What to do in your garden in March
To ease your mind and soothe your soul
Hi darling, I’m Kendall, a horticultural therapist. Here on my Substack, I share tips on how to use your garden to grow your personal power in a world that tries to keep women stuck, exhausted & burnt out. Come grab your trowel and join the rebellion, we’ve got a patriarchy to dismantle.
Welcome to the Seed, the place where we learn to resource ourselves in the garden so that we can unlock more joy in our lives.
March, the month we tip over into Spring. But hold your horses before you start throwing seeds on the bare ground and planting Cosmos seeds into pots with wild abandon.
Head out into a shady spot in your garden (no coat) and tell me what you feel. Still quite chilly no? Well it is here in the South of England. So we still need to wait a while before we can get sowing some of the quicker growing, more tender seeds.
I know, I know you’re excited, but I want you to have the best chance of success.
I want you to tune in to the weather in your area. Use your senses and be in your body (not your head) and not getting sucked into what everyone else is doing on Instagram.
Do share with us what you notice on your no coat adventure into the garden in the comments.
If your excitement has got the better of you and you’ve already sown some things- don’t panic. I am not here to tell you you’ve done it wrong. We are not at school! Although I am sharing a handy March seed sowing guide later on in this article which might give you classroom worksheet vibes…..
Gardening is one big experiment and sometimes those experiments work out and the seeds you sowed a little too early survive and go on to be strong plants. And sometimes they don’t, and that is ok. We get to make up our own rules here and try again.
I know, I know our society doesn’t let us make mistakes, especially as women, but guess what, we’re human so we’re gonna fuck up- it’s inevitable. And just know that I, and every other member of the Seed, will pick you back up again.
So let’s just make peace with the fact that things are gonna go wrong on our gardening adventures and that we can’t control every tiny aspect of our lives in or out of the garden. If for no other reason than it’s exhausting and keeping us stuck doing everyone else’s bidding 24/7.
That’s one of the biggest life lessons that gardening has taught me- to let go of the tightly gripped reins a bit. Sure sometimes things go sideways when you loosen your grip. But sometimes you are delighted with the most wonderful surprises. And that’s a risk worth taking when it comes to your garden, in my opinion.
If you’d like a simple list of gardening activities to follow this month that are achievable in the small pockets of time you claim for yourself around work, kids, strengthening your body so you can lift fuck off big bags of compost and all the other shite that comes with being an adult. (Longest sentence ever!)
Then here you are:
Mindful Gardening activities
These activities are designed to be done throughout March so you can grow your gardening confidence in community without feeling overwhelmed. Come and join us for £50 for the entire year and garden alongside us instead of figuring it out alone.
If you’re using the Substack app, click the 3 dots in the top right of your screen and choose save from the drop down so you can find this signposting article throughout the month and easily access your mindful gardening activities. Or if you’re reading on email I really recommend creating a folder in your email inbox called The Seed and popping this email in there for easy access!
Do this one thing in March to grow your garden and improve your wellbeing and mood
Our March focus is seed sowing.
A few years ago I created a Mindful Gardening Planner. I put my heart and soul into it, had hundreds of copies printed and sold nowhere near enough to break even. One of my biggest business mistakes.
I could blame it on the ADHD belief that a planner can genuinely change your life. Or I could be really honest with myself and admit I made a mistake in getting them printed. I should have done what the wonderful
does and created an e-version that people could have printed themselves. I also made the monumental fuck-up of making it dated, so once 2022 was over I could no longer sell it. Oh hindsight where the fuck were you?!Anyhow, i’m getting miserable just thinking about it so let’s move on.
All this to say, is that here is the March seed sowing page from said planner in case you fancy printing it out or referring to it when you’re planning your sowing.
If you find this useful and you’d love for me to make it available as a low cost e-book (without the dated pages obvs) then let me know by voting on the poll below.
If you’re thinking right, but where the fuck do I even start? What equipment do I need?How can I give them the best chance of germinating and actually becoming a plant? You can get all my seed sowing tips and tricks in my pre-recorded Mindful Seed Sowing for Success Masterclass. You can purchase it here.
If group settings aren’t your thing and you want me to guide you (with tailored advice for your space and your available time) through how to sow seeds successfully, then you can book on to the Seasonal Sessions. And not only will I teach you how to sow your seeds but i’ll also create you a bespoke care plan for your garden, so you know exactly how to look after the plants you grow!
What’s coming up in the Seed in March for paid members
Our first live Q&A
Eeeek i’m a little bit excited about this one! Taking place right here on Substack at 12.30pm UK time on Tuesday 11th March, come along and ask me your questions on the topic of ‘How to get started in your garden’.
Whether that’s because you’re brand new to gardening and it all feels overwhelming, you’ve yet to get started this season and you’d like some guidance or you’ve got a new garden project that you’re procrastinating over. Come and access my gardening brain and get a good dollop of Kendall energy to get you started.
If you can’t make it live then you can submit them in advance on this chat thread here and i’ll answer them live.
p.s. this live video will go out to my whole Substack community but only paying members of the Seed will be able to ask questions.
I haven’t worked out the tech yet, but i’ll send you a reminder email before I go live so you can come and take a break with us to chat all things gardening as a time-poor modern woman.
How to save your plants from being ravaged by aphids
You finally decided what to plant, put it in the ground and seemingly immediately it’s being attacked by sap sucking insects. Causing the plant to struggle and you to freak out that it’s gonna die and your status as ‘crap gardener of the year’ will be confirmed.
Never fear, Kendall is here. I’m going to be sharing all of my aphid busting tips with you in this article.
The next of my Garden Adventures
Mother Nature is waking slowly so i’ve found a very special place to visit that will showcase the best of the plants Mother Nature has to offer right now as well as a many other visual treats for the eyes!
As ever i’ll be sharing the bits I’m not a fan of and the bits that I love and how you can bring them to your garden.
If you want to be part of a gardening community where you can learn to garden without judgement, a place where you can share your wins and your struggles without feeling like a failure, then come and join the Seed as a paid member.
Have you got a border that could do with some love, or perhaps you’ve got a brand new area that you’d love to fill with gorgeous plants?
Come and learn what plants and colours to include to boost your mood and improve your wellbeing.
I live in Australia.
Have you come across something similar for our climate??
I have about six to eight weeks before I can start planting here but I went ahead and did some winter sowing jugs as a grand experiment. We'll see what comes of it. This is my first time gardening at this kind of scale (2 veggie beds and will begin some flower beds) but we spend spring and summer outside as much as possible so I figured I may as well give it a try since I'm out there with the kids.