The Tired Gardener

Healing Through Growing

Healing Through Growing Blog



  • Ancient oak roots or troll feet?
  • The Major Oak in Sherwood Forest. An old lady with walking sticks reaches for the sky.
  • Stark winter beauty supporting bird life.

Learning to Love my Wounds

It’s easy to be self-critical and see the marks of the passage of time on our body as faults,  but there is a lesson in self-love to be learned from the beauty of mature trees.

A Miniature Expedition

When the outside world is too big to face and you don't have the energy to re-connect with nature outside, a cheap microscope opens whole new avenues of connection and beauty to lift the soul.

  • Mango
  • Mango stone
  • Avocado

Baby Steps Towards Recovery

Should I be resting or moving?  Learning how to take baby steps and manage frustration is a huge challenge in the early stages of recovery or after a relapse.  Sowing a few seeds is a manageable activity that gives a sense of achievement and anticipation.

  • An October tow path walk
  • Hedgerow bounty: sloes, haws, rosehips, blackberries
  • Sloes

A Sloe Walk Down Memory Lane

A canal-side walk on a sunny October day brings me close to my Nan and childhood fantasies around her illicit brewing habits.

  • The Path into the Woods
  • Wild Woods
  • Walking through a Clearing

Into the Woods

The recovery ‘journey’ may be a cliché, but there are few better ways of understanding the ups and downs, the twists and turns, involved in finding one’s way back to full health. The journey is a hard one, but sometimes the most difficult part is not looking too far ahead, learning to focus on the path under your feet and to find companions to share the highs and lows along the way.

Time to Walk

A weekly walk in the woods brings a welcome respite, perspective and calm in a crazy world.

  • Herrenhäuser Allee
  • Image courtesy of Wikicommons at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hannover,_Germany_-_Herrenhausen_G%C3%A4rten_-_panoramio_-_MARELBU.jpg

A Healing Garden

My personal experience of the powerful pain-relieving powers of a beautiful space made sense once I understood the mechanics of chronic pain.

  • A frosted leaf.
  • A frosted verge.
  • Winter in our local country park with mallards and a cygnet.

Light in the Darkness

It's hard to keep positive in November, but there are small joys to be found in the dreariest of months.

  • A fluffed up sparrow.  Image courtesy of Unsplash through Rapidweaver.
  • A house sparrow, courtesy of Unsplash through Rapidweaver.
  • Winter sparrows, courtesy of Unsplash through Rapidweaver.

Fighting the To Do List

Sometimes it’s important to rest, even when the blue skies and crisp, clear mornings of late October are calling to you.  Be guided by what your body and mind need, not by the weather or the tyranny of the ‘to do list’.

  • Buckler-leaved sorrel.
  • Transplanted supermarket 'living salad'.
  • Sorrel Schavel (from Garden Organic's Heritage Seed Library), parsley and red-veined sorrel.  All planted in my daughter's old converted sand pit.

Salad Leaves

A tasty green salad every day is possible, without filling your fridge with bags of wilted supermarket leaves.

  • Hawthorn berries and ivy flowers.
  • Happy ducks in a down-pour.
  • Escaped ducks in a waterlogged field.

Hope is Something to Work at

Living with fibromyalgia, ME or chronic fatigue can drag you down.  Nature can be a real tonic when finding and sustaining hope feels like an uphill battle.


My illness has meant that I have had to give up my work and so I am now looking to find a new career through my writing. If you have enjoyed this page and would like to encourage me to produce more, click the coffee cup below to make a small donation; no strings, no fuss, just a little, 'Thanks, keep it up.'


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