Several London plane trees lined the embankment outside my hospital window, and I watched them every day as they held their form through wind, rain and the slow turning of the seasons. Their leaves changed, fell and grew again, and in that cycle, I learnt what I needed to know: nothing stays the same. Difficult though that truth can be, it’s also reassuring. Those trees offered continuity when I had none.
Finding my way back through gardening
Gardening became one of the first places where life felt possible again. My first foray had come after an earlier stroke, when I joined the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) Garden Wisley Community Allotment Project. Some people will know the feeling of finding a corner of the world where they feel a little more themselves again, and being among plants immediately made sense to me. The horticulturists there encouraged me to continue, which led to me presenting the RHS’s video series for gardening beginners, Get, Set, Grow!, and later taking the RHS Diploma in Horticulture, in which I achieved the highest mark in the country. Gardening became a way of piecing things back together.
The garden gave me a way to feel part of the world again at a time when so much else was out of reach. What grew there helped me believe that healing could begin in gentle, gradual ways. In the garden, things became visible long before they made sense to me.
Comments are closed.