Social media gardens got you down? Here’s some of my ugly to keep you sane.

I am recently returned from almost six weeks away from my garden punctuated by a short week of illness at home, where I impatiently laid in bed, sipped broth, and tragically looked out of the window at the skeletal remains of last year’s garden needing attention.

That needed some seeing to. 

In that time, spring has begun to tickle the ribs of the woodland that surrounds me.  The joy of coming back from warmer climates (California and Texas) to see that I haven’t missed the full awakening is profoundly gratifying.

Love that early spring feeling — everything is waking up. Including me & Mungo.

I just have to keep myself away from everyone else’s profundities so I can enjoy it for what it is.

Very very pretty. But how #real is it?

Each year, the entire world is justifiably excited by the still-harnessed potential of a fresh, new, growing season. You only need to read a handful of the 165 million #spring posts on Instagram or flowery, navel-gazing essays on Substack to realize that we are all:

A) Totally in love with our gardens;

B) Convinced that we are first people/generations to ever love gardening this deeply, anywhere, anytime, and forevermore, so there; and,

C) Anxious to share that joy (set to trending music) with anyone who made the mistake of “just checking” their phone, and who groggily emerged two hours later swimming in pansies and politics.

For the most part, the photos we’re scrolling through with the hand not holding the coffee mug are highly curated. Polished soft-fades, and professional angles are the order of the day.  #Spring is no time for subtlety – or sad looking seedlings that needed to be transplanted two weeks ago and are seriously bringing down the vibe. 

Bringing down the vibe. There’s a bed edge in there somewhere.

Our gardens on the other hand – the ones outside the back door that started sticking last week, past the pet bowls and discarded shoes — are not curated.  They have their spectacular moments – just like we do, but most of the time, they’re running around bare-faced in a ripped tee-shirt sorely in need of a haircut. (And not as a sexy twenty-five-year-old either.)

I’ve been stepping over my weed piles for three days — but I NEEDED to get the Corydalis incisa out when I had the chance.

They are messy, and real, and authentic; which is not to say, #messy and #real, and #authentic – an entirely different thing altogether. Beware the #honesty which itself is carefully curated these days. From breakdowns to breakups (14.1M are #authentic) we’re rarely getting the whole picture of what things really look like between takes unless a filter slips or a news organization gets hold of the dirt. 

I am about 3 weeks behind getting these poor plants out of the garage.

But our gardens are nevertheless deeply loved. And we do forgive them much when the specter of other people’s spectacular is not playing havoc in our brains. For instance, I can honestly say that I have now fully trained myself to instantly look past present moments of disappointment to the promise of ‘same time next year.’ Within seconds I’m imagining what will be instead of what is.

This sucks. But I’m already thinking about next year.

And when I say ‘trained,’ I’m not sure I ever consciously thought about it. Whether that’s a function of denial or age-related wisdom I do not know, but it brings me great peace when a freeze blitzes the wisteria blossoms again.   I may whine about it on The Garden Mixer for sympathy, but inside, I’m good. 

Not up to usual standards….

That is, right up until I pull up Instagram to look at what others are doing and an Influencer like katy_at_the_manor scrolls past with a wall full of blousy, beautiful blooms and posts a perfectly nonchalant “I’m often asked how I get my wisteria to flower so profusely.”

And then offers her top tips.

From, apparently, her manor.

That (not-so-surprisingly) doesn’t include how to get her wisteria past a Mid-Atlantic freeze in April. 

Because she has two homes in Zone 9 England.

Did I mention she makes beautiful lemon tarts too?  

And the table is set for friends. I really need to finish pressure washing the algae off the chairs….

So we’ve got to protect our brains from Curation Comparison Syndrome.  All of us. With less screentime and much more time fully experiencing the many faces of our gardens — a great deal of which only a parent could love.

With any luck I hope I’ve helped your case of CCS with this slew of the ugliest photos of my garden today after the resident gardener was MIA for six weeks.  Because in places it is ugly, and overwhelming, and ambitious, and disorganized.

But it’s also the garden that at the same time, from a different angle is capable of this:

And this:

And this:

And the resident gardener can often turn this:

Into this:

Be kind to yourself. And your beloved garden. And I’ll try to do the same. Social media is not #reallife. – MW