Life is Hard. Plant a Garden.
I wanted to take a moment to talk about how profoundly healing my garden has been for me lately – specifically when I've felt too overwhelmed by life's burdens to tend to her.
This last month has been one of those months where each day felt like a heavy weight bearing down on me. My usual daily garden sessions became less and less frequent. But instead of the flowers withering, or the plants dying, or the space becoming less beautiful while my focus was shifted elsewhere… I found the garden came alive for me.
It was as though she knew I needed her to thrive without me for a while. And each time I stepped outside to pick a pepper, or a tomatoe, or some strawberries, she gifted me with abundance, beauty, and the unique kind of healing you can only receive from nature~
The palettes of flowers I had chosen to bloom months ahead of time, surprising me with their timeliness.
The soft scents of basil and tomato leaves blowing in the breeze, dancing with rose and jasmine flowers.
The nourishing flavors of the perfect homegrown okra.
All of the love I had poured into my garden in the previous seasons I could feel returning to me now 10 fold, when I needed it most. Turns out, there's real science behind what actually happens in your nervous system when you step into the garden.
When you stand in your garden and feel your shoulders drop before you've even done anything, that isn't your imagination. It's biology. So what's happening out there?
Your cortisol drops. short sessions in a garden measurably lower cortisol, the body's primary stress hormone — often more effectively than resting indoors.
The soil itself is medicine. A common soil bacterium, Mycobacterium vaccae, has been shown to stimulate serotonin production — meaning that when you sink your hands into the earth, you may literally be dosing yourself with the body's own antidepressant.
Your attention gets restored. Nature gives your overworked, notification-fried mind a specific kind of gentle focus that lets the depleted parts of your brain recover — the reason you think more clearly after time outside.
Scent moves faster than thought. Aromatic plants reach your limbic system — the brain's emotional core — almost instantly, which is why a single breath of rose or jasmine can shift your whole mood before you've had time to decide to feel better.
These are the rituals I return to in my garden— small, physical, and easy:
Sniff the roses for a heart opening. Rose is the original heart medicine. When I feel closed off or tender, I bury my face in a bloom and just breathe. Aromatherapy is real.
Breathe jasmine for uplift. On the heavy days, jasmine is my quiet antidepressant. One inhale and something in me lifts.
Pull weeds to move anger through you. When I'm angry or anxious, I weed. There's something about the pull, the root giving way, the small satisfying release — the garden takes the angst and composts it into something useful.
Harvest to receive. Picking what you've grown is practice in receiving abundance — a skill so many of us have forgotten.
Sink your hands into the soil. Skip the gloves sometimes. Touch the earth directly and let her do the ancient work she does.
Here’s the truth: the garden that carried me through this month didn't happen by accident. She thrived without me because I built her that way — planted in seasonal layers, chosen for resilience, designed for abundance over fuss. A healing garden is one you plant before you need it.
That's the heart of what I teach. If you feel the pull to build a garden that holds you the way mine held me — reach out for a consultation or sign up for Green Witch Garden Club to learn virtually anywhere in the world.