The Cut Flower Podcast

The Mindful Gardener Lucy Butler

• Roz Chandler • Season 1 • Episode 133

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Text Agony Aunt Roz with your Cutflower Questions.

In this episode of the Cut Flower Podcast, Roz interviews Lucy Butler, who shares her journey of combining gardening with mindfulness. Lucy discusses how her childhood interest in gardening evolved into a therapeutic practice that helped her cope with mental health challenges. She emphasizes the sensory experiences of gardening and offers practical tips for incorporating mindfulness into gardening practices. The conversation highlights the importance of nurturing both plants and oneself, and Lucy encourages listeners to embrace the process of gardening as a means of personal growth and well-being.

  • Lucy Butler's journey into gardening began in childhood, influenced by her mother's passion for gardening.
  • Gardening became a therapeutic outlet for Lucy during her struggles with mental health issues.
  • Mindfulness in gardening can be achieved by focusing on sensory experiences and being present in the moment.
  • Small, manageable gardening tasks can provide quick wins and boost mental well-being.
  • Weeding can be a therapeutic activity, allowing for the release of worries and stress.
  • Lucy emphasizes the importance of nurturing plants as a way to nurture oneself.
  • Starting with seed sowing is a great way for beginners to practice mindful gardening.
  • Gardening should not feel like a chore; it should be enjoyable and fulfilling.
  • Lucy shares her personal experiences with mental health and the importance of recognizing triggers.
  • The garden can serve as a reminder to not give up on oneself or one's passions.

You can find out more about Lucy here


Roz (00:00)
So welcome to the cut flower podcast today and I am delighted to welcome Lucy Butler. met at an event. Lucy, over to you. Can you share a bit about your gardening journey? How did it all begin and what led you to combine mindfulness with gardening, which I'm really interested in? What made you do all this?

Lucy Butler (00:20)
Wow, I guess.

sort of have a vague interest in gardens I guess as a child. My mom was a gardener, she is a gardener, I'm talking in the past tense, she's still here with us. So yeah, is a keen gardener and we had a garden growing up and we were always outside in the garden with my mom. But I guess probably the real sort of interest, I did little bits as a child but I think probably the real interest came for me when I got my own home.

So I had a small garden and around that sort of time I've suffered, anybody that sort of follows me will know, I've suffered on and off since my late teens with mental health problems, depression, low self-esteem, anxiety. The list goes on and on and on. But ⁓ yeah, so I think I sort of tied the two in. I had my garden.

Roz (01:14)
No.

Lucy Butler (01:23)
started doing little bits and then I went through a real bad bout of depression and anxiety and I was in a real, real bad place, particularly with the depression. And at the time I was working for a property company in Birmingham, so I used to commute and I was sort of walking along my walk, my walk to the train station.

Roz (01:41)
Yep.

Lucy Butler (01:47)
used to take me down this sort of little passageway and I was on my walk to work during this really sort of bad time and it was a real struggle for me to do anything, particularly to sort of get up, get out of bed and then have to go into an office and try and function as if there was nothing going on because obviously

Roz (02:09)
Nothing happens.

Lucy Butler (02:11)
Yeah, yeah, because obviously I worked at the time, I worked just in very small office with a small group of people who didn't really know that I was suffering and I didn't necessarily sort of want to let on that I was suffering. So it was a real, real struggle to have to sort of try put on that face every day. And I was sort of on the walk, walked to the train station, sort of dragging my heels and I just feeling completely awful. And I just happened to notice

on the side of the pathway. It was just like a little sort of flower just on the side. And it was just as simple as sort of noticing it and going, oh, that's really pretty. And then all of a sudden I thought, hang on a minute, that sort of almost has cut into that sort of negative way of thinking. it sort of has stopped just for a second. It has stopped me feeling absolutely awful. And I've focused on something else.

Roz (03:01)
Yeah.

Lucy Butler (03:11)
And so then that quickly sort of translated into doing it every day. So I was like, right, on my walk to work, what can I see? What can I notice? What's going to stop the thoughts? And then that quickly led on to, well, I've actually ⁓ got a good resource right outside my back door here. So, yeah, I'm just going to go for it and I'm going to start gardening. then, yeah, I just sort of.

I've built it from there really and it's just sort of I very quickly realized that actually that did make me feel a lot better. And then I sort of started my Instagram page. And actually, to be honest, my Instagram page wasn't anything to do with mindfulness. Initially, it was just because I had loads and loads of I was forever taking photos of flowers. My husband was like, you should just document these somewhere. You know, and so it started like that. And then

As I got more and more into mindfulness and mindful gardening, I realized actually that if it helps me, perhaps it will help other people. So I sort of quickly turned the page over to doing that really.

Roz (04:21)
Yeah, I mean, it's become a very popular thing or people have become very aware of it, probably from COVID actually. And then if you, Stuart Smith's book all about the mindfulness of gardening and if you get involved in the others, yeah, it's a brilliant book. And I think the thing is, I mean, was World War I and II that were doing gardening in the trenches, which I still find quite, I can't get my head around at all. ⁓ That gardening is so mindful. I think what it is,

Lucy Butler (04:28)
Yeah

Yes, I've got that.

It is.

Yeah. Yeah.

No, no.

Roz (04:50)
because talking to my daughter, my daughter's a psychotherapist, I talk to my daughter and she says, what happens is it, you know, when somebody's suffering or they're in an anxiety or they're like in a mental state, then you need to take the mind out of it. And it's either what can you see? What can you smell? What can you do? Think right now, what can you do? And I think gardening is one of those things that you can actually do right now.

Lucy Butler (05:06)
Yeah.

It is, yeah.

mean, gardens by their very nature really are sort of really sensory places anyway. There's always something to see, smell, taste usually, sounds, there's lots of sounds. they are a good place to go. always say even if you're not actually planning on doing any gardening, just to sort of sit in a garden, just the act of doing that.

Roz (05:21)
Yeah.

Let's sit in a garden.

Lucy Butler (05:40)
will, you know, you'll benefit.

Roz (05:43)
Yeah, I spoke to, also spoke, I think I spoke to a PhD student from Surrey University who was doing a project on the mindfulness of gardening, but actually one of her points was didn't have to be doing the gardening. Sitting in a garden was a good enough thing to begin with. You didn't actually physically do it. So that was quite interesting.

Lucy Butler (05:56)
Yeah.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Roz (06:05)
So how has it evolved? You you often talk about mental health benefits of being in the garden. How has gardening helped you personally? Obviously it's helped you through a difficult time. Do you do a lot of it now? Where do you fit gardening into your life? ⁓

Lucy Butler (06:05)
Yeah.

Yeah,

yes, so I decided in my infinite wisdom, once I of started getting into gardening and around the sort of early stages of sort of really finding out about mindful gardening, I decided I was going to, yeah, I decided to do an RHS course. So I did the RHS course. ⁓

Roz (06:39)
We wanted

to do the RHS.

Lucy Butler (06:41)
So I did the level two, I did the diploma, so I did all the theory side of it first and then I went off to do the year practical to sort of make it up to the full diploma. So yes, so I decided to do that. I do garden on some level. I don't probably spend as much time as I would like in the garden because I do have another job.

Roz (06:49)
Well, I'm.

Right, cool.

Lucy Butler (07:08)
⁓ which takes me away from it and a nine-year-old daughter which you know so juggling like work yeah juggling work and family life but I do try and get into it for me now I have to have I have to be in the garden every day really even if I'm not even if it's just a case of doing a bit of deadheading but again there are quite a lot of garden jobs I think that are sort of what I call quick wins where if you haven't got a huge amount of time

Roz (07:09)
Thanks for joining.

So anyway,

Lucy Butler (07:38)
You can just go out for like five, 10 minutes. Deadheading is a brilliant one, even a bit of weeding really. But there are a lot of jobs that you can go out and do that and just feel a little bit better. know, and I have certain days now where, you know, being a mental health sufferer, you do have like highs and lows and there's certain days where I'm like, right, I need to get out, I need to leave. I need to get out of here and just go and get in the garden.

Roz (07:46)
Yeah.

Lucy Butler (08:08)
And for me, the key thing really is just being able to, being outside and moving your body. And those two things combined for me are what I find really helps me personally. And gardening offers both of those things in abundance. Plus you get flowers.

Roz (08:27)
I always say to people

don't take on too much. You know like we say I think I'll go and do weeding and you look at this massive bed and you think my god this is going to take me all day then choose a smaller bit.

Lucy Butler (08:37)
Yeah.

Roz (08:40)
you know, it doesn't have to a bit at a time. So I'm weeding particularly at the moment, my delphinium tunnel and it's real painful and I couldn't do it all at once. A, it gets too hot in there and B, either got to be early morning or late at night and C, it's too much. You know, it's too much for all of us. just do a I divided it into sections and I think, okay, yeah, I'm going to do those three sections and that's it. And then I'm going to give in.

Lucy Butler (08:40)
Yeah.

No.

Yeah. Yeah, it is. Yeah.

Yeah

Yeah, I

think it really is about that. I've talked a lot on Instagram about the sort of the little and often approach because the idea behind mindful gardening and you're doing it to sort of benefit your wellbeing, the last thing you want to do is make it and turn it into another chore and it's just going to be another thing that adds to your stress. So you're better off doing it little and often and then it'll soon sort of that those sort of

Roz (09:22)
you

Lucy Butler (09:32)
quick winds will soon build up and you'll see a difference. mean, weeding for me, I actually, I quite like weeding. I'm probably a of a strange one. Yeah, I do like weeding. I like anything where I can sort of go in and I can see, even if it's just a little patch, that it looks better than it did before it starts. Anything that's sort of like visibly you've changed for the better.

Roz (09:40)
No, it's like picking a spot.

Lucy Butler (09:58)
anything like that. yeah, weeding, find quite therapeutic and I use it as a sort of way of getting rid of my worries. So I have like a technique that I call a worry for a weed. So as I pull a weed out, I'm sort of almost getting rid of that worry out of my, you're weeding your mind as well as weeding your flower bed. So yeah, so it's quite a sort of cathartic process really. And the fact that you're then sort of getting rid of the, you're sort of throwing your weeds.

Roz (10:17)
Yeah, that's about to end.

Lucy Butler (10:27)
away as well. It's good one to do if you've got lot of anxiety, a lot of worry.

Roz (10:36)
yeah no that's no I like weeding too but again yeah just a bit at a time it's fine so what you grow tell me a little bit about your growing patch you doing flowers you're doing vegetables have you subdivided it what you do

Lucy Butler (10:41)
Yes, absolutely.

So my garden is probably not what you would call a gardener's garden really sadly. live in, so the property stood of early 90s, it's one of those gardens. It's an okay size but it was sort of built to be low maintenance and functional. the actual borders themselves, I've got very little border space, they're minute and then...

the ⁓ house builders just chucked a load of shrubs in there, which I like shrubs, I like shrubs, they're not the borders aren't widened. Yeah, well, yeah. And actually they've just got huge and there's so that I don't have very much border space and certainly sunny, all the sunny space is really patio. So I grow a lot in containers. So I've got a mixture of. ⁓

Roz (11:20)
No, Thanks, which ones?

Right.

Lucy Butler (11:43)
What do I have really? I have my sort of staples that I grow every year. So I love ⁓ anything that's sort of good for your well-being. grow a lot of plants that sort of have that sort of well-being connection. So things like calendula, ⁓ cornflowers. I grow a lot of sort of herbs like medicinal sort of flowers as well. And I also grow just, you sort of stand as a cosmos. I love cosmos.

Roz (12:05)
Yeah.

Yeah, me too.

Lucy Butler (12:11)
I've got,

I've got dahlias, I love salvia's. I've got a thing. In fact, I keep, I just keep adding to the collection. I'm I have no idea where I'm going to put them all. they're most, they live happily in the pots really. So yes. So I'd say those are the staples. I love hostas, love ferns. So I've got a lot of those in the sort of the shadier parts and my aces as well. love my aces. So I've got a real good mix.

I have a few edibles, try and grow what I can. Blueberries I've got, I've got a grapevine as well.

Yeah so I've got one or two. I'd like to grow more edibles really. I normally do potatoes as well in like little bags but yeah I'd like to have more edibles really but I just don't have the space in this garden unfortunately.

Roz (13:08)
So your dream is to move to a larger house with a larger garden or get an allotment. What would be your overall dream?

Lucy Butler (13:15)
I think probably the larger garden. I've sort of thought about allotments and I like the idea of an allotment, but at the moment there isn't really any ones that are local to me. it'd mean me having to get into the car and drive. And again, it's sort of that sort of time constraint really. So the ideal would be to have like a garden that's big enough to have like you cut flowers and then you veg patch and then yeah, just.

Roz (13:30)
Yeah.

Lucy Butler (13:44)
and lots of trees, I love trees.

Roz (13:46)
But you share so much online, in a way, your vulnerability on social media. And how do you think you balance authenticity with privacy? It's very difficult, isn't it? I mean, I've done it over the last 18 months. How do you balance the two together? Or do you just go, this is it, this is the truth?

Lucy Butler (13:57)
Yeah.

I, yeah, to be honest with you, I sort of, I tend to sort of go, this is the truth without going too far into it. certain things, mean, certain things, I just think, you know, I probably wouldn't necessarily be comfortable sharing, but I try and be as sort of transparent as I can without going into like, like an overwhelming amount of detail.

Roz (14:13)
Yeah.

Lucy Butler (14:31)
for people but I think also it is it's hard sometimes just to talk about it. Certain things that have happened when you think back about how you feel and how you felt at the time it is it's hard and I think I did a real not that long ago sort of saying you know quite often when I do talk about it or talk about specific things

Roz (14:32)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Lucy Butler (14:57)
I get emotional and it makes me cry because it's painful to remember just how bad it was to be honest with you. Yeah. And I think there is that sort of fear. Sometimes there's that fear that actually it could get that bad again. But I think, ⁓ yeah. And for me, mean. Yeah. No, no, it might not at all. And sometimes you can go, you know, I can go for ages.

Roz (15:04)
I bet it was, yeah.

Yeah, could come back. Yeah. Or actually the opposite, that might not come back at all.

Lucy Butler (15:27)
without it being really bad. But I think for me now, I've suffered for so long that I sort of know, I can sort of, yeah, I know the triggers and I can sort of tell when I'm getting quite bad. That being said, I had quite a bad bout last year towards the end of the year and I got quite cross with myself because I ignored the triggers.

Roz (15:34)
the trick is.

Lucy Butler (15:52)
because I was busy with other things at the time. So I sort of brushed it under the carpet until the pile was so big that the carpet wasn't lying flat anymore. and I look back now and I think, why did I do that? Because I knew the triggers, I could see the triggers were there and I just kept pushing them to the side because I was like, I don't have time to deal with this. And actually, you do have time. You need to make time, yeah.

Roz (16:18)
Don't make you have the time. Got no

Lucy Butler (16:20)
Yeah, you need to make time. And then I obviously

Roz (16:21)
choice.

Lucy Butler (16:23)
had to sort of stop and start again. it got actually, to be honest with you, this is I haven't actually said this before to anybody, but this so this is a bit of an experience. So I never mentioned it on my Instagram, but I actually got so bad last year that even I got to the point where I don't want to go in the garden. I just I'm not interested in it. I can't face going in the garden. And then in the end, I sort of forced myself to go in there and I thought, right,

I'd almost convinced myself that I didn't like gardening anymore. So I was like, no, I stopped and thought about it. I was like, that's not the case. just, you know, not feeling it at the moment. Just go out. You don't have to be enjoying it. Just do it and the enjoyment will come back. And I think I was over focusing on that you're not enjoying it. So that means you don't like it anymore.

And that wasn't really the case. think my head was just not in a good place. So I was just like, just go, just go and do it to move your body. And that's, don't think of anything else. You don't have to think about whether you're liking it or not. And yeah, and I think I am a classic overthinker, to be honest. So there was all that sort of going on and I just went out and I did go back. I went back and I did a few bits and pieces and yeah, and then it sort of, it all came back and it all came right again. So yeah, so I don't think I'd ever.

Roz (17:26)
No.

little by little.

Lucy Butler (17:45)
I wouldn't ever give up on the garden because I think I need to probably remember that if that happens again, just carry on really, just carry on doing it, just to do it and just to be and don't think of it on any other levels than that really. And then the joy does come back.

Roz (18:02)
On that note,

joy of it, on that note, someone listening wanted to bring more mindfulness into gardening. Where do you suggest they begin?

Lucy Butler (18:13)
I think ⁓ I would start small. There are certain sort of things that you can do in the garden. I mean, if you're a complete beginner gardener, think seed sowing is great. It's a really, really good mindful activity. It's quite easy if you get something, if you start off with something that's quite easy. It focuses the mind. It's very sensory, obviously. It sort of deals.

You you sort of very tactile, you're dealing with the seeds, you're dealing with the soil. But also it sort of brings up that nurturing side. you almost, even if you feel terrible, all of a sudden you've got something there that actually you can focus on that needs your care. And it's really, really satisfying to see it from seed, like nurturing it all the way through to then getting like the first flower or your first,

vegetable or depending on what you're growing. I think seed sowing is yeah, it's really good.

Roz (19:11)
Yeah, I suggest, yeah, definitely good. I suggest that they start in autumn

with sweet peas and they're through the winter and get them out in the spring and start that. And maybe over winter, or a window sill, some hardy annuals. And yeah, to seed, I think it's about the progression, isn't it? It's a seed and then it starts to grow. mean, even after 15 years being a flower farmer, I'm excited to see germination. And it doesn't.

Lucy Butler (19:19)
Yeah.

Absolutely, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

and me, ⁓

I love it. I love it. It's to the point where I sow something and then I'll check it like a couple of hours later. I'm like, I don't know what I think is going to happen in that time. But I'm obsessed with like checking them all the time. But I think, again, it is for me, it's that sort of nurturing something else and having that focus of, you've got it. You need to be around for that.

that thing, you need to be around, it's a living thing, you're looking after it, you need to be around to care for it. So yeah, that is a really, really good one.

Roz (20:08)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah definitely definitely. and finally if your garden could whisper one message to everybody who visits it what would it say to them?

Lucy Butler (20:25)
⁓ that's a tough one. think it would probably just say, don't give up.

Roz (20:31)
Yeah.

Lucy Butler (20:32)
That's, think, on yourself or your garden. Just keep going. Just keep doing little and often, getting yourself out there and you'll feel better. Your garden will be better. Yes, there are always going to be times where you have successes and failures. That's the nature of gardening. ⁓ But it's sort of learning, dealing with the failures, realizing that the failure in the garden isn't

Roz (20:54)
Yeah.

Lucy Butler (21:01)
necessarily a failure in yourself and just sort of carrying on. mean, I've been gardening for a long time. I've done all the, you know, the qualifications myself. I still kill things. So, you know, it's just, yeah, it's honestly, it's just one of that. And sometimes you can do everything right. And there's just, there's no rhyme or reason to it or mother nature has other ideas. ⁓ You know, and I think obviously.

with climate change and the way that is, you you throw that into the mix as well. But yeah, I think my garden would say don't give up on yourself or your garden.

Roz (21:39)
Lucy, where do people find you over on Instagram? What's your Instagram handle?

Lucy Butler (21:43)
It is mindful.gardener. So on there I just share a bit about my own mental health journey, tips on how to garden more mindfully. Yeah, just, yes, just mental health and wellness, wellbeing in general. So, yes.

Roz (22:03)
Brilliant. So listeners do go over and give Lucy a follow, say hello to her, say you heard her on the podcast. That would be brilliant. And Lucy, I'd like to thank you. I'm going to think about what my garden would say to me tomorrow. Cause I think that's quite a good thing actually. maybe was whispering to me today and maybe it changes every day. I don't know. I'm going to go in and see what it's doing.

Lucy Butler (22:17)
Yeah.

Absolutely. Well, yeah. Yeah, it's

a good one to think about actually. Nobody's ever asked me that before. So it is, it's a good one to think about, definitely.

Roz (22:33)
but I want to thank you for joining me and wish you well and I shall carry on following on and I like to always talk about how mindful the garden can be.

Lucy Butler (22:36)
thank you for having me.

Yeah, definitely, definitely. Thank you for having me.