yourselves for a minute.

Over the past two years, with the help of Kaitlyn, I have been able to focus more on my own business. But I’d like to take this approach more often, and more intentionally. Put down the beginnings of an idea, start to work on it, and see what blooms.

Now that it’s 2026, that seemed like a natural moment to take this into consideration a bit more.

New year, new garden plot, if you will. There’s something about turning the calendar that makes you want to clear out the weeds and start fresh. So this year, I’m committing to the garden. Not with a rigid plan or a perfectly architected strategy, but with intention. We’re going to plant more ideas for ourselves—some might be blog posts like this one, some might be passion projects we’ve been putting off, some might be experiments that don’t work out at all. And that’s okay. Because the whole point of gardening is that you don’t know what you’ll get until you give it a chance to grow.

We’re done waiting for the perfect conditions, the perfect plan, the perfect moment when we finally have time to focus on ourselves. We’re planting seeds now and seeing what takes root. And if you’re running a business that’s always focused outward, always serving others, maybe this is your reminder to do the same. Grab your metaphorical gardening gloves. Get your hands dirty. See what grows.