Growing children
Have you noticed how many passionate gardeners (myself included) are women whose children are grown? It is as if we transfer our nurturing tendencies from children to plants. I am sure I have read this theory elsewhere and although it is an interesting idea I am not sure that I buy it. I was not a natural earth mother and, passionately although I loved my children from babyhood, I got better at mothering as they grew older. I spent twenty years of my life climbing the corporate ladder so I didn't feel a void in my life when my children left home which could only be filled by propagating dogwoods and dividing snowdrops. Somehow the garden ran alongside a frantic work and family life, taking its place after the immediate and pressing demands of family but always a sanity saver, always giving me a place to breathe and dream and find myself again without the pinging of the blackberry and the incessant call of the mobile phone. Up here now, with more time and ...