As promised, here is part 2 of who I am, and what this blog is all about. If you missed Part 1, you can find it HERE.
So, apart from the whole thing of being plant mad, loving getting my hands dirty and watching living things grow, and feeling an overwhelming urge to overshare it all with total strangers, there is another important reason for this blog. I'd really like to promote the concept that gardening can be absolutely awesome therapy.
I've battled with depression and anxiety for nearly 20 years now, and I can tell you, it's not much fun. In the last few years I've also added in some chronic pain to the mix, which is even less fun. The combination of these has led to me not being able to hold down jobs or even maintain friendships, and life can get really shitty and lonely and financially stressful when that happens.
The drowning metaphor is, sadly, incredibly accurate - you can just feel like you're literally drowning in your own emotions and pain, and it can feel really difficult to try and drag yourself up and out of the water. Add the emotional and financial responsibility of single parenthood and damn, it can snowball!
About 10 years ago I started dabbling in crafts - first a bit of scrapbooking (I was really, really bad at it, lol) and then some quilting (even more crap) and then weaving, as in, on a loom. Ahhh - this I could do, hurrah! And so I wove. And when I got a bit fed up of weaving I turned to crochet. I don't know what I would have done without YouTube to teach me both of these, lol, but I got there. I'm no expert, but I do it for the love of it. It's calming, creative and just kind of Zen, whatever that really means.
I still crochet quite a bit, and have started up a local Crochet for Charity group on Facebook, because creating handmade items to donate to people in need is even more positive than just the creation side alone. The one problem is that woven and crochet projects tend to be longer term things - it can take weeks to crochet a blanket, or make an intricate weaving, and sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming to keep going when you're feeling physically, emotionally and mentally fragile.
Then I started paying a bit more attention to the few, tragic plants that had somehow been clinging to live in my house, and decided to hop online and look up some advice and tips on how to nurture them back to health.
Well, OMG, this was a whole new world to me! The Instagram and YouTube community of plant-crazy people just blew my mind! I watched video after video, read blogs and stalked Instagram like a nutter. Of course, then I had to start increasing my own little collection of indoor plants. And then increase it a bit more, and a bit more...
And so here we are - the therapeutic benefits I get from simply walking around my home each morning while the coffee pot is busy brewing my caffeine fix, saying hello to them, picking off any dead leaves, admiring, checking for dry soil or pests is amazing! There's a real sense of caring for another living creature, finding out its needs, watching it grow, that just makes me feel so damned good! Repotting, making up my own potting mixes, pruning, watering, feeding - it's such a nurturing thing to do, and yet I think I'm the one who ends up getting the most nurturing!
I won't bore you to death all at once, but in future posts I'll be sharing a lot of the online information I've read on the subject of gardening and crafts as therapy, as well as telling you about my future plans to set up my own business in the field and all the other good stuff there is about working with plants.
So I hope you now have a bit more of an idea of what Indoor Garden Love is all about, and do be sure to follow us on social media (links at top and bottom of the page) so you can read all the fabulous posts I haven't written yet.
Txx