There are days when being an adult feels wildly overrated. There are bills to pay, emails to answer, work to do, appointments to remember, washing to fold, meals to organise and approximately 29 other things that have somehow become your responsibility.
And then there is the garden.
The garden is sitting there quietly, completely unconcerned about your responsibilities.
The plants don't care that you have an email waiting for a reply. The weeds certainly don't care that you've got somewhere else to be and that new plant you've been watching grow? Well, it has decided that today is the day it needs your attention.
So you go outside for "five minutes."
Five minutes turns into pulling one weed. That leads to noticing another weed. Then you discover a plant you've completely forgotten about so you move a pot, decide that the pot would look better somewhere else. Then you realise that somewhere else needs a little clearing to make room for the pot.
Before you know it, you've been outside for two hours, you're covered in dirt, your knees are filthy and you've completely forgotten what you were supposed to be doing.
But honestly? It's wonderful!
The problem with being a grown-up is that somewhere along the way, we seem to have been given the idea that being responsible means being productive all the time.
If we're not working, we're cleaning. If we're not cleaning, we're organising.
If we're not organising, we're worrying about all the things we haven't done yet.
Even our leisure time can somehow become another item on the to-do list but gardening doesn't always feel like leisure in the traditional sense.
It's messy. It's physical. Sometimes it's hard work yet there is something wonderfully childlike about it. You poke around in the soil. You get excited when something sprouts. You pull apart a flower to see how it's put together. You collect seeds. You move things around just to see what happens. You discover a tiny insect and stop everything to investigate it. You don't necessarily have a plan. You're just playing.
Maybe we need more of that?
Gardening gives us permission to be curious.
It doesn't have to be about creating the perfect garden or growing the biggest vegetables or having everything neatly organised. Sometimes it's simply about wondering:
"What happens if I plant this here?"
"Will this cutting take?"
"I wonder what that is?"
"Can I grow one from seed?"
And sometimes it's about buying a plant because you absolutely, definitely, positively do not need another plant...…and then find the perfect spot for it anyway.
There is joy in that.
There is also something wonderfully grounding about putting your hands in the soil after spending hours dealing with screens, schedules and responsibilities.
The garden asks you to slow down. To look, to notice, to touch, to wait.
Plants don't operate on our timetable. They grow when they're ready. Flowers open when they're ready. Seeds germinate when they're ready.
Perhaps that's part of the lesson.
The garden doesn't need to be productive
Not everything we do has to achieve something. A garden doesn't always need to provide food. It doesn't always need to look immaculate. It doesn't need to be Instagram-worthy. And you certainly don't need to justify spending an afternoon moving plants around because you suddenly decided they would look better somewhere else.
Sometimes the garden can simply be somewhere you go to play. A place where you can experiment and a place where you can make a mess. A place where you can fail spectacularly and try again. A place where you can forget, just for a little while, that you're an adult with responsibilities.
So perhaps we should make time for it
So every now and then, maybe we should put the responsibilities aside and go outside.
Not to weed, not to prune, not to mulch and not even to achieve anything.
Just to play in the garden.
Because perhaps being an adult doesn't mean we have to stop playing.
Perhaps it just means we have to become better at making time for it.
And if anyone asks why you're covered in dirt, holding three new plants and carrying a handful of mysterious seeds...
Just tell them you're busy.
Very important botanical business.
