How All my Cares Fly Away in my Garden

This new plumeria symbolizes growth, resilience, and rebirth, while the plaque is speaks volumes about how I feel about gardening.
(photo by author)

Small business owners, especially those who work from home, should have a hobby that provides a break from the daily toil of running a business.

The photo above, taken in the corner of our garden, shows a plumeria that I planted a few years ago and is only now tall enough to poke a few fragrant flowers over our BBQ. It replaced a larger plumeria that was cut down by accident in the winter when it had no leaves. Our kids, wanting to be extra helpful, chopped it to the ground, and it never recovered. It was my fault, really, because I told them to clear out weeds and dead wood.

So, I planted a new one, but plumerias are fickle and slow-growing. That is why, after several years, it is now finally coming into its glory and producing some wonderfully fragrant flowers. Our plumeria was reborn, in a way. That process of planting something and watching it grow slowly over time is incredibly therapeutic. While working from home may seem very relaxing, it is anything but that, as any home-based business owner can tell you.

From Adversity to…

Many years ago, when we bought our first house, I was very busy working in IT at a large university. The house was in an HOA, I needed to have the garden completed within a year. I didn’t have the time to do that; my wife was also working, and so we just hired a gardener to throw some trees and bushes in the ground. As this was our first house, we didn’t have a big budget, so the result reflected that, and over time, it became increasingly unruly.

Then something tragic happened at my work. My direct supervisor, the person who hired me and who was a mentor, was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. He died a very short time later. The years that followed were very hectic. Our department needed to expand during that time, but it was leaderless. I was bounced around to different managers I gave serious consideration to transferring to a different department or even leaving the university for the private sector.

When I came home, usually late at night, I would sit on my patio to think things through. Looking upon that unruly garden with its overgrown trees, vines reaching the roofline, and the withering bulbs that no longer produced flowers, my garden became a metaphor for my work.

It was right around that time that I also broke my tibia. It was a hairline fracture just below the knee, but it was extremely painful, and made my work, which required a lot of walking, even more unpleasant. Then one night, as I sat there exhausted, in front of a row of dried-out lavender encroaching onto my patio under an already dead birch tree that I had doted over, I decided to make a change.

…to Prosperity

The work I so despised and the jungle that my garden had become were like two sides of a pit that I needed to get out of. I couldn’t do much about my job, but that flippin’ garden, I could tackle that. So instead of just sitting there every night, ruminating, I decided to work in my garden. Like any large project, I began small, focusing on tasks I knew I could handle.

Over time, my garden started to improve. Little by little, I planted new flowers, replaced dying bushes, and even gave that beloved birch tree a proper funeral. I replaced a patch of grass with proper ground cover, added pavers to walk on, and I even figured out how to replace the sprinkler system. The change did not occur overnight. It took several years, but the progress was evident.

What happened as a result was more surprising, though. The process of planting things, nurturing them, watching them grow to maturity, and maintaining them gave me a sense of accomplishment. Sitting on my patio with friends no longer requires excuses about that unruly yard.

My spirits improved overall, and this also started to become evident at work. While I still didn’t have a manager who actually understood what my team did, I became more assertive and took charge of my little corner of the department. As a result, I was promoted to director, my budget increased, and we were able to take on more challenging but interesting projects. While I can’t give the credit for all that success to my little garden at home, I am certain it had an impact.

Working From Home

We eventually moved out of our starter home and the garden that it came with. As the kids started to grow, wanting to play sports and needing bigger things, it became clear we needed a bigger home. Our new home has much more hard-scaping and even a small putting green (that we really don’t make much use of). Fortunately, it also has a small but manageable garden that my wife and I like to putter in.

We have recently started to grow large plants in pots to make better use of the hardscaping, and that has been just as rewarding. We have grape vines – amazing how big these can get in the summer – as well as a guava tree and a banana tree. We also grow pineapples and we have a wonderful orange tree as well. Most of these are in pots, too, so if we move again, they are coming along. We also have rose bushes, a large collection of succulents, and of course, lots of bulb flowers from daffodils to amaryllis.

While my wife still works outside the house, I now work from home. I spend most of my days staring at a screen – I have many. While I enjoy my work, it gives me headaches, eye strain, and all sorts of body aches if I’m at it too long. This is where being outdoors becomes crucial to maintaining my sanity.

We live in a very large, well-maintained, and very green neighborhood, with hiking trails into the hills behind us. I’m an avid walker, so I get out there as much as I can – it’s good exercise too – and it allows me to listen to my music and catch up on my podcasts. Nothing like walking between tall trees while listening to The Forest that Weeps by Wintersun:

(It may come as a surprise but many symphonic death metal bands draw from nature for their inspiration.)

Adding Some Science…

One thing that I learned from a book I listened to on one of my walks is that being out there with nature actually has psychosomatic health benefits. The color green in the trees and the bushes all around us, immerses us with feelings of harmony, growth, rejuvenation, and health.

I realize not everyone is into that touchy-feely stuff – no shame, I wasn’t either when I was working 9-5 every day, but I have evolved. There is also some solid science behind it. You see (pun intended), the eyes are most sensitive to green light and can discern more shades of green than other colors. This makes seeing green much more relaxing than, say, the “blue” light of a computer screen.

For someone like me who spends hours in front of a computer screen, this matters. What also matters is allowing the eyes to focus on something else more organic. A computer, phone, or TV screen tends to feel almost strobe-like after long hours focusing on them. This is why changing that focus to a caterpillar on a branch in the yard is so important.

If your eye doctor hasn’t told you yet, it’s important to take your eyes off your screen regularly. There is plenty of science behind that as well and many doctors recommend the 20-20-20 rule, which recommends taking a break from the screen every 20 minutes for at least 20 seconds, focusing on something 20 feet away. While I can’t say I am that strict about it, I do take the time to wander into the yard several times a day during my coffee breaks to stare at the flowers, the butterflies, or whatever piques my interest.

Of course, sitting in front of a screen is not good for the rest of the body either. While walking and hiking are great for cardio-vascular wellbeing, more movement is better. I’m not really a gym guy. I always felt that you can get enough fitness by just doing chores around the house – so if you’re one of those who hires a maid service and has a 24-hour fatness membership… well, you get the point.

So, this is where gardening comes in. It requires me to bend, lift, stretch, and pull to get some exercise and flexibility. Yeah, I know it’s not the same as doing bench presses, but the next time I need to dig up a tree root ball or move some potted trees, you are welcome to come over and compare.

Gardening Really is a Wonderful Hobby

Most people know that gardening and being in nature have many benefits. It’s not a mystery. What makes most people hesitate, though, is that they just don’t have the time. That’s what I thought every night when I sat on that patio thinking. What would I ever have the time to pull those weeds, trim that tree, and mow that lawn? What I eventually realized was that sitting in the hospital waiting to take my X-rays was also a huge waste of time.

The weird thing about gardening is that you can start as small as you like. You can start by buying a potted plant to put next to your computer so you can stare at it every 20 minutes. Any small start is still a start. Baby steps is how we learned to walk; now I’m happily putting in my 10K steps every day, and that didn’t happen overnight either.

There is one more reason that gardening is a wonderful hobby. Unless you have a mail-order plant business, chances are it’s radically different than your day job. Whether you work a 9-5 job, but especially if you work out of your own home, the best part about gardening is that it is completely different from what you do every day.

For most of us, gardening breaks the monotony, relieves us from a boring job, and it’s like a mini vacation you can take every day. Even if you ignore all the other reasons why it’s good for you, the fact that you are doing something different from what you always do will reward you in spades. It did for me.