I didn’t expect… taking up gardening to teach me this

What transforming my garden has taught me

Photo by Conner Baker on Unsplash

This piece started life as a project for a writing course I am doing with the lovely and talented Jessica Rose Williams. Jess has inspired me to progress my writing and I’m so grateful to her. She read a draft of this piece so thank you to Jess, for your feedback and wonderful insights.

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The space wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t cared for. Think rocky, weedy, bare, and sad. That was my garden until September 2021. That was the first time I got into gardening. My already green-fingered sister offered to help me transform my unkempt patch of new-build land and I was delighted. I had thought of gardening as an activity for our parents, not us. I didn’t see the relevance of it to my life. 

The back garden started out as a small square area of patchy grass with a rain-stained patio. There was an old washing line from the previous owners of the house and that was it. No plants (unless weeds count…), no pots, no colour, no life. The front garden was a little the opposite. The vegetation was so overgrown that it encroached onto the path and across the front door. We used to call it the ‘alien plant’ because of the way it grew rapidly and invaded our space. (I now know this plant to be a euphorbia and I feel bad for calling it an alien, it’s actually quite beautiful when under control). 

Before… Ok, so I did have one plant. But my sister bought it for me!

We set to work, in between lockdowns taking advantage of being allowed to meet outside. We dug, we pulled up weeds, we installed a raised bed in the back, we painted fences, we jet-washed the patio. I started watching Gardeners’ World for the first time and I visited a garden centre to buy plants based entirely on Monty’s advice. I devoured books about gardening and learnt a whole new language - perennials, annuals, hardy, tender - and many a plant name that I like to impress my husband with whenever we go out (‘Oh look at that nice agapanthus!’ Cue blank look from husband). I loved being able to learn this whole new world and immersed myself in it as a useful distraction from the rest of life. 

I planted my first bulbs and potted my first seeds. There is something so simple yet magical about this process. Initially selecting which you’d like, perusing the garden centre shelves for the raw materials that you’d like to see bloom in your own garden, like I would have done shopping for clothes in days gone by. (Oh how different being nearly 40 is to being 20!). Then to rush home and get them in the ground. 

I set up an amateur potting area in my garage using an old table that used to be my Nan’s - boy, was she a great gardener so this seemed apt. The grey formica table is nothing special, but she used to keep her art supplies and watercolour paintings on it in her living room so it reminds me of her. She passed away in 2019 at 93 so I miss her presence and solid gardening advice. Setting up on this table, I’d dig my hand into the fresh new bag of compost, fill the pots or seed trays, and then bed my new bulbs and seeds in.

I placed the seed trays in the conservatory making a pseudo-greenhouse, much to the distaste of my two cats who own this room (if you’re also a cat’s human, you know). I watered and I waited. And I waited some more. Until one day, a small green shoot emerged from the soil. Hello little seedling, welcome to the world! Outside, I had to wait a little longer for the bulbs to pop up and the flowers to burst into colour. For some, it wasn’t to be. None of the daffodils I planted flowered this spring, which was disappointing and confusing.

After shot of the back garden - my little reading corner.

That first season of gardening taught me a lot, practically and otherwise. Nature will be what it wants to be. A little planning and pruning helps, sure. But ultimately, nature decides what will grow, when, and how much. The fertility journey is a lot like this. We can diligently plan, prepare, and carry out an IVF cycle, but sometimes it doesn’t work (well, 70% of the time actually - IVF is far from a guarantee of a baby). It’s impossibly hard to surrender to that. I am most definitely not saying that nature decides IVF success (the WORST thing someone can say after a failed cycle is ‘it wasn’t meant to be’), but it helps me not to blame myself by making this comparison to gardening. The daffodils didn’t yield bright yellow heads this year because I am a terrible human being, am being punished, or am not deserving of any flowers! It’s just how it went this year.

Gardening also taught me that the right conditions are a crucial factor in a plant thriving. As a highly sensitive person (HSP), this is a lifelong lesson for me. I have developed the awareness that busy, hectic places do not suit me, and that I prefer social events with one person at a time rather than big groups. I need a balance of restorative, slow exercise and not cardio all the time. I am curating the right conditions for myself to thrive in life. 

My zinnias, cat mint, and asters this year.

In 2023 the garden is still going strong. This year my veg growing started and I have had a roaring success with lettuce. The cosmos haven’t flowered this year, which is baffling, but I am on tenterhooks for a riot of yellow from my sunflowers which are set to burst out from their buds any day now. I even attended the Chelsea Flower Show this year, at which I felt like a wildly inferior gardener, but I soaked up the passion from others for this wonderful pastime. I frequently sit in my bright blue bucket chair, looking at my creation, welcoming the buzzing bees, and quite literally, smelling the roses. Long may it continue.