Sometimes the Best Gardening Happens With a Cup of Tea

For all the hours I've spent working in gardens, I've come to believe that some of the most important moments happen when we're not gardening at all.

Sunday mornings have always felt different.

Even in the height of summer, when the garden is growing faster than we'd sometimes like, there seems to be an unspoken agreement that the pace can slow a little. The lawn may still need cutting, and there's every chance the borders could do with another hour of weeding, but somehow those jobs don't feel quite so urgent as they did on Friday afternoon.

Perhaps they never were.

As a professional gardener, it's very easy to see gardens as lists of tasks. I arrive with a plan for the day, knowing which hedge needs cutting, which border needs attention and how much I'd like to achieve before it's time to load the van again. There's a great deal of satisfaction in leaving a garden looking cared for, and I still enjoy that feeling as much as I did when I first started.

But when I'm at home, I try to remind myself of something that's easy to forget.

My own garden isn't another job.

It's somewhere to spend time.

I think many of us fall into the same trap. We promise ourselves that we'll sit outside once we've finished weeding the border, deadheaded the roses or mown the lawn. The trouble is, there is always one more thing to do. Gardens are wonderfully generous like that. They never really stop growing, which means they never really stop asking for our attention.

If we're not careful, we spend all our time looking after the garden and very little time simply enjoying it.

Some of my favourite moments have happened with nothing more than a mug of tea in my hand. Sitting quietly on a garden bench, I've watched a robin collecting food for its young, listened to bees working their way through the lavender and noticed the evening light catching the petals of a climbing rose. None of those moments appeared on a to-do list, yet they're the ones I remember long after I've forgotten how many weeds I pulled that day.

Perhaps that's the real reward for all the work we put in.

Not the perfectly edged lawn or the immaculate borders, although there's certainly pleasure to be found in both. The reward is having a place where you can pause for half an hour and allow the rest of the world to carry on without you. A place where the only decision you really need to make is whether to sit in the sunshine or beneath the shade of a tree.

Gardens have always been good at reminding us that life doesn't have to be rushed. They grow at their own pace, flower when they're ready and quietly move from one season to the next without ever looking at a calendar. There is something rather comforting about that, especially in a world that often feels as though it's asking us to move a little faster every day.

So, if you're reading this on a Sunday morning, here's one piece of advice that doesn't involve secateurs, compost or watering cans.

Make yourself a cup of tea.

Take it into the garden.

Find somewhere comfortable to sit.

The weeds will still be there in half an hour.

But so will the birds, the breeze through the trees and the quiet pleasure of spending time in a garden you've worked so hard to create.

Sometimes, that's the best gardening you'll do all week.

Marcus

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Marcus Bergin

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