I’m planting a midlife garden

(I have no clue what I’m doing.)

“All it takes is one bloom of hope to make a spiritual garden.”

~Terri Guillemets

I mentioned this in a recent Coffee in the Back Room post, my newsletter for paid subscribers, but I’m so into the idea I thought I’d write about it in more detail, just because. Many things have contributed to saving my life over the past two years, but my garden is right up there. I’m not the first person to discover that time spent on your hands and knees with your fingers in the dirt is time well spent. Time spent in the long-light evenings, just having a mooch amongst the plants and flowers you’ve grown, pinching out a spent bud here, yanking up a gnarly weed there. It’s restive and peaceful in a way few things are.

I also agree with Audrey Hepburn, who apparently said that to plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow. I took this advice to heart in the bleak springs of 2023 and 2024, when I diligently planted seeds, even when I was afraid I wouldn’t live to see them grow. They grew and they lived, and miraculously, so did I. I have carried on planting ever since, in a spirit of audacious, obstinate hope.

This year I am planting a midlife and menopause garden, because why the hell not. I’m choosing plants which best fit this theme, based upon type, name and colour. It’s a challenge! My garden is in the north and is north-facing, which means I already have to think really carefully about the things I can plant, as there’s a LOT of shade.

There have been many, many failures along the way so far: a tomato crop which yielded precisely one measly fruit. Flowers and grasses which never emerged from the soil. Sweet peas which only grew knee-high. So the midlife garden project is handicapped twice over, once by the conditions but also by me and my ineptitude.

I was heartened when I read We Made a Garden by renowned gardener Margery Fish. She took up gardening in her forties, like me, and managed to grow something so beautiful people still visit it today. Also, if I’ve learned anything over the past two years, it’s how to garden in the shade. Keeping things alive when there’s very little light is my speciality. In for a penny!

I find gardening magical and mystifying, a bit like Christian worship, and its effect on me is also very similar. I am at peace in the garden, my busy brain temporarily still, all thoughts paused, even if for a moment. When I’m in contact with the ground, touching the soil, I feel fully earthed like the creature of the dust I know I am. We started in a garden, didn’t we? Maybe we’re all longing to just get back there, and that’s why it feels so much like home.

The idea for the midlife garden began with an elder tree, a sambucus nigra, which unexpectedly appeared one day, probably gifted by a bird or a squirrel. It grew fast, taking over our half-dead yew hedge, its branches sprawling outwards and stretching up towards the sky like pianist’s fingers. Because I’m ignorant, I thought it was a weed, so I chopped it off at its knees, anxious it would take over the whole space. The next spring, back it came. This tree, this elder, really wanted to live, and I thought, “Tree: I respect that. You can stay.” In the summer, it earned its keep by producing frothy pink blooms which filled the garden with the scent of elderflower.

Just to remind you: we didn’t plant this thing! It literally appeared one day and then grew like Billy-O. I did a bit of research and apparently if you plant an elder by your house it keeps the Devil away, and I am all for this, obviously. It’s also known as the ‘Judas tree’ as Judas Iscariot is said to have hanged himself from an elder tree. But, my favourite piece of elder info, the fact which clinched the midlife garden idea, was when I learned that the name elder comes from the Anglo-Saxon 'aeld', which means fire, because the hollow stems were used as bellows to blow air into the centre of a fire. Shut the back door! I’ve written at length about fire as a metaphor for midlife and menopause (most notably in my book, Waking the Women, available from all good book stores <plug ends>), so I knew that me and this tree were just meant to be friends. A fiery elder? Come on.

So, what else? My colour scheme is fiery and hot, for obvious reasons, not least of which, because I love red. There will be geraniums, several types of dahlias, my resurrected begonia bonfires (which I’ve written about here), plus a few other varieties of plants which reference this particular life stage. I’ve just found a hosta (they can cope with shade) called Halcyon, and I love this, because why shouldn’t midlife be happy and blissful?

Last year I heard a podcast with Matthew Syed talking about how traumatic events can rewire the brain, in some cases leading to a heightened sense of consciousness. I’ve likened my state of mind as being like a new mobile phone with the protective screen covering removed. Everything is clearer with pin-sharp clarity but so much more vulnerable as a result. I’m also reminded of the words of Dennis Potter, when he was interviewed by Melvin Bragg shortly before he died, about the nowness of everything:

“I see it is the whitest, frothiest, blossomest blossom that there ever could be, and I can see it. Things are both more trivial than they ever could be, and more important than they ever were, and the difference between the trivial and the important doesn't seem to matter.

The blossomest blossom that ever did blossom is exactly how I see the world now. The magnolia trees this year have been so beautiful they made me cry. Life in all its nowness is exactly where I want to be. Today, I am planting my own magnolia tree, crossing my fingers that my soil is sufficiently acidic, adding buckets of ericaceous compost and coffee grounds, just to make sure. One of my favourite films is Steel Magnolias, that fabulous tale of the grit and determination of older women. I love that this flower is a metaphor for strength and resilience.

I’ve got a vision that the fiery chaos of the garden will be interspersed with moments of calm, provided by forget-me-nots and honesty (lunaria annua) for example. If you’ve got any ideas of your own, please do drop me a comment. My plant knowledge isn’t extensive, and I’m very much what you might call an enthusiastic amateur.

Anyway, that’s my vision so far for the Midlife Garden Project. Do be sure to subscribe and follow along, as I’ll be writing about it intermittently as the year goes on.

Thanks for reading!

All the best,