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Hello,
Welcome to Sort of Nothing Like A Book Club, the newsletter from Creative CoLab (formerly CAGED Arts). We hope that you are able to keep safe and are staying at home where you can.
We've spoken a lot about mental health in this newsletter and so it felt right to dedicate an issue to wellbeing during this period. I've been asking the creatives near me what they've been doing as stress relief, but this issue is mainly focused on my favourite form of stress relief - gardening.
Before we get going, this isn't a newsletter telling you to be productive. Planting far too many flowers for the size of my garden is as valid as not being able to do anything. We are all going through a collective traumatic experience and all responses are completely valid.
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Stress and Anxiety Tips from Creatives
I've been pestering the creatives near me about how they're coping with increased stress and anxiety, these are some of the responses:
"I've been rewatching Community on Netflix"
"I've been sitting at my desk at 9am hoping to get something done, it's just that level of structure. I'm not getting anything done though"
"We've got loads of paper -so we're learning origami through YouTube"
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Why are you talking to us about gardening, Heidi?
I am incredibly lucky to have access to my own green space which I can dig up, shape and play with. The most recent stats I could find show that in 2017 the UK spent £7.5billion on gardening (HTA, 2018). Comparatively, in 2018 we spent £1.28 billion on the theatre (SOLT, 2019). During lockdown gardening websites have been rammed, setting up queue systems and some have closed for all new orders of plants. Whilst this might be down to existing gardeners who can't go to gardeners centres and a reduced staff in nurseries, there also seems to be a whole host of new gardeners.
How does it help with stress relief?
I find gardening both meditative and a great activity to take out frustration. Getting my hands covered in mud means I don't feel bad for not being constantly on my emails. There's something relaxing about planting trays of seeds, or ridiculous amounts of bulbs. Gardening also forces you to slow down and work at a different pace - seeds will germinate when they're warm enough, and plants will grow at the pace that they grow.
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I've been planting out summer flowering plants, and getting lots of vegetables in the ground. Last year I mainly grew in pots, so it's been really nice to be able to make beds. This year I think I've planted too much, the look of my greenhouse doesn't include the pots living on my kitchen windowsill, but they won't all make it to the garden. Some will be eaten by birds or beasts, some won't germinate and some will be swapped for other plants or given away.
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This brings us on nicely to the other thing I like about gardening - the social aspect. Whether that's swapping seeds, plants or advice there are an array of gardeners around me who I've been missing during lockdown.
Gardening has been a huge lifeline for me these past few weeks. I've been filled with a lot of nervous energy and have been really struggling to focus (which, as someone with ADHD has always been a challenge), but gardening has given me that structure.
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Even if it means I'm out in the rain for a few hours digging up my lawn before I can get any work done at my desk. As evidenced by the picture of The Very Soggy Gardener above.
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