It’s a thing that happens to me every single year – doubt. In fact, I may have even written a blog post about the same topic last year. I don’t know whether it’s my personality, or something that most people deal with, but there’s something about planting season that makes me doubt everything.
I can’t help but feel that the whole gardening process says a lot about my own expectations on a larger scale. I go into planning the garden with such high hopes and expectations. I’m easily excited because it’s a blank canvas – just a big patch of dirt that I can use to make something beautiful.
I start sowing the seeds. The excitement is still there, but I start to realize how much work everything takes. Soon, the house and sidewalk is cluttered with seed containers and seed starting bottles. It gets difficult to move in the yard without knocking something over or making a huge mess, and the frustration starts to set in.
Eventually, the weather warms up enough for me to finally plant things in the garden. That, of course, requires even more work. For a solid couple of weeks, the garden looks like a disaster. Garbage is everywhere. Empty seed packets. I can’t see beyond the mess. I’ve spent hours and hours transplanting seedlings. The seedlings are small and shocked from transplant. They look terrible, and it doesn’t feel like they’ll ever grow into something beautiful.
At the same time, I’ll plant thousands of seeds. Though there’s no reason for me to feel like the seed won’t grow. I can’t help but feel like nothing will ever grow. I feel defeated. Every single time I finish planting, I say outloud, “It’ll be a miracle if this grows.” I don’t know why I think like this.
More times than not, things grow. I wish I could start believing in the seeds and plants – they want to grow. They don’t care who planted them or even where they’ve been planted – they’re going to try their best to grow. Some days I feel like I’ll never grow. I’m terrified that I’ll never become something beautiful.
I do the same … can’t count the number of times I sow seed…get impatient…buy a pony pack of the same flower…then the seeds come up 🌻 gardener’s anxiety syndrome…yes, I have GAS 🤣
I’m the same too. The Repeated annual frustration happens when there are flowers a plenty in the shops and my garden is still just green with tiny seedlings! I have just given away a lot of plants and cuttings because the mess of growing was stressing me. I want to sit in a tidy garden and I just felt that I was never going to get it unless I got rid of some plants. It’s great to be able to grow from seed and do cuttings, we can have whatever we see for virtually nothing. It’s so rewarding but now the trick is learnt it’s keeping the magic under control!
Can’t be a whimp if you are a gardener. Looks like you have far surpassed that. Thank you sharing the good, the bad, the ugly. Real life. 👏
Yes!!! Me too!! Weeks of planning and sowing. Now everything is in the ground but my vision isn’t realized because they are just sweet little baby plants. I’m the least patient person in the world. I’ve lost lilies because I got tired of waiting and dug them up to see if they were growing 😆 I just keep telling my self that if I keep working on it it will turn into something beautiful. I have the opposite problem of too little space; I’m drowning in 3 acres of space. Long story short I’m fighting doubt here too. Your videos gave me the courage to try winter sowing and it was very successful. 100s maybe even 1000 perennials, annuals, and ornamental grasses later and I’m running around like a crazy person trying to prepare places to put them in the ground!