Come outside

Why gardening always makes things better

I’m a little late to the Substack party. It’s not that I’m a social media refusenik. Far from it. I’ve had a blog for years, I love Instagram, I’m on Threads, Facebook (not TikTok or YouTube because there are only 24 hours in one day). Just recently, as I’ve been reading and subscribing more regularly here, ideas have been percolating. My work and my life already overlap. As a garden writer for magazines and websites, a garden lover, gardener (on a small scale) and a painter of flowers, my interest is my livelihood. Not only that, gardening has seen me through some rough patches. If life lobs a curve ball, I will almost instantly rush outside into my little cottage-style courtyard garden for some furious pottering, or pick up a paintbrush and immerse myself in the colours and patterns of nature. Both pursuits are joy-bringers.

I thought that I would use this platform to share some of that joy. It might be through stories from my garden ( four years ago, a concrete rectangle, now a 12x5m rectangle of riotous blooms and small trees). It could be a garden or plant nursery visit (my job as a journalist means that I get to see some very special and secret places). I might share some art, great garden kit, new books and bakes. There will almost certainly be vintage buys and destinations. I’m a collector, I like ‘things’ and I’ve been a keen car booter and flea marketer for decades. I’m in touch with a wide network of inspirational women who grow and garden, and I’d love to shine a spotlight on some of their businesses and talents, too.

To kick off, here’s a bit of background.

I’ve been a journalist all my working life. Even as a kid, I wrote and wrote and wrote. After uni in Sheffield and London, I started on a weekly business publication aged 22, moved into women’s magazines after a lot of trying, realised that I did not love office life, and went freelance by the age of 28. After moving out of the city, I edited a regional magazine and freelanced for Good Housekeeping for 14 years while my children were growing up. At 52, I was launch editor of a national gardening magazine called Modern Gardens. The gardening bug bit me late. It’s fair to say that I’ve come to everything in my life quite late! I’m definitely a slow burner.

I’d always been interested in gardens, but now I’m absolutely obsessed. After downsizing and moving into an Edwardian terraced house in a Lincolnshire market town six years ago, I became evangelical about gardening in tiny spaces. I want everyone to do it, and to realise that you can do it, on a modest budget and without a degree in horticulture.

There is nothing, and I mean nothing, like cutting a bucket full of self-grown blooms while bees buzz and birds flit past. The satisfaction of raising a few seedlings and guiding them on their perilous journey from tiny green shoot to fat, formed flowers. The pleasure of pulling a home grown beetroot from a bucket of soil (the squeak of the leaves, the rush of air as the root emerges). The sight of scarlet crab apples garlanding a tree. Bulbs pushing through the soil in January. I love it all. Even when it’s cold and wet and brown, I can still see the beauty in empty seedheads and a tracery of bare twigs. I think it’s about optimism, hoping for something better and knowing that there will always be change around the corner.

If you would like to see how I swapped the above view to the current one, and how it’s evolving now (there are always changes in the pipeline), please do join me here on a regular basis. While the nights are long, and the world seems dark, I hope to bring ideas, inspiration, and maybe a bit of brightness.