8 ways gardening has helped me to survive a rough patch

Sometimes, life is shit. There is no other way to say it. And let’s face it, a lot of the time, life is shit because people are shit. We are. Shit to ourselves, shit to others, shit to the world around us. Shit. But you know what isn’t shit? Gardening.

*Warning, in case you haven’t noticed, this post contains swearing, vague philosophical ramblings, some pessimism and some questionable theories on the nature of humanity. Don’t worry though, I never do these things without good reason. Read on*

Something incredible happened to me today. Something that taught me about the nature of the world around me, the nature of plants and wildlife and the environment I live in. Something small, something huge, something that shifted my whole perspective on a difficult situation. A lesson in getting through the tough times.

Let me set the scene. I had a bad year last year in many ways. Well, I say bad, it was in fact, a year littered with the most wonderful things that have ever happened to me. But in terms of my health, my garden and my heart for the garden, I had a very tough year. My plot bore the brunt of everything that happened in the rest of my life. I didn’t really bother much with it, not as much as I should have. I let it go to ruin.

I made bad choices. I invested my energy in to the wrong things when I should have reserved it for my garden. It only served to hurt my garden and myself in the long run.

I’ve written at length about not knowing how to begin again. How to start over and why the hell I should bother. I’ve been looking around my plot with despair, and sadness and with a sort of apathy. Why should I care about it anymore? Why don’t I just forget about it and move on? But of course, because it is an intrinsic part of who I am; I can not just give this up.

So, I decided to give it another shot. To maybe just try one more time to get it back to its former glory. Or better still, to take all the lessons it had taught me, and use them to tear it all the fuck down and begin all over again.

So, I began again. I spent two hours just beginning to pick up the pieces. I’ve begun to throw away the dead plants, the old plants, the old bits of wood, the twigs, the crap. I began to clean up my act.

And when I stood in my garden and looked around, among all the litter and chaos and destruction, I found something that made my heart skip a beat. I found a patch of crocuses that I planted three years ago that never grew before, and they were in full, glorious, delicate bloom.

Despite the snow storm, despite the neglect, despite the fact that I had never tended to them. Despite everything and against all the odds, there they were.  And I nearly wept. Not just because I’m a sap with too many feelings, but because I realised once again, that the greatest lessons we can learn about ourselves, we learn from nature. That we too can weather the storms. Plants and wildlife and the natural world have more to teach us about ourselves than we will ever know.

So, in an effort to quantify this somehow in a blog post – I’m attempting to marry the wonders of nature with some small words on a screen – I’m going to try to explain a few life lessons that my garden has taught me. Maybe it will help you if you are, like me, going through a rough patch. I’ve been thinking about all the amazing things that plants can teach us about ourselves and how to take those lessons and turn them to gold. How to fucking bloom.

Nature doesn’t give a shit about you

Sounds pessimistic right? It’s not. It’s revolutionary. Plants and wildlife are apathetic to anything else around them unless it concerns their own survival. They don’t care about you, they don’t care if you’re fat, thin, an asshole, gorgeous, ugly, a f**k up, a success, they don’t care if you’re a bad person or a good one.

And this realisation can turn your understanding of yourself and your place in the world on its head.

Think about it this way, you can literally be anything, or anybody or act any way, and you will still exist. When you are gardening, your personality, your mistakes, the things that you don’t like about yourself, the things you love about yourself, there is no place for them. None. You are simply part of something bigger than yourself. You can just be an organism, of little or no consequence. In a garden you are absolved of all your shit and (perhaps even better) everyone else’s too.

Enjoy!

You have a responsibility to the world around you and the world you build

All that being said, every thing you do impacts the world around you. Everything.

If you don’t look after your garden, it will not thrive. You can’t expect to put nothing in to something and then expect to get anything worthwhile out of it. Plants and nature will always be there, but if you are the one who planted the seed, you are the one who should tend to its needs.

I’m sure you’ve planted something before and forgotten to take care of it properly. You thought to yourself, “ah sure look, it’ll be fine, it won’t be the end of the world if it dies”.

No, it won’t, but you made its existence pointless, didn’t you?

Gardens are amazing spaces and we are their curators. We have a responsibility to the plants and the wildlife in them. We have a responsibility to how we treat everything and everyone in our lives too.

In essence,  don’t be a dick.

Only plant what you want to grow

Right, this is a pretty basic one. But, why bother planting peas if you don’t want peas? Why the hell would you put all that time and effort and love into something you have no intention to use?

Same goes for jobs, friendships, relationships, hobbies, your dinner, the clothes you buy. Stop chasing things you don’t actually want.

Mistakes are just mistakes

How many times have I written that I do not believe that there are mistakes in a garden? Well, I lied. Of course there are. You will spend your life in a garden making mistakes. But there is a difference between how you may feel about those mistakes and how those mistakes actually impact or hurt your garden.

Much like in the rest of your life, you will beat yourself up for your mistakes in your garden, you will. You will beat yourself up for your mistakes in life. You’ll ruminate on them, be sad about them, blame yourself. But here is the wonderful thing gardens teach us about mistakes: they cannot be undone so make your peace with them and move the on. Self-blame in a garden is pointless. You know why? Because it doesn’t change or fix anything. Accidentally kill a plant by not watering it? Well, learn from it and water the next one. Did your tomatoes die because you had them in the wrong environment? Well, they’re dead. End of. You won’t bring them back to life.

Yes, you f**ed up. Yes, it sucked. But yes, you have a chance to make it better.

Don’t equate mistakes to failure. In a garden or in your life.

Plants don’t waste their time on things that don’t benefit them

Plants and wildlife spend their lives searching for things that make them a success. Things that make them thrive. Plants don’t waste time on things that they don’t need. Plants only have use for things that sustain them. Water, nutrients, light and pollinators. Things that make them live and grow.

Humans do the opposite. We stew in guilt and resentment and sorrow. We let shame and regret eat us alive. We waste our time on things that don’t sustain us. We hurt ourselves in the long run. If you spend your life on things that do not sustain you, you will die.

Bleak? Nope, that right there is the opposite of bleak. That opens up space for hope.

Which brings me nicely to..

Gardening teaches you to hope

Have you ever sown a seed and not wanted it to grow?

Enough said.

Gardening teaches you patience

Gardening teaches you to breathe. To take a step back. Because no matter how much work you do, everything takes time to come to fruition. You’re not just going to plant a seed and poof, two seconds later have an apple.

Sometimes, you just have to wait and trust that the world has you right where you need to be.

Being buried does not mean you are dead

And maybe the most important lesson of all. Gardening has taught me that you can be up to your neck in dirt and turn it all around. You can be so deep under all the crap and mud that life slings at you that it seems like there’s no way out.

But what happens when you let in the things that will help you grow? What happens when you just let in a bit of water? Or warmth? Or light? Or hope, or love, or forgiveness or trust or patience or self-belief?

Your life can be a grave or a garden.

It can bury you. Or it can plant you.

It’s up to you to decide.