Mental health breaks can be as simple as a drive to the garden nursery on a damp Saturday morning, to stand in the sheltered soft light of the greenhouse and breathe in the air of all the blooming plants and flowers that surround you in perfect rows.
Life growing up in little black pockets of soil. Precious and perfect exactly as it is.
I’m not a gardener. I can name maybe five flowers by sight. I still get my annuals and perennials confused.
When it comes to my purchase of flowers, I like what I like and I don’t have an elaborate plan for the ebb and flow of the garden the way brilliant people do.
Gardeners will always have my respect. Their art is a masterpiece like other art forms, shaped by hands and minds that create a canvas of colour and conversation for all to enjoy.
I am a big believer in stopping to smell the roses. I find joyful distraction watching bees buzz about the flowers, and butterflies fluttering from spot to spot, and worms wiggling in the rich soil. I’ve even befriended the less attractive critters and arachnids in the garden because, hey, they make it all work.
For reasons as simple as watching someone I love do things they love, the garden is mainly the domain of my husband, the Carpenter. He enjoys planting and planning and watching things grow from the seed up. I enjoy the joy it gives him.
It’s a personal sense of purpose fulfilled to plant a seed in the black garden trays inside the house, placed along the shelves against the window sill, when the frost is still outside. To watch those seeds grow. To plant them outside when Mother Nature’s mood swings settle.
New house. New garden. New garden beds and boxes. It’s exciting. To celebrate, I decided to inspire the Carpenter by taking him to a garden nursery on the outskirts of town (but still local) that he’d not been to before.
This is how we date now. Garden nursery trips. Wild times. To lure him into the car (because he is not one to leave his home on a weekend), I flashed cash and told him if he came with me, I’d buy him garden stuff. It worked.
I won’t tell you how I used to lure him into adventures with me, but I promise, we were way more fun and wild once. Sigh. But sure, garden nurseries now, yep.
Turns out it’s exactly what we both needed. A break from routine. Just enough cash on hand to make it fun. Wandering up and down the rows of greenery, rain softly pattering on the clear ceiling above, natural light filling the day, admiring the colours and smells and choices that nature provides. Reading the white plastic spikes to figure out where and when to plant the items we liked. Working as a team to create our new garden.
Filling our flat-bed wagon with all the flowers our budget would allow, happy and excited, it struck me that all the best things we’ve grown in this life, we’ve grown together as a couple. Careers. A home. A family. A community. And here we go again.
Nature grounds me in the reminder that no matter what life throws at us, we keep growing.
We keep going.
I don’t take any of it for granted.
Grateful.
