Nested garden?

When I was a young man just old enough to ask interesting questions my father told me, " Life is like a garden and when we are young the garden is a small one contained safely behind the warm walls of our parents and our family and as we age these walls are replaced by the walls of our friendships and as we age further our jobs become the walls and at the final stages of our life our mortality becomes the walls.
I am glad I have seen some of the garden.