I am writing this in an unusual corner of Provence where the ground beneath the vineyards is smothered in green, rather than starkly bare. The locals around here find it peculiar, but as the Italian clover and the broad beans grow tall and meadowy in the late spring, they lock nitrogen into the soil beneath – and that, in turn, feeds the vines. For some, no amount of nitrogen will save them: they have offered their last harvest and will be removed, and because this is a newly regenerative vineyard, the ground will be left fallow; nothing will grow on there for several seasons. The soil can recover.
Sometimes we afford our plants luxuries we wouldn’t allow ourselves. A few days ago, I received a note from a garden-designer friend, asking if I’d ever lost my interest in gardening; if I’d ever found that I couldn’t motivate myself to get out into the space that is supposed to be a haven and a delight?
It shouldn’t be a controversial question, but it felt a little taboo – something I think my friend was also conscious of. After all, she designs gardens and I am a person who writes about them. We know one another from the small and passionate world of people who work alongside and in gardens professionally – something many hobbying gardeners would consider a dream job. How could it ever be possible for us to get fed up with something so pleasant?
But – as I told my friend – I knew exactly what she meant, because I’ve felt it too: that strange disconnect from the small space we have happily poured our hours and creativity and physical labour into. I remember it starting during the frighteningly hot summer of 2022, and it fundamentally shifted my relationship with the garden. Over the year that followed I redesigned the plot, turned it over into a towering pile of soil and fashioned it into a space that I felt was better suited to my next stage of life – one with a baby in it. Perhaps my friend’s pregnancy is not coincidental to how she’s feeling.
Still, I was curious. We couldn’t be alone in this quietly muttered garden apathy. And so I asked some other gardening friends. Their responses felt familiar: they had also felt estranged from their growing spaces. The cold, wet spring and resultant garden overwhelm, a sense that our energies had been squandered by the unpredictable weather and, in some cases, finding other creative and physical outlets (like painting and swimming) were all to blame.
Many gardeners would agree that it has been a trying year to grow things. But perhaps there’s more insight to be gleaned from a friend who has found horticultural peace by readjusting his expectations for his garden. “I feel like I’m being productive even if I’m just strolling out there in my slippers with a cup of tea and taking note of what’s going on,” he replied simply.
This rang true: while I’ve struggled to muster up the energy to garden much over the past few years (aside from planting up new beds and slowly sorting out messy corners, I’ve barely watered, fed or mown at all), I’ve never enjoyed my garden more. I have occupied it in a new way, often only for a few minutes a day, mostly doing little more than looking, sitting, lying about and, occasionally, deadheading. In stepping back, I have been able to take stock of the shadows cast by the grasses, and the sweet peas that should never have survived in the gravel garden, but did anyway.
Perhaps this is my fallow era. Or perhaps I’ve been nourishing the garden in different ways, like the cover crops seeded between the vines. But either way, both feel newly necessary now that I’ve realised how difficult my fellow gardeners and I find it to accept them. As we are shunted into autumn and the outdoor world starts to wind down, we might do well to give ourselves the same relief.
[See also: The joys of a low-maintenance garden]
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This article appears in the 25 Sep 2024 issue of the New Statesman, All-out war