THOSE of us who find it difficult to bend down and fuss over our gardens often end up frustrated – and many simply give up.
Ask them if they garden and you’ll get that familiar smile and the classic line: “Oh, I haven’t got a green thumb!”
But perhaps they’ve never had the chance to dig into the dirt. Maybe they work long hours. Maybe “gardening” only exists in their world as those lush pictures in magazines.
Have they ever truly experienced how something as simple as planting a seed can shift your whole outlook? How watching a tiny sprout push its way into the world can make you feel lighter, calmer, even quietly proud?
There’s a magic in that moment when you look at a thriving plant and think, “I grew that. Want some?”
It’s the kind of self-satisfaction money can’t buy.
Some people never had gardeners as parents, never grew up around veggie patches or rose beds, never learned the slow joy of watching something come to life under their care.
But now – more than ever – is the perfect time to show our kids how to plant something and make it grow. Even if we’re not experts, even if we don’t think we’re any good at all.
Of course, modern living hasn’t helped. Today’s homes sit on tiny blocks where the yard is mostly swimming pool, patio, and barbecue territory.
There’s barely space for a basil plant, let alone a backyard orchard. Not like years ago, when suburban blocks were sprawling enough for veggie patches, fruit trees, chooks, ducks, and a whole childhood’s worth of muddy adventures.
Houses were smaller, simpler – no media rooms, no fourth bedrooms, no double-storeys dominating the skyline.
Life felt slower, and there was time – real time – to garden.
Yet despite all this, beautiful gardens still flourish. Stubborn little pockets of optimism tended by devoted gardeners who refuse to let the art be lost.
Councils and communities still give us green havens to wander through: for example the Brisbane Botanic Gardens and vibrant Roma Street Parklands. Proof that gardening, in all its forms, still feeds something in us.
Till next time.
