3rd October 2025
My other half thinks I have been taken over by a Triffid. Where is the automaton who casually tramples over plants and pulls leaves off trees oblivious to the destruction. Instead she has been replaced with a wannabe earth mother. Floating through her garden, caressing flowers and whispering sweet nothings to her freshly planted trees urging them to live. Ughhh. Even I am confused at this hackneyed persona. I didn’t ask for it, I was very happy with me. But poof, the metamorphosis has been out of my control.
The obsession humans have with gardening and their gardens is mystifying. Logically this preoccupation serves scant purpose. It achieves little in our fight for survival. Each year rolls into the next. Stops – repeats. We manicure grass on a patch of ground. Its borders are interlaced with flowers and plants with an undertaking and a prayer: I furnish you with my industriousness so please may I be rewarded with a flourishing territory. Then with equal zeal you must subdue back into dirt to ensure your pledge to nature is not ruptured. Stop- repeat.
I feel I have earned the right to call myself a gardener and hence justification to ponder this inexplicable pastime without causing offence. I wouldn’t say gardening is mindless, instead it is all absorbing. It necessitates focussing your mind on the intertwining of nurture and challenge. It’s a chance to create life and beauty from nothing – who wouldn’t feel transcendent in that achievement. But nature is skilled in conspiring against the best laid plans and challenge lies in Gaia’s unpredictability. A gardener is always mindful failure lurks close by, even taking the handle of the trowel as we amicably toil in blissful denial. You only accept this exquisite torture when you have been both humbled and praised by mother nature otherwise it is just maltreatment in action.
‘Nothing will cure you of perfectionism faster than trying to grow living things’ – Vox.com
Despite my earlier comments, for some of us it seems we cannot get away from our underlying nature when it comes to gardening. Do not fall into the trap of believing this world is gentle and harmonious; tension abounds. Because even a gardener can be competitive about moulding their wayward juveniles into fully fledged teenagers. Desperate for success we aim to coerce our proteges and march the well trodden gardening paths of those who have come before. Turning weedy bits of green into vibrant and proud flora, we take deep pride in our green fingers and pity those with skinny accomplishments. Our snideness is not pretty.
But there are other reasons humans are enthused about gardening. The ritualistic steps we undertake as a gardener – digging, watering, pruning for example – can take us away from everyday stresses. Though curiously how we approach this has been observed differently for men and women. According to the Royal Horticultural Society, ‘Men are much more about control in the garden. Women are much happier to experiment, to let things develop of their own accord, to delight in self-seeding and to want things to be less formal’. In addition to the benefit of routine, research indicates the bacteria and microbes in soil can act similarly to anti-depressants and gardening requires physical activity without the pain of the gym.
A headline in The Conversation caused me to pause recently – my gardening could be making history which puts a whole new spin on my trifling pastime. It said ‘Flowers may be more ancient than dinosaurs’. In essence it was suggesting flowering plants (angiosperms) are one of the most successful (not oldest) evolutionary organisms on the planet. Fossils indicate adaptation over millions of years (150-190m) to what we see this day. And can you fathom there are trees alive today at thousands of years of age which would make them older than the Egyptian pyramids. Facts like that make my head spin. Perhaps this gardening lark is cooler than we think…
By now you are ready to puke. Who is this person writing with such saccharine. Please don’t worry. I’m still in here. I may have added a new persona but in my garden, the grouchy intolerant loon appears regularly. Brandishing her death threats to all slugs and weeds she isn’t beyond throwing a few of the slimy kind over into the neighbours garden when they are being pesky…..who says a wannabe earth mother has to play fair….?
Curiosity and the rascal 