Let yourself grow!

Embrace the summer months to tend your inner garden and enjoy the healing and rejuvenation you can find there with a little help

- Jackee Holder

This summer, my South London garden has been in full bloom: verdant, fragrant, and quietly instructive. As I water the bushy peony that hasn't flowered since my friend Jacque passed away, I find myself in quiet conversation with it. The peony is a cutting from her old front garden. For the first few years, it stayed green but dormant. One year it bloomed, unexpectedly and then, not again. I water it anyway.

Some things take precious time to flower again. Grief, unlike the seasons, doesn’t follow a predictable rhythm. It can loop back on itself, pause unexpectedly, or bloom long after we thought it was done. Healing does its work underground. And just because we can’t see the growth doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

As I tend the garden, I notice how often its rhythms mirror my own. I’ve spent the summer moving hydrangeas from pots into soil, shifting them from one corner of the garden to another, trying to find that perfect spot of shade and sunlight. Some didn’t like the pots. Others needed room to stretch their roots.

I didn’t realise I was also re-potting myself. Over the summer I’ve found myself opening up to new possibilities in my personal life. It felt tentative at first, unfamiliar territory but at the same time expansive. Like giving myself permission to root in a different kind of soil. Repotting isn’t always dramatic or public. Sometimes it’s a quiet shift, giving yourself the time and patience to grow into a version of yourself you haven’t yet met.