| The garden has our attention. It doesn’t necessarily have all our thoughts. |
| People sometimes seem to imagine that when a gardener is working in a garden, he must be thinking about gardening. Sometimes I am. I might be looking at a plant that doesn’t seem quite right, wondering whether something needs feeding, noticing the first signs of a pest, deciding whether a shrub needs cutting back or trying to work out what somebody planted in a border several years before I ever arrived. Quite often I’ll take my phone out, photograph something and identify it, or look up a question that has occurred to me while I’m working. But I certainly don’t spend an entire working day thinking about plants, and I don’t think many experienced gardeners do. |
| Knowing What You’re Doing Changes Things Gardening requires concentration, but not every gardening job requires every available corner of your brain. Sometimes it absolutely does. Pruning something valuable, using machinery, working at height, diagnosing a problem or doing something for the first time requires proper attention. You concentrate because getting it wrong matters. There are plenty of other jobs, though, that I’ve done so many times that my hands largely know what they’re doing. Sweeping a path, mowing a familiar lawn, edging, weeding, deadheading, raking leaves or clearing a border still requires awareness. Still, I’m not consciously narrating every movement to myself: Right foot forward. Move broom. Locate leaf. Sweep leaf. If I had to think like that all day, I suspect I’d have given up gardening rather quickly. Experience creates a sort of working rhythm. You’re watching what you’re doing, noticing what is happening around you and responding to the garden, but there’s room left over for the mind to wander. And mine frequently does. Gardens Are Rather Good Places for Thinking Perhaps physical work encourages it. I’m outside for much of the day, moving, doing something useful and generally not sitting in front of a screen. There are sounds, smells, weather, birds, insects, buildings, people passing, aeroplanes overhead and all the little changes that happen in a garden throughout the year. Any one of them can start something. An insect might remind me of something I saw as a child in Malaysia or Australia. An old tree can make me wonder what was happening around it when it was young. A particularly hot day can send my thoughts towards how our weather has changed during my lifetime. Working beside an old wall can make me wonder who built it and what used to stand on the other side. Sometimes there isn’t even an obvious connection. I’ll be mowing a lawn and suddenly remember a model village I visited decades ago. Something makes me think about castles. A bird starts an entirely different train of thought. Something John says becomes a question. Occasionally, a thought arrives for no identifiable reason whatsoever. That’s usually where the trouble starts. One Question Has a Habit of Becoming Another Curiosity is rarely tidy. I might begin by wondering why something happens in a garden and, twenty minutes later, find myself thinking about something that appears to have absolutely nothing to do with gardening. You notice something, think you know the answer and then realise you don’t. That leads to another question, which reveals something you hadn’t previously considered, and before long you’ve wandered considerably further from the original subject than you expected. I rather enjoy that, and it’s how quite a few articles in this Journal have begun. Not with me sitting at a desk thinking, What should I write about today?, but with something happening while I’m doing something else. Even sweeping can do it. John and I have different opinions about brooms. He prefers a smaller 18-inch broom because he finds it easier to manoeuvre. I prefer a much wider one because I can cover more ground with it, and after years of using one I can manoeuvre it perfectly well. A perfectly ordinary conversation about brooms eventually had me wondering whether sweeping itself is becoming a lost skill. And suddenly there was an article. That’s how my mind tends to work. The Phone Has Become Part of the Toolkit Another difference between gardening now and gardening years ago is that the answer to a question can be sitting in your pocket. My phone is genuinely a working tool. If I come across a plant I don’t recognise, I can photograph it. If something looks unhealthy, I can investigate possible causes. If I suddenly wonder whether I’ve remembered something correctly, I can check. I don’t necessarily want somebody else to give me the answer and move on, either. Quite often the answer creates another question, and that’s the enjoyable bit. A gardener spends an extraordinary amount of time looking closely at things. We notice tiny changes because that’s part of the job. A plant has grown differently. Something has appeared that wasn’t there last week. Leaves are behaving strangely. An insect is doing something interesting. The soil in one part of a garden is completely different from another. Once you’ve developed the habit of noticing things, it doesn’t conveniently switch itself off when the subject isn’t horticultural. Sometimes I’m Thinking About Absolutely Nothing Useful I should probably admit that not every wandering thought is profound. There are undoubtedly occasions when I’m thinking about what I’m having for dinner, wondering why somebody designed something so awkwardly, replaying a conversation, remembering an animal I knew forty years ago, or wondering whether John is ever going to admit that my enormous broom is better than his little one. The answer to the last question is almost certainly no. But that’s part of it too. Working outdoors gives the mind space that much of modern life seems determined to fill. There isn’t always a television talking, a computer demanding attention or a stream of information arriving every few seconds. Sometimes there is simply a gardener, a job, and a thought allowed to finish. I think we’ve underestimated its value. The Garden Is Where I Work, Not the Boundary of My Curiosity Perhaps this explains something about The Gardener’s Curious Journal, too. I still write about gardening. Of course I do. I am a working gardener, and gardens, plants, wildlife, weather and the natural world occupy a considerable part of my life. I will always encounter things through work that I want to investigate or write about. But I’m also interested in history, science, animals, places, memories, things we’ve forgotten, things that are changing and occasionally things that are simply peculiar. Those interests don’t disappear when I pick up a pair of secateurs. Quite often gardening actually gives them room to surface. So if you ever see a gardener quietly working his way along a hedge, pushing a mower up and down a lawn or sweeping a path, don’t assume he’s spending the entire time thinking about the hedge, the lawn or the path. He might be. But he might also be thinking about an insect he saw fifty years ago, why summers feel different, an old castle, a strange animal somebody claims to have seen in a forest, a forgotten childhood holiday, whether plants experience the world in ways we don’t yet understand, or why on earth anybody would choose an 18-inch broom when a perfectly good 25-inch one is available. And occasionally, one of those thoughts follows him home. That’s where quite a few of these articles come from. |
| About our writing & imagery Most articles are grounded in our real gardening experience, observations and reflections. AI may assist with research, drafting and editing, but the experiences, opinions and editorial direction are our own. Featured images may include our photography, original AI-generated visuals or, where stated, images credited to others. All published content is reviewed and shaped by Earthly Comforts before publication. |
I really enjoyed this post, and I think I understand exactly what you mean about the garden having your attention without necessarily having all of your thoughts.
I don’t have a proper garden where we live because we’re renting, but I do love gardening in my own small way. Most of mine happens in pots these days because, unfortunately, our gardener once removed some of the plants I’d put in because he thought they were weeds. 😂 So the plants I want to keep have now been promoted to the safety of pots!
I was actually outside yesterday doing some weeding, and I found myself thinking about how enjoyable it is to simply be outside doing something with my hands. Sometimes I’m thinking about all sorts of things, and sometimes I’m thinking about absolutely nothing useful at all.
Although, in my case, there is usually another part of my brain quietly looking around for something interesting to photograph. 😂📷
That’s probably what I enjoyed most about what you wrote. Once you start really noticing things around you, it becomes difficult to switch that curiosity off. A leaf looks different, an insect appears, something catches your eye and suddenly you’re wondering about it.
And sometimes, of course, you discover something you’d never have noticed if you weren’t standing there pulling weeds in the first place.
Thank you for sharing this. I really enjoyed wandering through your thoughts while reading it — and I have to say, I’m rather curious about this great 25-inch broom versus 18-inch broom debate now. 😂
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Ah yes the great 25 versus 18 debate, between myself and John my other gardener. I wrote a post about it not long back 🙂
They used to say ‘you are never more than 3 feet from a rat’, l disagree with that, no intelligent rat would ever be that close to a two legged human if they could avoid it, the truth of the matter is, you are usually never more than 3″ away from an insect or a little garden wonder.
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😂 Oh, I absolutely love this reply! And yes, I was so curious about this great 25 versus 18 debate that I went off and found the post! 🤣 I simply had to know what on earth you and John were arguing about when it came to brooms. 😂
But I have to agree with you about the rats. 😂 I think any intelligent rat would much rather keep a sensible distance from us two-legged creatures if it had the choice. Although now you’ve got me wondering whether the three-foot saying was ever even true in the first place! 🤣
The bit that really made me smile, though, is your “usually never more than 3″ away from an insect or a little garden wonder.” ❤️ That is exactly how I see the world too. There is almost always something tiny hiding somewhere if we actually stop and look for it.
And I think that is one of the reasons I am enjoying your blog so much. You don’t just see the garden in front of you; you seem to see all the little lives happening *within* it. A leaf isn’t just a leaf if there is a spider underneath it, and a patch of soil isn’t just soil if there is something living in it. 🕷️🌿
Of course, this does mean that if I ever do get my Garden Butler, absolutely nothing is going to get done at the speed he expects. 😂
“Excuse me, Garden Butler… stop there. There is something under that leaf.”
Five minutes later:
“Don’t move. I need another photograph.” 🤣🤣🤣
I have a feeling my Garden Butler is going to need a LOT of patience. 😂❤️
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