Nothing is as important as gardening
I found my passion for gardening about ten, fifteen years ago. I feel old saying that. Anyhow, back then I had, all of a sudden, this burning urge to sow and plant and make things grow. Starting gardening made me realise how impatient I had become. I'd hide a seed in a pot of soil in early spring and go back to it the next day expecting something to have happened. Of course, nothing had happened because these things take time. I learned to remember that gradually.
Looking back, I think my history with gardening goes all the way back to my childhood. As a little girl, I had my own little patch of land in the kitchen garden of our summer house, where mom let me sow and plant what I wanted. I think I grew at least carrots and peas because I liked to eat them. And probably cornflowers, because I've always had a soft spot for them.
You don't need to have a garden of your own to love gardening. For years I was happy to help my friends in their gardens, enjoying the physical labour and the joys of digging in the dirt. I've been helping one friend dig raised beds for peonies to such dense clay that my muscles were crying for days afterwards. I've been shovelling sand and wheelbarrowing innumerable loads of stones in another friend's garden until I developed a tennis elbow and had to stop for that summer. Then some years back one dear friend gave me practically free hands to do whatever I pleased in his garden. What a joy it was! Shaping and creating something out of an overgrown and underused piece of land. That creation turned into a kitchen garden.
Gardening teaches you acceptance. For some years I had been developing this one flower bed in our summer house into a sea of tulips. I had been adding this and that colour and shape here and there in the bed. Finally this spring I was expecting it to be ready. Well, guess what. There was only one lonely tulip in bloom in that flower bed this year. Some happy rodents had had a massive feast in the bed over the cold and dark winter months. What was left was a myriad of holes and tunnels in the place where the bulbs had been. At first, I was furious but then, all I could do was laugh.
Gardening also surprises you. Last autumn I planted a combination of black and pink tulips to a flower bed facing the sauna. I thought it'd be a delight to watch the pink and black beauties against the background of spring green foliage when cooling off after the sauna. We keep a garden journal in the summerhouse to remember what has been planted and where. Of course, I had forgotten all about this tulip idea during the winter months so it was a fantastic surprise to read about this in the journal in spring and start waiting for the tulips to bloom. They did eventually bloom but not in the colours I was expecting. Some shopkeeper must have gotten their bulbs mixed because what grew out of my bed was a mixture of black, pink and yellow tulips. Again, my first reaction was that of irritation for yellow is the colour I least like in my garden. After looking at the tulips in bloom for a while I learned to love the combination of these three colours and think now it works even better than the original idea I had.
Gardening, like any other physical chore is also very meditative. Somehow, I find it really easy to let go of any thoughts when I can immerse myself in some repetitive action. My head is sometimes churning with too many thoughts but when I pick a shovel, or hoe or secateurs and start working, the endless thoughts simply start dissolving. In the end, what I'm left with is here and now.
A Chinese proverb says, nothing is as important as gardening and even that is not so important. That about sums everything up. The garden is a place that puts things in perspective, it allows you to toil and unwind. It teaches patience and keeps you in check and reminds you that you are only a teeny tiny operator in the big wide world of fauna and flora. It reminds you of the time passing, that there is time for growth and bloom and that there is time to let go.