The Perelandra Coning: From nature's perspective, a garden is any environment that is initiated by humans, given its purpose and direction by humans and maintained with the help of humans. For nature to consider something to be a garden, we must see humans actively involved in all three of these areas. It is the human who calls for a garden to exist. Once the call is made, nature responds accordingly to support that defined call because a garden exists through the use of form.
Humans tend to look at gardens as an expression of nature. Nature looks at gardens as an expression of humans. They are initiated, defined and maintained by humans. When humans dominate all aspects and elements of the life of the garden, we consider this environment to be human dominant. We consider an environment to be "nature friendly" when humans understand that the elements used to create gardens are form and operate best under the laws of nature, and when humans have the best intentions of trying to cooperate with what they understand these laws to be. When humans understand that nature is a full partner in the design and operation of that environment — and act on this knowledge — we consider the environment to be actively moving toward a balance between involution (nature) and evolution (human).
As a result, this last environment supports and adds to the overall health and balance of all it comprises and the larger whole. It also functions within the prevailing laws of nature (the laws of form) that govern all form on the planet and in its universe. In short, when a garden operates in balance between involution and evolution, it is in step with the overall operating dynamics of the whole. The various parts that comprise a garden operate optimally, and the garden as a whole operates optimally.
Nature does not consider the cultivation of a plot of land as the criteria for a garden. Nature considers a garden to exist wherever humans define, initiate and interact with form to create a specialized environment. This is the underlying intent of a garden and the reason behind the development of specialized environments such as vegetable gardens. Nature applies the word "garden" to any environment that meets these criteria. It does not have to be growing in soil. It only needs to be an environment that is defined, initiated and appropriately maintained by humans.
This is what nature means when it uses the word "garden." The laws and principles that nature applies in the co-creative vegetable garden are equally applicable to any garden, whether it is growing in soil or otherwise. In order to understand why the processes described in the two Perelandra Garden Workbooks apply to any "garden," one must understand how nature defines a garden. The principles and processes apply across the board because all gardens are operating with the same dynamics — only the specific form elements that make up each garden have changed.