The Garden Doesn't Know It's Monday
A reflective essay by Marcus Bergin on how gardens remind us to slow down, notice nature and escape the rush of everyday life.
REFLECTIONS
Marcus Bergin
5/8/20242 min read
"The Garden Doesn't Know It's Monday"
Monday mornings often feel different.
The roads are busier, the emails start arriving again and everyone seems to be rushing to get somewhere. Even as I drive between customers, you can almost feel the week gathering pace.
Then I open a garden gate.
It's remarkable how quickly the world changes.
The first thing I usually notice isn't the garden itself. It's the sound. Perhaps a blackbird singing from the hedge, the gentle rustle of leaves or the steady hum of bees already busy among the flowers. Whatever is happening beyond the fence suddenly feels a little further away.
The garden doesn't know it's Monday.
It doesn't know that someone has an important meeting this afternoon or that the children have gone back to school after the weekend. It has no idea that the traffic was backed up on the ring road or that the news on the radio was full of reasons to worry.
It simply carries on.
The roses continue to flower.
The grass keeps growing.
The robin still follows me around in the hope that turning over the soil might reveal an easy meal.
Nature has its own timetable, and it never seems to be in a hurry.
I sometimes wonder if that's one of the reasons so many of us enjoy gardening. It's one of the few activities that quietly encourages us to slow down. You can't rush a seed into germinating or persuade a shrub to flower before it's ready. The garden works to its own rhythm, and the more time you spend in it, the more you begin to accept that.
Perhaps we could all learn something from that.
We're constantly encouraged to do more, achieve more and move faster. Even our hobbies can become competitions if we're not careful. We compare gardens, compare plants and compare ourselves with photographs that have been carefully staged for social media.
The garden doesn't compare itself with the one next door.
It simply grows.
Some days, when I'm working, I deliberately stop for a moment. It might only be thirty seconds. I'll put the rake down, straighten my back and simply look around.
Not because I'm checking my work.
Just because it's nice to notice.
A butterfly drifting across the border.
The scent of lavender carried on a warm breeze.
The first hint that autumn is beginning to creep into the leaves.
Those moments are easy to miss if we're always thinking about the next job on the list.
Looking back over the years, I don't remember every hedge I've cut or every lawn I've mown. What stays with me are the quieter moments. The unexpected ones. The gardens where time seemed to slow down for a little while.
Perhaps that's one of the greatest gifts a garden can offer.
Not perfection.
Not endless colour.
Just a place where, for a few minutes, the world becomes a little quieter than it was before you walked through the gate.
And somehow, that's enough.
Marcus Bergin
