Tiger Garden's Mission Statement & Name Origin

Helen at Gardening with Confidence wrote a post on her garden's mission statement and the name of her garden. I suspect many gardeners' mission statements will look similar to Helen's, as it is an admirable one indeed. In fact, my mission statement is very similar.

After reading Helen's thought provoking post I really got to thinking about the purpose and mission of my garden, the entire thing. What a hard thing to really peg down! You see purposes and missions are not always the same thing.

That being said, I think I have my garden's mission down to a workable mission statement. It is as follows:

Tiger Garden's mission is to be a cohesive, sustainable community of living and non-living elements working together in harmony to provide the best possible living area and enjoyment for its residents.

Mission statements are not an easy thing to write. If they were there would not be as many college and Army leadership classes as there are to try to teach folks how to write mission statements. You see, a mission statement should be very succinct (straight to the point and concise). It should not be so long as to bore one to death, and it really should be easy to remember. Given these constraints, how does one sum up an entire garden in a mission statement? It can be done, but it will take some serious thought, and why not?

I first looked at the purposes or objectives of my garden. There are many purposes and many roles the garden serves for my family so I will sum them up in one long list:

Here are some purposes and objectives of my garden:
To make me happy
To provide privacy
To provide lots of color
To reduce maintenance
To beautify my home
To work with the environment
To recycle both household and garden wastes
To reduce erosion and runoff
To provide fresh food for our family and friends
To teach others
To showcase diversity
To create a living community amongst plants, insects and wildlife
To leave a legacy for anyone who wants to take it over

You can see how many purposes and objectives my garden has in my humble opinion, but how did I arrive at its mission?

I was taught in business school that a good mission statement represents the purpose of something (usually an enterprise) in the broadest sense it can. The mission statement should be meaningful. My mission statement (for my purposes) describes what my garden does and why. It does not include my vision for the garden; which is totally different from a mission statement. For instance, my last purpose listed above says, "To leave a legacy for anyone who wants to take it over." This is a vision or goal if you will, and not a mission of my garden. This is where I see my garden going someday. It is not what the garden does. What does the garden do besides serving purposes?

In simple terms I can easily sum up the above purposes by this statement:

Provide a sustainable community for all living creatures.

Why does the garden do this?

Because it is best for the enjoyment of life, mine and my family's, and our pets, as well as all living things that coexist with us in the garden.

When I put the two above statements together, I come up with the mission statement as outlined in red at the start of this post.

This is clearly the mission of my garden, no matter the purposes and goals I have listed. The way Tiger Gardens will accomplish its mission is summed up daily with posts from....In the Garden.

One of the best pictures I could use to sum up the 'sustainable community' part of my garden's mission statement is the one I posted. Look closely and you will see a spider resting in the zinnia-a perfect community in harmony.

And for those of you who do not know where the name of our gardens comes from and who might be interested, it is an amalgamation of my first name and my husband's first name. Mine is Tina, Mr. Fix-it's is Roger, hence TIGER when you put the two parts together, just like we are in marriage.

Do check out Helen for more mission statements and names and give it a try yourself.

in the garden....