🍎 am i a good gardener or a bad gardener? 🍏

plus four new cut flowers i will grow this year

i am working on resting, so here is an image from last year’s garden table sprawl

I am a ruthless gardener. I believe I have written of this before. I understand now that things live and die. Wildlife will destroy what it must, and your favorite rose will get root rot and wither away. It will rain for a week and your giant sage will drown overnight — and the realities of the scorching southern August sun cannot be avoided, no matter how many poetic reflections of The Garden are read or penned.

I do not know if it makes me a good gardener or a bad gardener. “It is what it is” is the dirty water that my paintbrush sloshes across the canvas of my garden, my friendships, my dented car, and my broken dishes. Accidents happen. Divorces happen. Fractured friendships happen. The heat will come too early and you will get no sweet peas. Your company will hire the wrong person and stick you with them. You’ll stain your new white linen shirt. There will be plastic trash in your bulk compost that you had delivered. The gladiolus will bloom a different shade of blue than the box depicted. It is what it is.

I am often keenly aware of the disappointment, confusion, or frustration that my clients feel when they tell me of A Failure. Was it their fault? Was it my fault? Was it the weather? Could we have prevented it? What can be done next time? Does my often emotionless response make me a good gardener or a bad gardener? Perhaps it is left over from a childhood rife with blame-placing; I dance around my faults like a cat crossing puddles. Perhaps it is thick skin from the second, third, fourth, and fiftieth arrow I have shot at myself for every mistake for most of my life. It is what it is.

I love gardening because it forces me to confront my relationship with failure and acknowledge my innate, relentless optimism. For most of my life I believed I took failure unusually hard and that I was a pessimistic person. My garden has taught me that I am, in fact, the opposite. And I am fascinated with it. It is what it is.

If you cut up the cells of my body and put them under a microscope, each one would be imprinted with, “If You Can Just Understand Why, You Can Fix It.” How is it that the same trait that makes you a great scientist is the same one that traps you in abusive relationships? It is what it is. This is what we learn to save ourselves from the idea that we are in fact gods. That we can save relationships, plants, things. It is what it is. The universe is made of a billion variables that we experience but do not control. It is what it is is where I have found my peace. And it is what I will bring to my garden, for it is my only heaven.

I have been uninspired to plan this year’s garden. I worried the other day that something was wrong for these last two weeks. Normally it is the most invigorating part of my year. I realized this morning it was just my luteal phase. looooooooool.

To indulge in myself, I have been jotting nonsense in my journal and writing down my favorite garden memories over the past few years. I found the little swells of joy immediately! I have been poking around through photos from years past of my garden, trying to remember how lush it can be, and reflecting on what I want to be different this year.

This is the year of the flower! I am paring back on my vegetables. Arranging flowers brought me great joy last year, and also brought back the magical feelings I felt ten years ago when I interned with Yasmine Mei.

I am not done with my list, but there are a few that I am committed to master this year.

Love-In-A-Midst ‘Delft Blue’

Stock ‘Buttercream’

Celosia ‘Vintage Rose’

Sweet Pea ‘Nimbus’

All four of these choices come with their personal stories.

Love-In-A-Midst was the first flower I found that I fell in love with and wanted to grow when we bought our first house. They did not grow the first or second year, and I stopped trying. I am a better gardener now.

Most of my wedding bouquet was Stock. We eloped when we were young because we knew my family would not come, and because we had zero money. We could not afford flowers, and these were the cheapest. I remember feeling sad in particular about the flowers, and looking down upon Stock for being cheap, but a few summers ago I realized it is in fact fragrant and beautiful — and I love it.

Celosia has long been one of my least favorite flowers that cut flower farmers love to grow, but apparently it grows like a weed here (where a lot of cut flowers struggle in the heat) and I was pleased to find this variety that I like! If you love celosia, please accept my apologies. You are right to love it, I am wrong to hate it.

Sweet Peas and the south do not seem to get along. They like long cool seasons, and full sun without being scorched. I haven’t planted these out early enough in past years, and I am committed to getting at least one good year of sweet peas in this garden so that I can experience ‘the hype.’

More flower planning to come soon.

Welcome to the 300 new subscribers this week! I think a lot of you came from TikTok and I am happy to have you! <3

If you found me because you were curious about the Garden Planner I made, this is your reminder that it exists and you can still grab it. :) Look at all these lovely comments from other users I got this week!

Alright my friends, happy wintering! ❄️

Lauren xo

PS. I can’t really recommend it, but if you want a garden-adjacent show to watch, Pamela Anderson’s Garden of Eden is on Hulu and is….a riot, in it’s own kind of way.