The Five Minutes I Never Regret
Marcus Bergin reflects on why the most valuable moments in a garden are often the ones spent doing nothing at all, simply watching nature unfold.
REFLECTIONS
Marcus Bergin
5/8/20243 min read
The Five Minutes I Never Regret
Some of the most valuable moments I spend in a garden aren't spent working at all.
There are days when the van seems to become my second home.
The diary is full, there's another customer waiting across town, and I know I ought to be packing the tools away and heading to the next job. Most days, that's exactly what happens.
But every now and then, usually without planning to, I find myself stopping for five minutes.
Not because I'm tired.
Not because the work isn't finished.
Simply because something catches my attention.
It might be a blackbird tugging determinedly at a worm on a freshly mown lawn. It could be the first dragonfly I've seen that summer, hovering effortlessly above a pond. Sometimes it's nothing more than the breeze moving through the branches of an old tree, creating that gentle rustling sound that seems to belong only in gardens.
Those moments never appear on an invoice.
Nobody pays me to stand and watch a bee disappear into the flowers of a lavender plant. There's no box to tick that says, "Spent three minutes listening to the birds."
And yet, I often think those are the moments that stay with me longest.
Gardening has always been a practical job. Lawns need mowing. Hedges need cutting. Borders need weeding. There's a quiet satisfaction in leaving a garden looking cared for, knowing you've made a difference to someone's day.
But if that's all I ever noticed, I think I'd be missing the best part of the job.
Over the years, I've realised that gardens have a remarkable way of asking us to slow down. Not through words, but through small moments that are easy to overlook if we're constantly thinking about the next task.
A butterfly settling on a flower.
The scent of freshly cut grass drifts across the garden.
The way evening sunlight catches the leaves of a silver birch.
None of these things demands our attention.
They're simply there, waiting for us to notice.
Perhaps that's why I enjoy gardening as much now as I did when I first started. After more than twenty years, I still find myself seeing something new almost every day. Nature has a habit of reminding you that no two days are ever quite the same.
The first frost changes a familiar garden overnight. A sudden downpour brings out the earthworms and, before long, the robins appear as if they somehow knew exactly when to arrive. A border that looked ordinary in April can be transformed by July into something buzzing with life.
It's impossible to become bored when the garden is constantly changing.
I sometimes wonder if we've forgotten how important it is simply to notice things.
Life encourages us to rush from one task to the next, measuring success by how much we've achieved before the day is over. Gardens don't work like that. They reward patience far more than speed.
Some of the happiest gardeners I've met aren't the ones with the biggest gardens or the rarest plants.
They're the ones who spend time in them.
Not always working.
Just being there.
So if you find yourself in the garden this week, perhaps give yourself permission to stop for five minutes.
Put the trowel down.
Ignore the weeds for a moment.
Listen to the birds.
Watch the bees.
Take a slow walk around the garden with no particular destination in mind.
The weeds will still be there afterwards.
But so will the quiet sense of calm that only a garden seems able to offer.
Those five minutes may not make your borders look any better.
But they might just make your day a little brighter.
Marcus Bergin
