Nurturing a garden
What learning to be a mother taught me about learning to be a gardener, by Sabrina Russo
This week’s newsletter is an article by graphic designer and illustrator Sabrina, who shares her perspective on her new-to-her garden through the lens of being a mother. I really appreciate the care and love she brings in her approach to her garden. How might we do things differently and how might we and our environment benefit if we all adopted a similar sense of responsibility, respect, humility and gratitude towards land we are fortunate enough to steward? For any responsible parent, there is a duty to look out for the well-being of the life in their care. Something to lean into perhaps in how we approach nurturing the life in our gardens? I appreciate the grace and tenderness that Sabrina shows herself too - things we can certainly do with practicing more of.
What learning to be a mother taught me about learning to be a gardener, by Sabrina Russo
It's my eldest's birthday next week, he's turning eight. His little sister is four. Undeniably, the "baby days" are well and truly behind me. Insofar as it's ever possible to be, I'm pretty well settled into the rhythm of mothering my children. Things are still somewhat chaotic of course, but I'm more competent now, less fazed, not quite so emotionally raw as in that first season of motherhood. But the past year has brought back memories and sensations that I hadn't felt since the earliest moments with my newborn - from the total awe and wonderment of creation, to the slightly sickening sense of responsibility for preserving it. Let me rewind.
In December 2020, ragged after months of pandemic stress, our family moved from our small London terraced house with its tiny, paved patio to a bigger home in Devon with the kind of mature cottage garden that would make a seasoned gardener swoon. Lawns and hedges, herbaceous borders, flower beds, a pond, fruit trees, huge rose bushes, a vegetable garden with raised beds, a greenhouse, a polytunnel, and a spectacular 150 year old lime tree with a canopy that can be seen from all around the neighbouring streets. The only problem was - we were not seasoned gardeners. We were not even novice gardeners. We were not gardeners at all. The last time I had lived in a house with a garden, I was 10 years old.
On the first cold morning after our first night in the new house, and still in my nightclothes, I made myself a cup of tea and walked out the back door while my husband and children had breakfast. The air smelled damp and fresh, and I began, tentatively, to explore. Because of travel restrictions and other Covid-related hurdles, we had not been back to visit the house since we had viewed it and placed our offer the previous summer. I had fallen in love with the garden on that first viewing, but it seemed so unlikely we'd pull off the purchase, that it was a reckless sort of love with no consequences, a sort of property-viewing one night stand. We would never be together, it didn't matter that the garden was totally beyond me, I could pretend. Months later, once the bureaucratic pregnancy of house-buying had miraculously come to term and we were actually here, I had to reckon with my folly. I hardly recognised the garden in its sleepy, exposed, wintery nakedness. I walked around quietly in this beautiful space that was now ours to look after, and I thought what many a new parent thinks: 'Shit. What were we thinking?!' It felt much like being handed a baby, apparently your baby, and being told to get on with it. The reverence for this life that is in your hands. And the sheer terror of fucking up, because you don't have a damn clue what you're doing. I did a full tour of the garden that morning, and under my breath I just kept whispering "please, please don't die, please don't die". I was overwhelmed, but I knew I had to step up and learn to be a mother to my new garden baby.
As we rode the latest wave of infections that December, Boris Johnson cancelled Christmas and soon after, he shut down schools. We were alone in a new town. My son missed his old classmates and my disabled daughter was without any therapies or support services. I felt isolated and adrift. Channeling my anxieties and uncertainties into the garden was equal parts denial and therapy. Learning to garden, like learning to look after my baby years ago, went hand in hand with a shift in identity and an enforced slowing down. A surrender. Learning to garden took on a significance it might not have done if it hadn't been against the backdrop of a pandemic, I don't know.
A year on, I'm happy to report the garden is still alive and still beautiful. A little more overgrown, not quite so tidy, but thriving. Much like my approach to parenting, I have embraced "good enough" gardening over perfection. I still have so much to learn. But I do it with genuine joy and humility, which I think is the main thing. In honour of my son's eighth birthday, here are eight lessons I learned when I became his mother that served me well in the garden this year:
1. Impostor syndrome is real. As a new parent, having never had a baby or maybe even any experience with other people's babies, you're still somehow expected to just *know all the things*. When you inevitably don't, it can easily lead to feeling like a fraud. Same with a garden. There's a whole new vocabulary to learn and tools and equipment to work out. It was exciting but daunting. I had to remind myself that everyone starts somewhere. That even though I'm not English, I'm still allowed to grow an English garden. That even though I'd always considered myself a city girl, I was allowed to form a new connection with nature. That I was allowed to try to learn new skills.
2. You learn by doing. It's mucky and physical. I swapped my late-night obsessive Googling about breastfeeding for obsessive Googling about when to plant out my veg seedlings. Undoubtedly, Google, YouTube, blogs, social media and books have been essential in learning about everything from pruning to problem-solving over the last 12 months. But much like books can never really give you the measure of caring for your own individual child, no article is going to be perfectly tailored to advise on the unique conditions of your garden. By far the best teacher has been actually getting my hands dirty, having a go, and just seeing what happens.
3. Acceptance is key. My son was an incredibly strong-willed baby. I abandoned early on any notion of being able to 'control' him or make him yield to a schedule. He was a living, breathing, organic little entity. I could not 'make him' sleep if he didn't want to, I could not 'make him' feed if he didn't want to. If he and I were going to get on, I had to relinquish my ego, try to understand him, and do my best to look after him with love but without expectations. I have adopted the same approach to the garden. I will water, fertilise, weed and prune. But I can't make things grow at a certain rate and I can't guarantee an outcome. I'm ok with that.
4. It's a more forgiving endeavour than it might appear at first. Sure, slugs can devour your plants, and the weather can be inclement, but an opportunity to try again is mercifully built into the seasons. Just like when I had terrible days with my son and I'd have to repeat to myself "tomorrow is another day" or "everything is a phase", the same is true in the garden. If things go wrong, Spring will come again. I try not to beat myself up, hopeful that I'll be tending this garden for many years to come.
5. Patience. When you wonder if your baby will ever bloody sleep through, or wean off night feeds and if/how/when you should intervene to make it happen, time goes S L O W. But as with most things in nature, if you leave them to it, they will (mostly) eventually do what they're supposed to do. In June my tomato plants were huge and healthy but didn't have a single flower bud and I despaired that I'd done something wrong. They were just taking their time. In September I had more tomatoes than I knew what to do with.
6. It takes a village. In those first months of mystery rashes, indecipherable crying and enigmatic nappies, wondering what was normal and what was cause for concern, I was sustained by a group of other new mums, all of us trying our best to figure things out together. We shared tips and advice, passed on outgrown clothing and toys, and generally cheered and encouraged each other along. I have found many people in the gardening community to be enthusiastic and generous with their advice, guidance, recipes and remedies. Folks on social media have offered me their knowledge, cheered me on when my growing has been successful and consoled me when my seedlings have withered. Friends have gifted me seeds, pots and plants. In turn, the garden has given me the opportunity to get to know our local community. I've offered neighbours our surplus fruit and veg, and hosted my son's school friends for gatherings outside. There is so much reciprocity in gardening and parenting, if you are open to it.
7. The to do list is long and you will never be fully on top of it. Unless you happen to employ cooks and nannies (nope), I don't know any new parent that ends the day satisfied that they've done all the chores and all the admin that go hand in hand with a new baby. I've discussed the "maternal mental load" at length with friends (and my husband, who is thankfully receptive to sharing it). So it came as no surprise that, without the help of a gardener or staff (again, nope), the garden would also come with its own mental load... the seeds that were not sown in time, the weeds that were left for too long... I've had to come to terms with the fact that I can only do what I can, and it'll have to do.
8. Don't forget to have fun. I'll wrap up this love letter, full of gratitude for both my not-so-new son and my no-longer-quite-so-new garden. I still don't really know what I'm doing, but I'm a bit less intimidated. They have both taught me so much, and my efforts to keep them both alive will never come close to the reward of just getting to be around them. Experiencing them. Seeing them evolve. It's a huge privilege. And when I'm not busy worrying, it's such good fun.
Sabrina is a freelance graphic designer and illustrator living with her husband and two children in Devon. On her Instagram account (@sabrinamrusso) she shares images and stories of cooking, baking and preserving from her garden; making art; reading books; and parenting a child with a neurodisability.
Sabrina waived her fee and donated this article to Radicle.
Photo credits: Sabrina Russo