Now that the 2024 gardening season is coming to an end in my region, I thought I would take the time to reflect on how this season has gone for me. I found that I started out with a lot of energy and ideas in the spring, but I really struggled for most of the garden season. To put it simply, I lost sight of what made me passionate about gardening until the act of gardening became a burden and something that I procrastinated doing.
There were some things that worked out really well, such as the mini wildflower meadow I created this spring with a Canadian wildflower seed mix. The wildflowers have been blooming for most of the summer, with the black-eyed Susans still going strong into September. I used to focus primarily on growing vegetables so one of my main goals this year was to test out a garden space dedicated just to growing beautiful flowers. I really enjoyed it and I am going to expand that part of the garden for next year.
I also planted a privacy wall of the scarlet runner variety of Pole Beans. They have been one of the highlights of the summer. The bean blooms attracted many types of bees and several hummingbirds, so I’m definitely going to be doing that again next year as well.
But overall, it has been a challenge to get myself outside into the garden. I am referring to the current state of my relationship with gardening as ‘gardening burnout.’ I had all of the classic symptoms: loss of enthusiasm, decreased enjoyment, guilt, physical/mental fatigue, and avoidance. It’s not uncommon to experience burnout with hobbies and passion projects that have been the main focus of one’s energy, but it took me until the end of August to realize what my issue was when I was staring at my garden, overgrown with knee-high weeds and wondered how it got that bad.
I am looking forward to taking the winter break to rejuvenate my interest in gardening and to get back in touch with what I found exciting about it in the beginning. I am thinking about reducing my goals for the garden 2025 season and setting boundaries around the time that I expect myself to spend tending to my plants. I also think that I will benefit from shifting my focus to letting nature be more itself rather than trying to control and over-manage my garden spaces. While this year had both ups and downs, I did learn a lot from the experience.
The Heron and Rose 