The Tired Gardener

Healing Through Growing

Healing Through Growing Blog



A Wild Childhood

Children are naturally curious and respond with great enthusiasm and energy to the marvels of the natural world – if given the opportunity.  Too often this joyous connection with nature is squashed and discouraged, or lost as we get older and overtaken by 'adult' responsibilities. Who has time for childish activities like watching ants foraging or standing in the summer rain and feeling it dribble over your face and soak your clothes? Connecting with nature is not just a hobby, but a birthright and a phenomenal tool for achieving and sustaining a happy, balanced life.

  • 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.

Mindfulness and the Call of the Wild

When my head is full of cobwebs my garden calls, and as I immerse myself in the wonder of nature, my head miraculously clears and the world is wonderful again.

  • Blackbird eating ivy berries.
  • Female blackbird, nesting.
  • Sparrow.

Playing With Time

I have been given a time machine for my birthday. It only looks like a camera.

  • 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.

  • Winter blue: photo courtesy of Conor McGrath
  • Winter blue too
  • My Secret Garden in January

The Lockdown Blues

For some, lockdown means isolation and loneliness, for others the relentlessness of living in close quarters with other people.  Thank God for my garden and the freedom it gives me to choose between isolation and companionship.

  • Just one crazy shelf in my real library
  • Courtesy of University of Illinois Library, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
  • Trinity College Library, Dublin. Courtesy of Diliff, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Healing my Inner Library

OK, so this has nothing to do with the natural world and growing, it is all about the inner world and healing the damage that fibromyalgia et al do to your mind and mental capacities. Sometimes when you sit down to write surprising things happen.

  • 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.

A Corsage of Runner Beans

There's a difference between learning about recovery and understanding.  Sometimes it takes a set-back to help the penny drop and grasp what being guided by your body really means.

  • Dancing plum blossom against an infinite blue.
  • Joy found in a poppy.
  • The glories of creation in the complexity of a flower.

Finding Calm in the Storm

Against apocalyptic headlines, my garden is a refuge and source of perspective and solace.

  • Community Clear-Up
  • Wonderful solitude.
  • On the edge of the village.

Between Isolation and Community

The coronavirus has turned life upside down and created strange contrasts between physical isolation and a widespread resurgence of the need for community.  It has given me much food for thought on my own tightrope journey back to a healthy balance between self-care and care for others.


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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