Gardens
What is it about gardens and gardening?
I was watching some of the coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show and it had me wondering who I was…… again. (side note: am I having a midlife identity crisis?)
I am not a gardener. Well, I wasn’t a gardener. But here we are in a house, with a very well established garden, that I feel a huge responsibility to take care of.
Our old house had a tiny garden. A little patio. A strip of soil. A shed with some decking and a few planters. Each year the extent of my gardening would involve going to the garden centre, buying a few plants and popping them in the pots on the patio. I would then pull out all the weeds from the strip of soil where we grew sweet peas, lavender and a hydrangea. That was pretty much it. To be honest I didn’t have the time for much else. We didn’t sit in the garden much either. It felt like it was always too dark. Or too wet. Although to be fair, it was used a LOT during Covid times.
There is something about gardens though isn’t there? Like bird-watching and going for long walks, they become more interesting as you get older. I wouldn’t have expected that I would be using google lens to identify plants, just like I use the merlin app to identify the birds I can hear.
In the past I enjoyed trips to beautiful gardens and identifying flowers I liked the look of. Now I am beginning to go to the next level: thinking about the conditions that the plant is growing in and would it work in our own garden? I have definitely moved on from last year’s thoughts:
It has been so exciting watching our garden come to life since moving in January. It started slowly and then, over the last month, it has changed daily. There is always something new to discover.
It is so lovely to sit and look at it, or walk around it. There have been lots of little visitors too: robins, great tits, blue tits and sparrows.
So the main aim is not to f*ck it up! Do share with me your gardening tips and don’t expect this to turn into a gardening blog.