All I Want to Do is Garden
In the past three years I’ve had a LOT of big ideas.
I’ve researched endlessly, started a flower farm, opened a farmstand, transformed a vacant lot into a vibrant garden, developed a website with an online store and a youtube channel, learned about hundreds of plants, soil and weather, and sold my flowers to florists, brides, grocery stores and neighbours. I’ve hosted workshops and garden tours, dried my flowers and created beautiful wreaths and artwork…and content. I’ve hauled my goods around to markets and events and set up beautiful displays. Oh yeah…and I produced a line of farm-grown seeds and tubers, complete with labels and marketing!
Entrepreneurship has been encoded in my bones since childhood. Picture 11 year old Renée putting up posters and becoming the babysitter for the entire neighbourhood. That’s me in a nerdy little nutshell.
I’ve always been full of ideas. Ideas lead to skill-building, which leads to more ideas and even more skills. Once you find yourself with lots of skills, you then have a skill for gaining more skills….and more ideas. You can see how this snow-balls.
Having lots of skills and being capable is something I’m proud of, and for good reason. The thing is, when you have all the skills and are pretty much always willing to give things a go (because acquiring skills is a skill of yours), it’s easy to get in over your head with projects & plans!
A month ago, a week before Christmas, Bowker Creek crested its banks and flooded my entire garden, studio and greenhouses. It filled the crawl-space under my house and had me loading a scared cat and my 10yr old into the car at 8pm and driving to my mom’s to stay dry.
I literally watched all of my ideas, projects, supplies and plans (and the actual floor itself!) float to the surface of the 2 feet of flood water that filled my studio and yard. Bouquet wraps, boxes of dried flowers, tools, plant pots, beeswax for some project (which I obviously rescued lol), stickers, bungee cords, fertilizer….the list could go on forever.
The water receded by the next day, and we were lucky it didn’t come into the house, but man oh man was it close! Literal inches from the back door.
It was also the eye opener I needed.
Due to the aforementioned skill set, I have accrued the tools and materials needed to create pretty much any kind of project I could think up. I have what I need to make a pottery bowl, tile a floor, paint a wall, fix drywall, saw stuff, trim stuff, dig stuff and grow stuff. I could create a 20 foot piece of hand-made felt or make clay birds with an entire classroom of kids if I felt like it. I have sewing supplies, markers, and probably 30 pairs of scissors if I looked in every drawer in my house.
I’m an artist and a gardener, so this list of things isn’t too much of a surprise really, but from a business and life-management perspective it’s been way too much to manage effectively and was leading me straight into burnout…again. This is a cycle I am ready to address for what it’s worth to anybody else out there on this roller coaster! When all those ideas of mine floated to the surface of the flood water it was pretty clear to me that the universe wasn’t trying to be subtle with her messaging anymore.
I looked at all that stuff floating around in a soup of overwhelm and desperation and knew what I needed to do; keep what’s in alignment and let go of the rest (…that and finally figure out what flavour of neurodivergence I’m working with here…..iykyk).
All I want to do is garden.
That’s it.
That’s where I love to be. I love transforming a space from something unloved and a bit prickly into something filled with life and colour. I love the creativity of growing beautiful things and experimenting with all the ways to do so each season. I need the sunshine, the sweat and tired muscles and the results of a hard day’s work to feel calm and regulated. I feel good about eating the food I grow and I feel rich beyond measure to have fresh raspberries to snack on when I’m in the garden in the evening.
So that’s where you’ll find me this season.
You’ll be hearing from me when I’m gardening, because that’s what I’ll be doing. I’m pruning away what isn’t working and keeping what aligns with this mindset. I’ll be tending my own gardens that I’m filling with perennials, peonies, ranunculus and dahlias. I’ll be collaborating with my neighbours to grow some communal veggies. And (true to my 11-year old self) I’ve been knocking on doors and finding clients who need their gardens tended too! Pretty soon I’ll be gardening all over the neighbourhood…
I’ll also be connecting with you right from the garden with my socials so I can share the joy and inspiration I find as I go about my days as a gardener. The theme of alignment in this area has me dipping my toes into the youtube world…which is a whole new learning curve. Follow along as I fumble through it while giving you great tips in the garden!
My flowers & produce and homesteading goodness will be found at the farmstand, through bouquet shares, DIY buckets, and to interested florists…and that’s it! That is where I’ll be focusing my energy this season…on things close to home where I can be in the garden. Stay tuned for garden tours and workshops.
Something tells me that directing my energy towards alignment will allow all things in my life to grow and thrive. (Lol…it was probably my therapist. Shout out Michael!)
See you in the garden!
xo - Renée
