Muddy Boots Special Guest: 2026 MIFGS Award Winner, Conchi Bastin

Feeling overwhelmed, stuck, or just needing a reset? In this inspiring episode, special guest Conchi Batson shares how gardening became a lifeline during a difficult chapter in her life. 

Discover how slowing down, getting your hands in the soil, and reconnecting with nature can transform both your mindset and your garden. 

If you’ve ever needed a reason to step outside and reset, this episode will leave you feeling motivated and hopeful.

Where you can find all things Muddy Boots!

Website: https://www.muddyboots.net.au/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/muddybootspodcast/ 
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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, I'm Elizabeth, an obsessive backyard gardener, who might be able to offer you a couple of tips.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

And I'm Keith, a landscape consultant, and I'm also passionate about gardening.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

The one thing we both have in common is muddy boots. Today's guest is someone whose journey into gardening began during a challenging period in her life. After battling some mental health struggles a few years ago, Conchi Batson discovered the healing power of gardening. Finding peace, purpose, and therapy with her hands deep in the soil. What started as a personal lifeline soon became a passion, leading Conchi to study a certificate three in horticulture at TAFE and in her first year of study create a garden that earned a bronze medal in the achievable gardens category at the 2026 Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show. Amazing! Conchi's Instagram motto says it beautifully: digging in the garden for better mental health. Today, Keith and I are going to chat with Conchi about gardening as therapy, finding confidence through plants, what it was like designing a medal-winning garden, and why the garden can be such a powerful place for healing and hope. Conchi, thank you so much for coming.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

That's like it really feels like my heart's just gone, oh my gosh, who's this person?

SPEAKER_01 1:26

You are amazing. That's why you're talking to us because we only have amazing people that looked at it. You do.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

We certainly do.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Oh, that's so lovely. So can you take us back to when gardening first became part of your life during your mental health sort of Yeah, during the mental health era. Well, even before that, obviously.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

My my mum's Spanish, and so it was either concrete, grass, or a big veggie garden. And my dad's from farming families, so I grew up really aware of So it was a veggie garden. Yeah, I grew up really aware of it all. And then um, you know, had kids, had a career, had everything. Um, but my husband and I we worked in restaurants for many years, and so food has always been there and the possibilities with food. Um then a couple of years ago I owned a cafe in Rosebud at the same time as my husband having restaurants, and one day I just started to feel really sick in the cafe, and by the time I got home, I just I started to really close off and shut down. Now, luckily I was already in the system because I have ADHD and sky-high anxiety, so I already had a team behind me of psychiatrists, psychologists, and an amazing GP. So, you know, I was able to talk to someone directly, but from that Saturday morning until probably the Monday when I could see someone, I actually started to lose a lot of cognitive function. Oh wow and then it, you know, talking to I was look well looked after, but over about three or four months, I I couldn't make a cup of tea. All those steps became really complicated. I'd go to pick up my kids from school, forget where I was driving, and turn around and go home. And my amazing girlfriends and everyone around me, they all just stepped up. Watching out for you. But it really was it wasn't hard for me because my brain was just in protective mode. It was just seeing what it needed to do to survive. But my kids and my husband and wider community really probably felt the grunt of it. So when people go, oh, that's so awful, I'm like, Well, I was in my zone. Like, I was actually fine. My body and my brain were doing what they needed to do. From the from the outside, excuse me, it was it was scary.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:47

Um, and my mum at that point in time was actually doing the garden for one of my husband's restaurants down in Sorrento. And after a couple of months, she's like, Come on, come with me, and we'll just go down and do this. And within a couple of, you know, going down there three or four times, it started to pull back together. My brain started to do these things. And so over a period of months and years, I started working again. And it's more like this, you'll be doing something and it seems really familiar. And then you think, Oh, I can't remember the last time I did this. This is maybe two years ago. Like putting lipstick on, I couldn't remember the last time I'd put lipstick on. Or making a dinner, I couldn't remember the last time I'd made a dinner. So your brain's moving forward, but just at this really slow pace. And that's where the garden really became this place that I knew it was doing something for me. My doctors knew it was doing something for me, and it goes at a slow pace.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

Yeah, but what so then what was it? So you think the slow pace of just being out there and not no pressure on you just to just to put your hands down. Also, the dopamine.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

There was a weed, now there's not. There was an a vacant space, now there's a plant in there. Okay, so and so then you go back the week after, and you know, you put a bit of that plant's still there, and it's a little bit bigger. And it was just the speed. Two, three, exactly. This really slow pace for my brain to work at, but also then there's that component of being dirty and having your hands in the soil, which I think is so important because that's what kids do and it makes them happy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kids are so happy in mud, and it's not just the happiness of doing something, there's that biological chemical reaction that's happening with skin and everything that goes on inside of it. Yeah, absolutely, and so that's where it really started to go. Um, Kathleen Query, she um has a vineyard down here and she sort of heard about my story and what was going on. She said, Why don't you come work with me a little bit? And ended up over years working there around her cellar door and just side by side with her, and she understood what was happening with my brain.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

So with at the at the um the the the winery. So winery were you you working in the winery or were you working in the garden? I was working in the garden. So you weren't doing anything but that.

SPEAKER_02 6:21

No, I'm I talk a lot, so I'm not great in front of people because I'll I I may not sell them everything. I'll know their life story. But so, you know, I started doing that and I started going to weekend classes just run by the council. You know, what sort of classes? It was so, you know, they'll run a session on permaculture. Right. And they'll run a session on, you know, growing tomatoes and pruning tomatoes, and a lot of them are free. And so I started doing all those things, reading lots of books. Then one day the horticulture course came up on the city.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

If you can't get a chance to ask any questions, just go! The questions are sitting here and she's gone, oh, I can't tell that one. Can I do that one?

SPEAKER_02 7:04

And so tell us about the course, what what made you do the course? Well, it popped up on my Instagram or Facebook or something, and I'm like, Well, I'm doing all this stuff. I'm reading, you know, because it's completely normal to sit there and read a gardening encyclopedia every night. And then I thought, well, the maids get well get qualified. Absolutely, good idea. And so enrolled and uh like you tell us about the course. What was the course? Horticulture cert three, so it's sort of a baseline horticulture course. Yes, but you know, just like any course, you can delve as deep as you want into that. Yeah. I, you know, we get a question, and you know, at the start there were some 17-year-olds in the class. There's it's such a mix of people, and I would just deep dive into every single topic. So you just had this passion, you the passion grew.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

The passion grew grew and the need to learn more. And did you have an idea what the end result was going to be? Or you just thought, I just need to study.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

And you don't care either, do you?

SPEAKER_02 7:57

I don't because I get to talk to people about plants all day. And it's my happy place. Yeah, it's where I'm at my best. I get most excited talking about how plants impact other people's lives and what it takes for someone to interact with plants.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

And and yeah and also from your experience, what it can do, what gardening can do to people in many many areas of their lives. Absolutely. Absolutely. So that's so good.

SPEAKER_02 8:25

That's the nutshell version. So now, how long is the course and what stage are you at now? Okay, so I'm doing it part-time. Um, it's 18 months part-time. I'm at Chisholm down in Rosebud, and it's I'm I'm there just two days a week, Wednesday, Thursday, and it's amazing. Within the first six months, they'd already put us on a tour of Botanic Gardens with Andrew Laidlaw. We'd met the creators of Light Bund Up, we'd gone to Springvale Cemetery, sounds a bit odd, but they're arborists there, and the const the constraints that they're working in in terms of their trees and how they operate that entire system is amazing. Oh, that's absolutely fascinating. And you know, they're they're looking at what do we want, which sort of direction do we want to go in? Because all their backgrounds combined, they've got nursery, they've got turf management, they've got consultation, they've you know, the teachers are so well-rounded, and they just opened my eyes to all these other networking groups and things. No, that you, you know, you don't know exist, and you can get on Google and everything as much as you want, but it's hearing someone say, have you joined the landscaping Victoria you know, group? Have you joined women in horticulture? And then you just go, Oh, oh, I can't.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

All these options, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All these options, okay. All right, so you're doing the two days. Uh what, and so you're also, you just told us before we started recording that you're actually working in the industry now. I am, I'm like fully fledged. Tell us about that.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

So I work for a wonderful company called Natural Elements, and we do, I guess, super high-end maintenance on um gardens designed by Fiona Brockhoff and Eckersley is what we sort of specialise in. Well-known names. Well-known names. So that's fantastic. Still like I and I'm the junior, like I'm the office junior, and they're all, you know, 25 to 30, 40, and they're just um everyone sort of has these different takes on how we look at the gardens. The biggest thing when I started was learning how to get over how beautiful the gardens are and how to think critically about them, and then it's learning the artistry to maintain them, and that's I guess where I'm at now. Learning what comes next, how do we manage this plant, this branch, and do it in a way that this particular client will be happy. But also how what direction do Fiona and Eckersley, what direction do they want the garden to go in in you know, two years, five years, ten years' time?

SPEAKER_01 11:14

So that's up to you to make those decisions, or are you working as a team and you're given a and there's a boss, or there's a head of the channel?

SPEAKER_02 11:20

Stuart, he's the boss. Right. Stuart crossman, chief. Okay. And he's just his knowledge is just phenomenal.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Well you're learning you're learning so much there as well, which is absolutely fantastic. You could probably teach other than I don't know about Keith, you could teach me a lot of stuff. I don't know. In that just a short period of time, you have picked up so much knowledge.

SPEAKER_02 11:39

Well, but then I walk into your house today and you've got the terracotta pot with all the stones in it, with water, and that's something that you don't know. You haven't seen that already. I've I've got things like that, but different, and I'm like the terracotta pot with rocks and water.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

This is basically everybody for the for the for the for the bees, for the so the bees don't drown when they're having a drink. Exactly. Exactly. And the birds love it, the magpies love that particular terracotta cottage.

SPEAKER_02 12:06

But I think it's also like a little saucer. I think it's also that it's terracotta, it will evaporate and leak. And so you're constantly topping it up with fresh water.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

That's exactly right. Oh, good on you. My mind just blows at that whole concept. We have to move on because I want to hear, we both want to hear about the achievable gardens. The entry at Mifgus, the International Flower and Garden Show 2026. How did the opportunity come about to create a garden and what inspired the design? There's a lot to tell us there.

SPEAKER_02 12:34

So I started school in I think August last year, July-August. Six months ago. A bit more than that, yeah. It feels like it. And within like two or three weeks, they were saying this is an option for you. And some people would have gone, ah! Well, jump on that. I'll give that a go. Amazing. And so Did you all?

SPEAKER_01 12:53

All of you all those students?

SPEAKER_02 12:54

No, there are only a certain number of places. There's only they tend to only do two gardens for Chisholm. Oh, who were you there? You there was two of us there, and um basically you send you you give them a bit of a brief, and then this is where Keith comes into the story. Yeah, that's what they said.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

I've been sitting here doing nothing.

SPEAKER_02 13:19

So um I coming from restaurants and everything, and then with mental health, I was like, first thing is I wanted to design a garden that felt like a backyard. I wanted to design a garden that felt like the Mornington Peninsula. I wanted to design a garden that gave people a huge amount of ideas of looking at plants in a different way. And I wanted all those plants to be edible but not look like a vegetable garden. Good idea. And in that, I was like, well, me with my mental health background, I like to feel cocooned and hiding away from my house when I'm in the garden. I I know that there's that huge connection to the outdoor area. I like to close the house off because to me that's where school, work, teenagers, husband, I want to close that off. You walk out the door and shut it and lock it. Oh my god, absolutely. And so I knew that I wanted some sort of barrier between where you sit in the garden and where the back door is. And so they and I wanted everything to be quite sensory-based because I knew that when I was really recovering, touching the plant was huge. And so then I was like, well, okay, that that's sort of my criteria. Let's put it all into edible foods that I know, and let's base it on a character who I called Harry, because I needed a client to design it for. Okay, and that's where the concept for my garden came around.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

So you created your own brief in your own mind too.

SPEAKER_02 15:03

Absolutely, and so you know, um, those people who have seen my garden, you know that Harry is a surfer. You know that Harry is a bit of an oddball. You know that Harry he had his barbecue. It's not a built-in barbecue, it's just a barbecue from the 1960s. I didn't want, I also did a bit of read the room with the financial crisis that everyone's, you know, that's happening at the moment. And so the brief from um actual Mifgus is that you spend a maximum $8,000, which I took extremely literally, and I used all things that I'd found, I used all things that, you know, made sense to me. You know, they needed there was a bit of a space at the end of it, and I was like, I need some sort of wall art there, I need something to put on the wall, and you know, it's great to put plants there. But then I thought, well, I've got all these lobster plates at home that all have pictures of lobsters on them. And plates are so wonderful to put outside because they're full of colour, they're like, you know, they it doesn't matter if they get wet, and you can do whatever you want. And so, you know, just putting different ideas up of how to use a space and make it yours, yes, is really important. So tell us about the shower. Well, it was really important to have a shower in the backyard for Harry because he's a surfer. Coming in from the back beach? It is, he's coming in from Rye Back Beach and the shower. Um, we have a shower at home and we've never used the hot water because it's not great. Outdoor shower. Outdoor showers, yeah. We also have them indoors too. But outdoor shower. And so we've never used the hot water because they're not great for wetsuits. Yep. Like you want it to be, you want it to be cool, and you know, so um I had a shower lined up, then I was like, you know what, this is the price of this is getting out of reach for people. What I really need is just a shower that's got uh one tap, like a cold water tap. And so I was like doing a bit of research after a couple of days, and then I thought, oh my god, that's just called a hose. And so then I went and got one of those long-handled hoses, put it on the shower setting, had the green hose connected to a tap, and that's my shower. I know. So put a mirror up. It's so simple and so funny, but just so obvious. Yeah, it's it was just such an obvious thing that I just, you know, it just took me a while to get there. Great.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

Well done. Well done. So what is it? What why is it why with this category is it called the achievable gardens? Okay.

SPEAKER_02 17:47

Can you give us a well it's achievable? So what it is is everyone in that category are students. So you have to be studying horticulture or des garden design. Um it's there's 12 students, there's 12 student gardens within that category. Um and it's achievable because ideally the brief we're given is that it's $8,000. You need to design it for the average Melbourne gardener who doesn't have a huge skill set, and they need to put that garden together. Right. So it needs to be all things that I just looked at my husband who is not a gardener, not a DIY person, and I thought, okay, what would Clinton, how would Clinton do this? And that was he impressed. He was impressed.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Does he think he can do it?

SPEAKER_02 18:38

No. He um it it was eight months in the making for that garden, and I think, and and Keith would know every square centimetre is accounted for in one so every single component in all those gardens is 150% intentional. Wow, okay. Nothing left a chance. And you mentioned Keith before, what was it when you said this is where Keith comes in? What did he do? So this what he involvement was I was just about to submit my Mifgus proposal to school. And so I think that, and I don't know how many, I think let's just say they get 30 plus proposals. And so I'm driving down Mount Eliza one morning, and I'm like, I'm sure that's Keith Edwards from Muddy Boots. Oh, really?

SPEAKER_01 19:24

You saw him walking the dog or something?

SPEAKER_02 19:26

Yeah, with his neighbor and wife, and I've wound down my window, and I think I was like, oh, are you Keith Edwards?

SPEAKER_01 19:34

Oh famous.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

And he turned around and said, Yes. And I'm like, I love your show. That's Conji. And so then I thought, ooh, I climbed over the car and he, oh my god, Keith, you were just beautiful. And you gave me a big hug and you and then you said to me, I I told him that I was studying horticulture, loved you guys, listened to you guys. And then he said, if you ever need anything, um, just let me know. Here's my email. I said, Well, wait a minute, I've got my Mifgus proposal in the back of my car right now. That's literal, isn't it? And so on the spot, he went through it. And it was really, at that point, it's a vibe, and I knew I was going left of centre with the garden because it wasn't your classic show garden. Yeah, yeah. And he was like, Yes, go for it. Yes, go for it. And like for me, I don't know, I mean, you remember it, but for me, that was a pivotal moment in just having someone that was meant to be. He was there waiting for you to say, yes, this has got legs.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

It's just meant to be, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 20:48

Oh, it was sense for life.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

And and it was an achievable garden and it worked out just the way that you thought it was going to work out. And that's the beauty about the whole job you did, darling.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

Oh my gosh. And hearing that from a designer, you just thought it was pretty exciting.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

And as a result, you won a bronze medal.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

Didn't you? She stopped quick. Tell us so well, how did that moment this moment's amazing, but how did that moment when you won the bronze?

SPEAKER_02 21:19

I mean, how did the bronze medal that so we were we were I was away from the garden and um I I was off somewhere else, probably getting a coffee or something. I came back and there was this like bronze statue statue thing on my garden. And it took me a while. It wasn't until some like someone looking at the garden said, Oh, it's even one bronze. And I turned around and was like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, and I've like pulled it up and like, oh my gosh. This is amazing because it's it's it's just like I was saying to have people understand the concept of what I was doing and appreciate it. And just like it. Amazing.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

What's it? That's the way it is. That's it. Speechless again. It it it was just perfect. You know, we we we were lucky enough to be wandering around a couple of days later and and there you were and we did a little quick interview with you on the muddy boots.

SPEAKER_03 22:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

And that was just fabulous. And the garden was fantastic. And it captured every single element that you have spoken about from the beginning. That this is a Mornington Peninsula garden. It's got a connection with the sea, it's got a connection with everything that's around here. But the beauty was that the everything in that garden had an edible feature to it. And that was beautiful. Not just edible, but a sensory feature. Feeling, smelling, touching. And that's covered. And I wouldn't have given you a bronze, I'd have given you a bloody gold. I was about to say, why don't you win the gold?

SPEAKER_01 22:58

I'm sure the person was great and everything, but you should have won that gold. Next time. Thanks. Are you going to do it next year?

SPEAKER_02 23:03

I'm not allowed to do achievables next year. Oh, you only get to do it once. Yeah, you only get to do achievables. When you're moving up, I know, I know. Well, next year I'll have actually completed my course. I won't have been doing it for a couple of months.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

Amazing. So that whole experience, but then it's not just that experience, it's a whole combination of everything together. That's really just culminated in sitting here. But also getting that Mont Medal. And it's like it's almost like saying, look, Conchi, look how far you've come. Yeah. Isn't it? So it is. It is. How do you feel about that? And and where do we where do you go from here?

SPEAKER_02 23:38

I d I don't know. I think I think I really, really like talking to people about the possibility of I I hate to say the word edible garden. I'm just going to call it a garnish or a flavour garden because um, like I know we can talk about things like herb garden, bush food, all these things, but really it's just food that we use to flavour our basic bits and pieces. And it's okay to not have tomatoes and all these complex garden plants that you need to be on top of all the time. Just throw in some parsley and have some, I don't know, lettuce, but then you can have all these garden plants around it that you can also use in your day-to-day cooking, like the Santalinas, the fennels, the Rigodias, salt bushels, all these other bits and pieces that you can throw on a piece of steak or you can throw into a salad. And it just changes the whole it changes the whole thing. And uh it's just it's it's they're really easy plants to grow. Like you're not having to fuss around about them.

SPEAKER_00 24:53

But when you start with one, then you think about where am I going to go next?

SPEAKER_02 24:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

What am I gonna put in there?

SPEAKER_03 24:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

I've heard this tastes good with that, so I'll put that in as well. So it just gives you so many opportunities. And the connection that you're getting with growing things, with hands in the dirt, and getting the reward from for for your achievements, I think, is is probably the biggest thing for your for your own health and your and your own mind. I think it's just a wonderful thing.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

Absolutely. So your Instagram motto, as I said before, is digging in the garden for mental health. Why was that message important for you to share publicly?

SPEAKER_02 25:27

Um because what happened to me could happen to anyone. And I I I I did mention I I was already in the system. Um anxiety is absolutely debilitating. Um it just rules my life, even though I I have all my bases covered. Um, but anxiety is becoming more and more prevalent, and for me, this is my theory on it, um, the world is just moving so fast. You've got phones, you've got tablets, you've got everything going at you all at a time, and our brains aren't actually designed for that. They're they're not designed, and so I feel like just us as humans trying to keep up at that pace, I'm the case in point where my brain just couldn't do it anymore. I am I I don't, as you would know, I don't always respond to Instagram and emails and I don't always continue. I know, I don't always take phone calls. Good for you. Like, you know, in that time post-Mifgus, it's I needed downtime, I needed to turn my brain off from working at such a high volume. And for me, I've learned with professionals how to put those boundaries in. But there is no way I could work in an office environment, even though I came from a corporate world many years ago, but the speed they work at now and having to work interruption, interruption, like all these interruptions, like phones beeping, my brain can't do that anymore.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

And you know what? Working out in the garden makes you slow down.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

That's what I was gonna say. That's what I was gonna say. What yeah, so then when that when you start to feel that the, you know, it's something's coming over you, get out there. Does that and does that?

SPEAKER_02 27:26

Get out of here. The garden is the one place where my brain stops. All those outside things, all those like influences. Yeah, and I'm not gonna say voices in my head because my dad once said to me, Do they talk back to you? And I was like, No.

SPEAKER_03 27:44

I'm not out of a multiple personality disease.

SPEAKER_02 27:47

But even if they do, that's okay. Because out in the garden, that's where all that noise stops for me, because I can just focus on that one plant that I'm looking at at that one point in time. I'm with you, and with you.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

I think we're all with you, and I think there are so many people out there who are listening to this will be going, oh God.

SPEAKER_02 28:05

And you know, this is so true. Yeah, and the other thing is to not always have music or a podcast or something going on while you're in the garden. Actually listen to the sounds around you, and then you start to realise that there's all these different birds. Yeah, you start to hear the bees before you see them.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

Yeah, I so agree with you. I someone said to me one day, yeah, because I said, I don't know how, apart from this one, of course, don't have time to listen to podcasts really, because people are saying, Well, I'll listen to this podcast and that podcast. And I said, I don't have time. I said, What about in the garden? I said, No, I don't. Well, that's where I go to for nothing, for the piece. So the same as you. Couldn't do it. Yeah, so it's lovely. It is so lovely to just sometimes to think, oh, I can't be bothered going in the garden, but as soon as I walk out there, shut the door.

SPEAKER_02 28:51

It's like, oh, you know, I do I do tea and trim. So I'll take a cup of tea and I'll take my secateurs and just do little trimming. Tea and trim or weed and wine. Like, you know, you just make all these little things part of your daily little thing. And then it just it's it's not just about being in the garden. It's just, oh, when I have a cup of tea at 4:30 when I get home, it's just the one part of my day where I'm in my garden. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

Yeah. Well, I do, I do scratch and scotch.

SPEAKER_02 29:23

Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh, of course he would. He was trying to work that out while we were talking. Oh my gosh, this is an easy, it's it's but it it is, it's it's having those little things that just become part of your daily routine instead of oh, I've got to go into the garden and do that. It's it's make it make it something that's a two-for-one.

SPEAKER_01 29:43

I was gonna one, my next question was gonna be how important do you think gardens are becoming in modern life as places of refuge and restoration? But that's exactly what we've just said. So important.

SPEAKER_02 29:52

And I I think it's I think it's also just about public spaces as well, like moving away from what one of my teachers refers to as the Westfield Gardens, of just having a field of Lamandras and going, oh no, we've got green there. We can do so much better than that.

SPEAKER_00 30:07

Yes, zero escapes.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

Oh yes. You've got a huge future ahead. And didn't do you feel like do you feel like more in control of everything as a result of everything that's happened over the last yes. How many months? 18?

SPEAKER_02 30:20

Whatever it's whatever it is. Um yeah, I feel like I I feel like I've found sort of my place. I feel like I found my people. Great. You know, and it's like when you've got a dog and you go to the dog park and everyone there who just wants to talk about their dog, I found another one of those. The parts of your dogs. There they are. And you know, it's amazing. Yeah, it's just finding your people.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

And I think it's great because so many people listening or watching this particular recording. We'll actually relate to a lot of the things that you've been talking about. And the more people that we can get their hands into the dirt, the better.

SPEAKER_02 31:01

They're gonna turn off the podcast and get out there. We don't want it to turn off. I mean, there is one podcast. Yeah, there's one podcast you can listen to when you're out in the garden. But you know, and that's what made me think of like digging in the garden, dig heads, like dig heads.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

This is the name dig heads is the name of Conchi's Instagram page, so it's dig head, it is just dig heads, isn't it? Just dig heads. You want to dig heads. You very much have to clarify that.

SPEAKER_02 31:27

Um but I think it's also taking it in with that humour as well, that when you do go through those awful things in life, you do need a sense of humour about what you're doing sometimes. Like I couldn't remember to make a cup of tea. Oh well, that's okay. That sort of sucks for me at the time. But we don't have to let go of the perfection a bit, and you have to learn to laugh at it because otherwise you'll just end up getting depressed and crying. But it's okay to, you know, go, oh wow, I really did that.

SPEAKER_01 32:02

What can I do?

SPEAKER_02 32:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:03

Go out smile and put my hand in the dirt. Yeah. Yeah. Conchi, we have we could talk forever with you. We could, but we can't, we have to stop, unfortunately. So thank you so much. We have really it's what a what a f we're so proud of you. Hardly know you, but we're so I'm so proud of you. I think you've gone so far. I'm so impressed. And I can't wait to see where you go next. I mean Me too. You want to join her? Do it together. Yeah, let's. I have no idea what I'm doing. We'll do that with you. Your story reminds us that gardens can be so much more than just beautiful spaces. They can be places of healing, places of places of purpose, growth, and renewal, obviously. So from discovering comfort in the garden during difficult times to studying horticulture and creating a medal-winning show garden. Conchi's journey shows just how life-changing plants can nature can be. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

Thanks, Conchi. It's been fantastic. Lovely having you, darling.

SPEAKER_02 32:59

Oh, I'm sorry I talked so much.

SPEAKER_01 33:00

No, we love it! We love it, we love it, we love it. It's been great. And you have to come back on. We're gonna get you back on. Thank you for listening to Muddy Boots. For more information on today's podcast, please go to muddyboots.net.au and happy gardening.