Our botanical garden has a section of beds that are planted with a different theme each year — this year’s version being Games People Play. Each of the gardens uses flowers to represent a familiar pastime representing such games as Candyland, Minecraft, and Duck Duck Goose. Examples include alternating red and black flowers to form a living checkerboard, marigolds in even rows to serve as a football field, battleships hidden amongst the flowers, and impatiens encircling a rose bush to depict Ring Around the Rosie.
If you walked through the section without realizing an underlying theme, the gardens would not seem to fit together. There were dozens of plant varieties, multiple colors, and seemingly incongruous layouts. But once you recognize the connection, all the beds tie together nicely and use flowers to tell a story.
The human mind likes patterns and a good theme delivers them, thus is its power. Themes are the throughline — the thread that brings cohesion to elements that would otherwise appear random. They provide a beautiful blend of coherence and individuality, simultaneously creating focus and latitude.
Whether you are planting gardens, hosting a party, writing an annual report, or preparing a speech, ensure that you have a theme that provides a logical framework sprinkled with a creative surprise or two. Connect those dots!
