Beautiful Things to Come

I had a friend ask me recently why I garden. “Why do you garden the way you do? I understand it’s therapeutic and that you love it but why so intensely?”

I have to admit I was taken aback. I found myself struggling to find the answer. My response was, “it’s a compulsion. I am a compulsive gardener.” If I am honest, somewhere in the recesses of my mind I have asked myself the same question many times. There are moments when I find gardening to be frustrating and exhausting. I worry over seedlings and fuss when they are first placed in the ground. The days are spent planting, weeding, watering, deadheading and eventually seed collecting. My hands are covered in dirt more often than not but, gardening is simply something I must do.

For me, there is a sense of comfort in the act of gardening. Planning, seed ordering and plant purchasing. Tucking the seeds into trays and giving them just what they need to germinate, grow and thrive, eventually planting them out into the warm soil. The purchase of a new rose or perennial being placed into its new home, fed, watered and tended until at last they grace us with their blooms, fragrance and fruit.

Preparation of the soil is for this gardener, very satisfying. The scent of well rotted compost and the connection made with the earth when it is added to the soil feels earthy and primal. Witnessing the change over the years as the compost breaks down the hard clay creating soft, crumbly, richly scented organic matter. Each growing season adding more, replenishing the soil, giving back what we have taken.

Gardening is cyclical and never really reaches an end point. The seasons dictating what garden tasks must be done in order to be ready for the next season. If we are to have beautiful flourishing roses in the months of May and June, trimming and pruning are best done in January/February. If our greatest hope is to have billowing Ammi, trailing Sweet Peas and the loveliest Larkspur it is essential the seeds are sown in Autumn or January. So, for this passionate gardener, gardening is year round and I can’t imagine otherwise.

Planting and tending to a garden truly is the promise of beautiful things to come.

Wishing you the best of everything.

x Susan