The garden is a metaphor for so much in life. Resiliency, personal growth, nurturing—yes, but it’s not all sweetness and light. It’s the height of the season, so what better time then to connect life in the garden with the often ugly, unforgiving, brutal world of business.

Yes, gardening is supposed to be a time of disconnection. However, when I come back from being outside, these connections between hands in the dirt—and hands-on business behavior—are top of mind. It’s a sickness I have come to accept. I’m stuck with a parallel mind, and I see everything in a business and branding context. To have fun with Maslow, give a child a hammer, and everything is a marketing plan for a new nail company. What’s more, given that I am on the board of Scotts Miracle-Gro, I know a bit about the subject. Have the courage to prune Every gardener knows that if you let your rhododendron grow without intervention, it will eventually require hard pruning that will leave the shrub lumpy, stumpy, and ugly for a couple of years. To avoid this tragic outcome, you must keep your clippers at the ready.

The lesson: pretty damn obvious. Don’t let your organization become overgrown. Sometimes, you have to prune the oldest branches to force healthy new growth from the inside. Sometimes, nurturing means elimination. Make a clean cut Use a sharp clipper. A dull one will make a ragged cut, which crushes plant tissue and leaves behind a cut that takes longer to heal and allows disease to enter. Sharp blades encourage growth, which helps seal the wound. The lesson: When you have to cut people, it’s always a mistake to have them hang around. Be swift and sharp. Lingering allows disease to enter the body of the company. Transitions are always harder prospectively than they are in reality.

Cut your losses In early spring, plants can look dead but spring back to life as the days lengthen and the soil warms. But sometimes dead is dead. The lesson: Most people don’t enjoy the act of firing someone, which is why it is now so often done by email. But the goodness of human nature isn’t good for you, the company, or the object of your beneficence. The twice-as-big rule Dig a hole twice as big as the plant. That allows for the roots to spread freely from the root ball, which lets them take up nutrients for healthy growth. Otherwise, what happens is a kind of slow strangulation.

The lesson: Before starting something new—product development, launching a new business unit—you must create the organizational space to allow it to take hold and succeed. Watch for weeds that look like plants My garden is overrun with weeds that look like phlox, and that’s just one example among many of camouflage. This is not unusual; the weeds that survived are those that evolved to hide. The same with animals. You need to be a careful weeder to find the enemy and spare the phlox. Oh, and don’t forget that poison ivy looks like regular ivy, too.

The lesson: Sounds rough, but gardening, like business, requires a sharp eye and the willingness to pull out pretenders. There are people in your organization right now who are hiding behind those who do the hard work. Remote work makes them harder to spot. There are also toxic people who pretend to be great collaborators. Keep your people plot weeded and wear protective gloves when required. Don’t give up because something perished the first time If you tried to establish delphinium and failed miserably, don’t be discouraged. Analyze what went wrong: Both underwatering and overwatering can kill off this splendid but persnickety perennial. Beauty is all about balance. The lesson: There is danger in listening to those who said, “We tried that before, and it didn’t work.” Don’t be afraid of past failures, but don’t rush headlong into another Afghanistan, either.

Experts can be wrong There’s a whole body of advice about which hydrangeas bloom on “new wood”—meaning branches produced during the season—versus “old wood”—those produced during the previous year. In violent disagreement with the experts, I pruned my oak leaf hydrangeas this spring, and the blooms are extravagant proof that the mavens can be wrong. The lesson: Business books can only get you so far; sometimes, you need to put them aside and make your own informed decision based on instinct, judgment, and context.

Avoid monocultures Farmers and gardeners know that planting the same crop of soybeans or a raised bed of just one vegetable can spell disaster. Soil gets degraded. Pests and diseases salivate over being able to wipe out an entire area with no resistance. Without getting into the DEI controversy, there is no doubt that biodiversity matters. The lesson: Make sure that you don’t just hire people from different backgrounds, but that you create cultural chaos with those who think differently, work differently, sleep differently, and challenge you differently. Water in the morning Gardens do better when you dry out water in the morning because the H2O has a shot at soaking into the soil, and reaching the roots, before the scorch of the day causes rapid evaporation. It also gives plant foliage a chance to dry, reducing the risk of fungi.

The lesson: It’s not that different for people. In general, studies show that attention, executive function, and decision-making are at their peak between 10 and 12 for most adults. Consider this when you brief, direct, and inspire your teams. Plant pollinators The flowers of plant pollinators—and the pollen and nectar they produce—feed the bees, butterflies, and other flying critters who play a vital role in the environment. Be a good citizen of the planet and plant a pollinator’s equivalent of an Applebee’s all-you-can-eat buffet. (I allow myself only one gardening pun.) The lesson: Find the innovators who are natural pollinators and fill your company with them. They will create food that feeds not just their business, but the entire organization. Ideas are pollen that drifts across marketing, sales, finance, and yes, even legal.

Baby the babies New plants dry out faster than mature ones. They need special attention. The lesson: New ideas are easily killed by the Deep Corporate State. They are vulnerable. After they are planted, you must protect them. I’m sure that with these takeaways firmly planted in your brain, your weekends will make your Mondays far more productive, informed by the sometimes ruthless world of your backyard.

The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.