Time to garden…
What a fantastic few weeks of weather we’ve had! Already, we feel like we’ve had more sunny days than last year. It’s such a joy to see everything waking up, with shoots and flowers starting to pop, the delightful chorus of bird song in the mornings, the lambs once again bouncing around the fields. Spring is just the most magnificent time, isn’t it? Signifying new life, and resurrecting old from winter slumbers, for the plant world and us alike!
Things at Holden Clough are in full swing. We’ve been propagating, potting up many plants from cuttings and divisions whilst also potting on smaller stock. We’ve been waiting patiently for the break in the weather, the lifts in temperature, drier days along with longer daylight hours. It seems they are finally with us, and it is now the time to get back into the garden.
It’s easy to feel like we never have time, but I am a great advocate for trying to spend even just 10 minutes a day in nature (in our gardens, yards and outdoor spaces). I feel it can give you a chance to switch off from the fast-paced world and enter a world that is slower, calmer and more in tune with us.
Be it a quick weed, trim, prune, sweeping or potting up…it can allow the mind to relax, wander and often magical ideas and inspiration can come from these moments.
I’m a big believer of the connection we all have to nature, and since giving up my mobile phone in 2023 along with TV, my computer and finally the use of the internet, I’ve come to realize firsthand how the fast-paced ways of the digital world have affected our relationship with the natural world.
Through my own journey and challenges to break into (or go back to) an older, somewhat forgotten land, I’ve discovered how much nature and gardening can help us, after seeing how it helped in the past. I’ve made some incredible findings through my research and exploration, getting into many new activities I thought I never had time for previously, whilst meeting and engaging with lots more people too. It has been extremely fun, liberating, and enlightening and to help share this, I’m now working on establishing a new charitable trust which is fully natural and non-digital. No phones, computers or internet use and even no electricity down the line.
With plants, people and nature at the heart of it all, the mission and goal is to create digital free spaces that help people to detach from screens, take a rest bite from the world of digital and fast information, and enter a natural world that can help to heal, slow down, calm and connect more with ourselves, our bodies, minds, each other and our little ones.
It’s time to get into gardens and nature, and reap the benefits that it can bring to us…