The cheap but cheering gift

Paulhiscock · July 2020

Just after my late wife died I had a period where I was in deep depression and didn't really care about anything. My garden although well looked after up until then went to pot and I just wasn't interested. My neighbour seeing the grim state of the front of my house remembered that every year in a trough planter I grew lavender. What was there was dead, so she went to Aldi and bought a cheap lavender plant for me as a gift. She says that it cost her £5. It grew, I looked after it and it survived winter. A judicial cut back and it did another season. it's on it's third now and doing fine. I have since taken my garden beyond what it used to be and the lavender looks happy amongst it all. A thoughtful and surprisingly successful gift. Do you have a plant that made a difference. Why not tell us about it.

HelenMF · July 2020

Sorry to hear about your wife. That was lovely of your neighbour. I find gardening in general very restful and restorative.

josusa47 · July 2020

The plant that best calms my nerves and lifts my spirits is good old Camellia sinensis.

AnniD · July 2020

It's not a plant but one of those small garden plaques that were popular a few years back. It says "Gardening forever, housework whenever ". The friend who gave it to me knows me too well !
Every time l see it, it makes me smile.

rock_hen · July 2020

Both my parents died within the last 8 months and my garden has been a live saver! I spend my days pottering round dead heading and watching the plants grow. The plants that have made the difference to me is tending to my roses. I have bought a few as memorial plants and it has helped keep my sanity intact for now 🙂

Paulhiscock · July 2020

I am truly sorry for your loss. I am like you, gardening has really helped me. My wife loved roses. We had several but in my darkest days I let them die. When I landscaped my garden in her memory I bought 6 varieties that she had chosen before. They really remind me of her. I remember each occasion when she chose the original. Gardening has saved so much of me that I thought I'd lost.

rock_hen · July 2020

Thank you, I am so sorry for your loss. Grief is a long, hard road. Thank goodness for gardens, they are truely good for the soul

Fire · July 2020

In the midst of moving into my first own home, in the middle of harsh chemo, unable to eat, in a freezing November, I asked a friend to plant spring bulbs with me. It felt like an act of faith. I look back on it with amazement - remembering that I hardly had the strength to plant a tulip bulb and lent on my friend to do it. A few years later a good friend had tumours return. She spent her last months with her 12 year old daughter making a memory book. I sent her a sack of tulip bulbs for them to plant together.

BenCotto · July 2020

Tulips also for us.

Throughout my wife’s six incidences of cancer, the brain aneurysm, the broken bone in her ankle and a few things more our medical insurance company has been brilliant. We wrote to thank them and they asked if they might do a video of Mrs Cotto’s experiences. Of course, she said.

In the course of the video she remarked that, on just having been given confirmation of breast cancer for the first time, she was sitting in the hospital gardens looking at a tulip display and wondered if this would the last year she would ever see tulips. As a thank you, the insurance company sent a large bag of tulip bulbs. They flower every year, as the photo above shows.

Paulhiscock · July 2020

The sense of renewal and natural beauty provides great consolation. I love to sit outside and look on plants especially when they are in flower. I also can spend hours watching the blackbirds that nest in my hedge bathing in the dog bowl that I use as a bird bath. It doesn't undo what has happened but at least it helps to find the strength to keep going. Not just for me losing my wife but more recently coping with the covid lockdown too. I am thankful that I have gardening to turn to

Paulhiscock · July 2020

Thank you for your kind words and sorry for your loss. I agree the garden makes a great difference for me. I do feel for those who don't have gardens, hopefully they have found a meaningful way to connect with nature in their time of need.

The cheap but cheering gift

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