Endings always proceed beginnings. For many flower growers, Autumn is the time when the season starts again. Spring bulb planting is now happening in earnest, although I always hold off planting my tulips until November. There’s things to do, and advice on the things to do, and so many more things to do than there is time.

Growing any garden, particularly a flower cutting garden, is like painting the Forth bridge. Just as you think you’ve finished, then the garden needs to start again. There’s a joy in that immersion that many discovered during the pandemic. Whether your garden is for your business too or not, sometimes, rather than contentment, there’s nothing short of overwhelming chaos, far from the initial aspiring sustainable scented seasonal dream that started you out. So how do you keep your sanity when there’s not enough hours in the day and the “To Do” list is running to a couple of A4 pages.

Here’s my top ten ideas for keeping your sanity and your sustainable garden, whereever you are:

1. Eat the Frog. Not literally of course but do the thing that is THE THING first.
2. Have a “sprint” moment. You know when you have a hard deadline, and you just have no point beyond that, like going away. Invent that moment for a sprint. I get loads done that way. Avoid setting totally unrealistic expectations. I do that too.
3. Employ your organising & planning head. Tools like GTD are brilliant. Then, after that one planning moment, forget everything else and just get on with that one thing you have chosen to do.
4. Get your phone to help rather than hinder. While there’s Apps for everything, there’s also being drawn inadvertently onto other things unintentionally. Have a gentle discipline to only look at the socials at set times, and find an app that you like and that helps you. Streaks is the app that is helping me right now.
5. Small victories are the moments to remember to keep you going. Do the thing you’ve identified first, right now, yes, this moment.
6. Choose wisely the things to grow, and only the things you adore! If you don’t love them you won’t be interested in looking after them. If your soil doesn’t love them, you’ll be on an uphill battle to keep them. Acceptance is still being learnt here!
7. If you grow vegetables, grow some flowers. If you grow flowers, grow some vegetables. I’ve reinstated vegetable growing here after letting the flowers completely take over. There’s nothing more sustainable, or more edible that eating your home grown produce.
8. Look after yourself. Even if I have spectacularly not done what I said I was going to, drifted to something else, or goodness knows allow myself to be drawn into something on social media, I stop for pilates. Pretty much everyday. Doing the garden is a physical thing, creating florals is a head thing. Pilates is a breathing thing that keeps me going for both.
9. Do what you have the energy for and what you feel like doing. I like to write. I love to garden. I adore creating florals. That said, you’ll need to plant your plants at some time but always you’ll have more enthusiasm if the thing is something you have the interest in currently.
10. Avoid that nagging thought of what you “Should” be doing. The tirany of the shoulds, oughts and musts leads to dark dangerous thoughts.

In an ever ever changing world, with it’s deep desire to influence you, keep to your sustainable ways however much they feel like unappreciated and unacknowledged, Of course there’s more planning, much less carbon, more happy wildlife, and loosing projects for keeping to your principles. I know! Never give up on your sustainable endeavour though. I believe that it can save the planet, and us all.

And if you’d like a chat on sanity and sustainability, book your seat at one of our autumn online classes . I’ll be creating sustainable dried wreaths using the things we’ve planting our Cheshire canalside cut flower garden.