By Vera Grant AMMM                                                  Ireland                                   03.12.2025

On a course recently called, ‘The Gardened Soul’ I recalled my first real attempt to garden and to nurture the soil without realising that the same was happening to my spirit.

Are you a gardener? she had asked when she came to assess what remained of the garden after the builders had left. She, Sheila was a landscape architect who had been recommended to give some ideas on the possibilities therein. ‘Oh gosh, no!’ I immediately replied, thinking of the birthday present my son, aware of my growing interest in the garden had given me a book, ‘An Idiot’s Guide to Gardening’

I wasn’t really sure what credentials one needed to call oneself a gardener thus in my negative response I was admitting that I knew very little about all that constitutes a garden, the plants, their names, the ideal growing conditions not to mention the soil, acidic or alkaline, clay or otherwise.
I just knew that I wanted something colourful with all year interest but more importantly that it was manageable.

In discussing a possible layout, I mentioned that I would like a woodland path at the rear of the garden. It was to be a secret place hidden by shrubs and bushes so the grandchildren could play ‘hide and go seek’.
Sheila’s reaction of ‘Oh no dear, this garden doesn’t lend itself to that, it just wouldn’t work. I will draw up some plans, and we can take it from there’ made me realise that this partnership wasn’t going to work either.

The idea of having a woodland path was for me, a must and once in my head it wasn’t going to be shifted by an, ‘Oh no dear’.
The proposed plans arrived, paid for, rolled up, bound with cord and relegated to the back shelf in the garage. There they still remain.
Covid arrived and with warm, sunny days and nowhere to go I moved into the garden with string and spade to mark out the territory and the woodland path slowly evolved.

They say where there’s a will, there’s a way and if someone was to ask me now, are you a gardener I would have a very different answer. The joy and fulfilment I have in the garden coupled with the sense of being at one with nature is mirrored in my spiritual journey, it’s a work in progress and always trying to be better.

And for the course which prompted this recollection are the immortal words, ‘The Garden, Gardens You’.