Biodynamic Research Bulletin: Planting Times for Trees and Perennials
by Malcolm Gardner
Revised April 19, 2020
Time-sensitive bulletin highlighting a series of fairly rare astronomical configurations favorable for planting all kinds of trees and perennials.
In his course of lectures that inaugurated the biodynamic agricultural movement in 1924, Rudolf Steiner described how plant growth is dependent not only on the soil, the weather and the sun, but also on the moon, the planets and the stars. The earth is immersed, as it were, in an ocean of celestial influences that are more subtle but no less important than the physical influences of the earth. Steiner suggested not only that seed germination is promoted by the influence of the full moon—i.e., by the moon’s reflection of the forces of the sun—but also that the subsequent stages of plant growth are promoted by the influences of the other planets. Thus he says in his first agricultural lecture that plants with short life spans—i.e., annual plants—are related to the near planets with short orbital periods, i.e., to Mercury and Venus as well as the moon. On the other hand, Steiner relates plants with long life spans—i.e., trees and perennials—to the distant planets, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, which have multi-year orbital periods.....