The Cut Flower Podcast

The Healing Power of Gardening

• Roz Chandler • Season 1 • Episode 146

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0:00 | 8:54

Text Agony Aunt Roz with your Cutflower Questions.

Join our 3 Masterclasses at 8pm on the 22nd, 23rd and 26th January at 8pm UK time by clicking here

In this episode of the Cut Flower Podcast, Roz discusses the healing power of gardening, particularly in relation to mental and physical health. She shares insights from her experiences and those of others who have turned to gardening during challenging times, emphasizing the therapeutic benefits of connecting with nature and the emotional significance of flowers. The episode also invites listeners to join upcoming masterclasses focused on growing cut flowers in a supportive community environment.


Takeaways

  • Gardening meets us where we are, providing comfort.
  • The garden encourages presence without demands.
  • Growth takes time; rest is part of the process.
  • Gardening is a natural form of movement.
  • Flowers help process emotions quietly.
  • Gardening offers a non-judgmental space.
  • Healing can occur through connection with nature.


Rosalind Chandler (00:00)
Hello and welcome back to the Cut Flower Podcast. I'm Roz from Fieldgate Flowers and if you're new to this podcast, I'm a flower farmer, have been a flower farmer for over 15 years. I'm a trainer and a mentor and I love everything to do with cut flowers. Now in January, what we do is we run a very short mini series of podcasts, usually about 10 or 15 minutes long, giving the main reasons and why you should grow cut flowers. And then we run three free

if you can say that. Online Masterclasses on the 22nd and 23rd and 26th of January at eight o'clock in the evening UK time. And we invite you to join us in a Facebook group as you need to register and the details of registration will be in the show notes. And if you find it difficult to find that, then please DM me at fieldgateflowers on Instagram or fieldgateflowers on Facebook or email me at roz roz.

fieldgateflowers.co.uk and I'll send you a registration link. But we've been running these master classes now. This will be the sixth year we'll be running them. And last year we had six and a half thousand people join us from all over the world. So I hope that you will join us. In the Facebook group though, I lots of resources. There's an ebook, there's downloadable PDFs, there's lives going on in there. It's a real hub of a community of everybody who wants to learn more.

about growing cut flowers. So this mini series, the first one we did about growing your own flowers for weddings. So if you haven't caught up on that one, it's weddings or events. And the second one was, some top tips about growing your own cut flowers. And today we're going to be talking about the healing power of gardening for mental and physical health.

So it is a little bit different today's episode. It's not about productivity or profit or doing more. It's about healing. And I wrote a book just after COVID actually. We ran our first seed to vase course during COVID. And many people join us from all over the world and took the seed to vase course. was an eight month course and they learned all about growing flowers.

And at the end of that period of the eight months, I wrote a book of their experiences and I interviewed them all about what did they get out of growing flowers. And lots of people in that book was quite honestly, quite eye opening to see the amount of people who were doing it from a healing point of view for mental or physical reasons, maybe bereavement, maybe something had happened during COVID. Some people are going through personal situations. The truth about getting outside

in nature and working with soil had helped them heal. And I can't stress that enough. I've done lots of podcasts with lots of guest speakers about healing. I've done it with a PhD student who was looking into the psychology of gardening and the nature of gardening against mental health. I've spoken to lots of, I've spoken to a GP about mental health and so on. So if you look back at the podcast, you'll see that there is so much evidence about the healing power.

of having your own cut flower garden.

So it's about when life gets a little bit heavy, uncertain or overwhelming, which happens to us all. Gardening meets us where we are. One of the most beautiful things about gardening is it knows exactly where you are. On the days you have energy, you can dig, can plant, you can plan, you can get very motivated. On the days you don't, you can simply sit, observe and breathe. The garden never asks you to do anything other than be there present. In a world that constantly demands

more from us this is incredibly powerful. It's about just being in that moment.

Gardening gently pulls us out of our heads and into our bodies. The rhythm of sowing, waiting, watching, harvesting. It reminds us that not everything is instant, that growth takes time and that rest is part of process, not a failure. If I look out now and I walk around the fields every day, everything looks very grim. It's very dark. Nothing seems to be growing.

but I really know what's going on underneath that soil. And if I walk into my poly tunnels and I see all the little seedlings growing and growing, I know what's going on in those pots and that gives me something to look forward to.

And also, it's not instant. nothing in cut flour growing is instant. And I think it's quite interesting that in today's environment, we do expect everything to happen instantly. And for many people, this alone is anxiety, stress and overwhelm.

Gardening is one of the most natural forms of movement there is. I think it moves every single muscle in the body. You're bending, you're stretching, you're lifting, you're walking. And if you're not exercising for the sake of it, you're caring for something that's actually living. This gives us a sense of purpose. And over time, this kind of gentle, regular movement supports strength, mobility and resilience, especially as we get older. Flowers carry emotion in a way few things do.

They're tied up so much with celebration, with loss, with love, with change. Growing them allows us to process these emotions quietly without words. Many people begin growing flowers during times of grief or illness or transition, not because they're trying to fix anything, but because tending life helps us trust life again. Also, your garden doesn't judge you. It's probably one of the only things that doesn't.

It doesn't rush you and it doesn't keep the score. It doesn't tell you you failed. Some seasons you've grown abundantly, some seasons you'll just survive. Both are enough and that lesson alone can be deeply deeply healing.

And if gardening or growing flowers feels like something you've been gently pulled towards right now, I'd to invite you to join us, as I mentioned, my free master classes on the 22nd, 23rd and 26th of January. They're calm, they're supportive sessions where we talk about growing flowers in a way that supports your life, your health and your wellbeing. Not overwhelm it. The registration, as I've said, is in the show notes. If you can't find it, do DM me at fieldgateflowers either on Instagram or Facebook or send me an email at rozroz.com.

www.fieldgateflowers.co.uk

and I will send you a registration. Let's see if we can exceed our last year's target. We had six and a half thousand people join us in the Facebook group. So just to say, if this episode resonated with you, please know you're not alone. Gardening doesn't solve everything, but it does offer space to breathe, to heal and to begin again. And thank you for listening. And I hope to see you inside our Masterclasses.