There are people who have gardens and then there are gardeners
There are people who have gardens. And then there are gardeners.
People who have gardens enjoy them from a distance. Gardeners, meanwhile, are out there at 7am in their pyjamas, arguing with a rose bush and wondering how their life came to this.
This is why gardeners don’t need therapists. We’ve accidentally built our own. When things go wrong in life - and they do, relentlessly - we don’t book appointments. We wander outside, stare at the ground, and start pulling things out that didn’t ask to be pulled. It’s cheaper, there’s no waiting list, and no one asks how that makes you feel.
Take infertility, for example. We had three years of it. Three long, emotionally draining years where everyone else seemed to be announcing pregnancies while we were announcing a newly renovated toilet. Through all of it, the garden was there. Plants grew. Things flowered. Something in our life responded positively to attention, which was frankly refreshing.
Then we had children. Nineteen years of them…and counting.
This is nature’s little joke. The stress of not having children is neatly replaced by the stress of having them, except louder, stickier, and with significantly more opinions. Once again, the garden stepped up. Because when you’ve spent the day negotiating with teenagers, it’s deeply soothing to deal with organisms that don’t talk back.
Careers, jobs, deadlines, general life pressure - the garden has seen it all. When work stress gets too much, you don’t need a motivational podcast. You need to deadhead something aggressively. Preferably something that looks like it deserves it.
Gardens also trick you into doing all the things you’re supposedly meant to do for your mental health. Fresh air. Sunlight. Exercise. Mindfulness. You think you’re just “checking on something,” and suddenly you’ve been outside for an hour, sweating, breathing deeply, and forgetting about your inbox entirely.
And then there are the BAAAAD days. The days when you are one minor inconvenience away from flipping a table. Those are heavy-duty garden days.
That’s when you take power tools outside. Or a shovel. Or a pickaxe, if the situation is particularly serious. You can hack, smash, dig, and mutter darkly while the garden absorbs your rage without judgement. You can swear at it. It will not be offended. It will not suggest journalling.
Afterwards, you feel better. Tired. Dirty. But better.
That’s the quiet genius of a garden. There’s always something to do. Something to fix. Something that needs you - but in a way that doesn’t involve emails, expectations, or emotional conversations.
So no, I don’t need a therapist. I have a garden. It listens. It keeps secrets.
And if necessary, it lets me dig holes until I calm down.
Did you know?
Most people think sunflowers spend their entire lives faithfully following the sun across the sky. In reality, that's only true when they're young. As sunflower buds grow, they track the sun from east to west each day, but once the flower matures it essentially settles down, stops moving, and spends the rest of its life facing east. Scientists from the journal Science discovered that this isn't laziness - east-facing flowers warm up earlier in the morning and attract significantly more pollinators. So while young sunflowers chase the sun, mature ones seem to have worked out that it's easier to let the bees come to them.
What’s new on Behind the Garden Gate this week?
🌱Nitty Gritty: Is your local garden centre trying to rip you off? I used to think so. Now I know better.
😩Feature Plant: this week it’s all about when your feature plant goes wrong. I speak from experience here, and as usual, I end up learning the hard way.