If you are new here, my name is Kendall Marie Platt. I’m a horticultural therapist and space holder for garden curious women, and I am on a mission to support you to create your garden sanctuary — so that you can feel held, so that you can lower your stress levels through gardening as active rest, find some daily joy, and just generally enjoy your beautiful life.

I am the master at teaching you how to do that in just 20 minutes a day, because we are all busy, right? And sometimes when we look out on our gardens, it just feels far too overwhelming to even know where to get started. I am an expert at breaking it down, leading you gently step by step to creating your garden sanctuary — so that you can have a gorgeous garden, yes, but also so that you can feel better.

I’m a qualified horticultural therapist, and the whole way I approach my work is with you at the forefront of mind, so that every single activity you do in the garden is actually going to help you feel better, improve your well-being, and lower your stress levels.

I know this is a hot topic, as it can feel hard to weave rest into a busy day.

My Complicated Relationship With Rest (And ADHD Burnout Recovery)

I’ve got a really complicated relationship with rest. No matter how exhausted I am, even if I’m unwell, no matter how much my body and mind are screaming out at me to rest — I find it nigh on impossible to just do nothing. If I’m ill and lying in bed, oh my goodness, within about an hour I’m getting absolutely frustrated as hell that I can’t get up and do stuff, even though I know I need to rest to get better.

I have done a lot of soul-searching and introspection to try and unpick why that is. I know it’s due to my conditioning — I was born in the 80s, raised in the 90s, at a time when women absorbed the message that they were only worth something if they were producing. Now, I would argue that message is still given out to us today.

So it’s quite difficult to actually sit and do nothing, because that then means that if we’re not producing, or doing something, or ticking something off our to-do list, then we’re not worthy — and that goes against everything that feels comfortable in our lives. So it makes complete sense that we struggle to just sit and do nothing because we feel like we need to constantly prove our worth.

Growing up in the 90’s we were very much told that we could have it all — work, enjoy our lives, have kids, do all the things. But all that really meant was that we get to do it all, because guess what no one’s coming along to take any of those tasks off you.

I have to rest quite often because I have ADHD. My brain works very quickly and its very intense and then it needs time to rest and recuperate. Time doing something that isn’t stressful on my brain. So any time I need to rest, I feel conflicted, but I know that my body and brain need downtime, otherwise I’m going to hit burnout again — which I have done twice in my life.

So I have found alternative ways to weave rest into my busy days because, just sitting or lying down and doing nothing does not work for me.

Here are five ways that I weave rest into my every day, in case you fancy trying some new daily habits to feel more calm and grounded.

1. Journaling as a morning stress relief ritual

I make this a real ritual. I have a lovely journal I got for my 40th earlier this year. I make a nice coffee and come and sit either under my pergola, which has a grapevine growing over it, so it’s in lovely, dappled shade and is cool even in the heat.

In the wintertime, I don’t sit under my pergola, preferring to snuggle up in my greenhouse, where I’ve got a really comfy chair. I’ll take my coffee and journal, get cozy, and just write my thoughts out. I might write about something that’s happened to me earlier in the day, or just whatever comes to the top of mind.

Because I’ve got ADHD, my brain is very busy — there are a lot of thoughts going on in there — and sometimes I just need to empty that brain out onto the page. It gives me a real break from consuming information, and by extricating that information, it allows my brain to have that breathing space.

This is a really lovely way to give your brain a little bit of rest throughout the day. You don’t have to sit and do it for hours — I do it for just 20 or 30 minutes. But I always feel my brain is much calmer afterwards, and I actually feel well rested.

2. Gardening as Active Rest (Horticultural Therapy in Action)

The second thing I do will probably come as no surprise: gardening.

After I’ve journaled in the morning, I settle in for about an hour of focused work. It’s usually quite intense, because the way my brain works, I really focus hard on things. But once I start to notice my brain getting a bit fidgety — struggling to focus on what I’m working on, or I start reaching for my phone — I know it’s time to down tools with whatever I’m working on and go out in the garden.

There are varying things I do in the garden to help my brain have a rest — it's one of the ways gardening helps my ADHD brain reset. What I notice afterwards is that I’m then able to focus again — I often have more energy and I’m more creative. Especially if I’ve been writing and feel a bit stuck (which is usually when my brain starts to get fidgety), I notice that after gardening I come back with a plethora of creative ideas.

Gardening is a form of active rest — this is where your brain is active enough that it can do the activity, but not so active that it becomes stressed. Say you’re weeding, for example — your brain focuses on the activity, but it’s not as active as it would be if you were writing something or putting together a presentation for work, where your brain has to come up with creative ideas. Gardening is a step down from that: active enough, but not stressful.

As part of the Seed, my horticultural therapy membership, members get access to horticultural therapy activities for every week throughout the year. Some are just 5 minutes long, some are 20 minutes, and some are 60 minutes — though those 60-minute ones can be broken down into 20-minute blocks. If you would love to try some 20 minute gardening activities as a way to give your brain a little rest and improve your energy levels, you can join us. It’s just £10 a month (about $13) or £100/$133 for the year.

We would love to have you — we have community garden-along sessions where you can come and get gardening in community. But I think one of the most impactful things is the ability to just take 20 minutes, choose an activity, go out in the garden, give your brain a rest, but also be moving your garden forward into creating the garden sanctuary you’re craving.

3. No Phone After 7:30pm (A Simple Digital Detox Habit)

I use social media for promoting my business, and it works — I get a lot of my clients through social media. But what I often find, likely due to the way my brain is always dopamine-seeking, is that I end up over-consuming a lot of information. If i’m really honest, a lot of it is complete nonsense that I don’t really need. My brain just kind of hunts for information, filling itself with more and more stuff.

I also find myself often on my phone comparing myself to others — looking at what they’re doing and thinking, “should I be doing that? I’m not having as successful a life as they are.” For a start people only put their best life on the internet so it’s all a load of nonsense, isn’t it? We know that.

So by cutting off my phone usage after 7:30pm, it means my brain gets a break from all that extra noise I really don’t need to be giving precious headspace to. I’ll use my phone during the day to promote my business, and then after 7:30pm it goes in the kitchen, away from me, so I can’t be tempted to pick it up and scroll.

4. Lunch With My Husband

This actually allows me to connect with another human being. I think when we work online — even though I do see clients in person as well — it can be quite a solitary little life. So this gives me a good excuse to connect with an actual living, breathing human. It helps us to have a uninterrupted conversation and a check-in about how the other one is feeling.

I don’t know about you if you’ve got kids, but I really struggle to have a proper conversation with my partner when the kids are around, and come the evening I’m pretty knackered and don’t really want to dig into anything deep and meaningful.

So a lunchtime break allows me to offload some of the stuff I may be worried about to my husband, and ask for help. I really struggle to ask for help, so this gives me a daily opportunity to actually do that. And by sharing the load my brain gets another opportunity to rest.

5. Reading Before Bed

Escaping into another world in a book really helps my brain switch off, because I’m so focused on what’s happening for the characters that I forget about my to-do list and the things I need to do the next day. So reading, even if it’s just for 20 minutes before I go to sleep — really helps my brain switch off and get into that snoozey mode ready for sleep.

I’d love to know: do you weave rest into your everyday? What are you doing to get some rest? Let me know in the comments — or if you’re reading this on email, do hit reply and let me know.

If you would love to come and try a little bit of daily rest in your own garden sanctuary, I've made it super easy for you — I’ve got ready made activities that you can just grab, get out in the garden and do, to get that brain quietening down. They come with instructions on how to get your brain to quiet whilst you’re doing them.

We would absolutely love to have you in the Seed.

Here's the link to join:  https://adventureswithflowers.substack.com/p/the-seed-membership

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

If you’re new here my name is Kendall Marie Platt. I’m a horticultural therapist and I am all about getting you off of your phone and into your garden as the antidote to burnout. Because too much time spent on screens is rotting our brains, and actually getting out in our gardens and emptying our brains of all of the things that we’re holding, even if it’s just for 5 to 20 minutes, is going to help you feel so much better.

Now, it’s really, really hot here today, so this video and article is going to be a quick one because last time I tried to do a live when it was really hot, the phone overheated and cut me off mid stream!

Bloom Is Now Open

Before we get started I must mention that my signature wellbeing program, Bloom, is now open. You have got two weeks to get in — the doors close for Summer on the 5th of July 2026. It is year-long garden for wellbeing programme to support you to transform your garden AND create a really nourishing gardening habit that makes you feel fabulous. Because in my world, it is not just about having a gorgeous garden — it’s actually not even just about you getting out in the garden. It is about you reaping those wellbeing benefits from spending regular time in nature. So if you want to know more or have questions, put them in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them.

Today I’m sharing with you 3 things you can do to protect your plants in a heatwave and unsurprisingly they all involve water.

1. Terracotta Watering Spikes

These self watering spikes for plant pots are new to me this year. In the video I take you over to one of my plants and give you a little demo of how they work.

You push the spike down into the soil surrounding the plant in the pot so that there is only a little rim sitting up away from the soil. Then you get an empty wine bottle, fill it up with water, and pop it in the opening in the top of the spike.

Then slowly over a few days the water trickles through the terracotta watering spike right down to the base of the plant, which is where the plant needs it and it can be taken up by its roots. I haven’t watered the pots that have the spikes in above since I put them in, which was about two weeks ago — and you can see in the video and the picture above how healthy the plant is.

They allow you to water your plants quickly and efficiently with little input from you. If you’re gardening in pots and you use them you just have to remember to fill the bottle back up every few days. They’ve been really, really effective in my garden and I’m really enjoying using them.

2. Soaker Hoses

These drip irrigation hoses for garden borders are brilliant for saving me time. I have them in all my garden borders. They have got tiny little holes all along the length of them, so that when you connect your normal garden hose to them and turn on the tap the water slowly leaches out and onto the soil. I always use them in the evening because it’s much better to water your plants in the evening — it stops the leaves getting burnt, but it also means that the plants take up the water more effectively. More on this in this episode of AWF TV which shows you the best way to water your garden in summer heat:

The soaker hoses sit on top of the soil so the water that comes out of the tiny holes goes right to where the plants need it. I leave mine in place all year round and turn them on in the evenings, letting them water the plants all night before turning it off in the morning. It saves me so much time standing out there using a traditional hose to water the plants, and it means that my plants get a really, really good watering overnight, allowing them to take up as much of the water as possible.

3. A Watering Schedule

This has been a game changer for me. It helps me to make sure that of an evening, when I get that 20 minutes to go out in the garden, I know exactly what I’m watering. I know which bed to attach my soaker hose up to, I know which pots need watering that day. It makes it really, really simple, so I don’t have to waste any brain power or overthink what i’m doing. I don’t waste a single precious minute thinking, ‘oh god, where did I last water?’

I’m going to be teaching you in Bloom how to create an easy garden watering system for busy women so that it works for your life. So that you have schedule that you follow every day, so it becomes a really easy habit and doesn’t add to the mental load and all the things that you’re already carrying. It makes watering and looking after your plants in the heat really simple. You still get to have a gorgeous garden, all your plants survive, stop looking so droopy and it doesn’t add any extra to your plate.

Why Time in the Garden Matters

If you have got any questions about any of the things that I’ve shared, please do pop them in the comments and I can come and answer them. I’m here to answer your gardening questions and help you get off your phone and into your garden. So please do avail of my knowledge. I have decades of gardening experience that I want to share with you to make it easy, because I truly believe that all women need to spend more time in nature with a healthy gardening habit for their mental wellbeing.

All the research shows that when you garden regularly you lower your stress levels, you lower your anxiety, you increase your wellbeing scores. And for somebody like me with a very busy brain — and i’d say 99% of women have a busy brain, because we’ve got a lot going on — the only time my brain is quiet, is when I’m in my garden.

Even just 5 to 20 minutes every day is time that’s just for you. Time to breathe and have a bit of time for yourself. Get out in nature, let everything that’s in your brain out into the garden so that you’re happier, you feel more joyful, you’re less snappy with the kids, you sleep better.

All of these things are what all of my clients report to me after we’ve worked together, what I experience myself, and what all of the research shows happens when you spend regular time in the garden.

If you want somebody to guide you through creating a healthy gardening habit over a year together so that you can experience these benefits too , I’m going to be giving you daily activities in Bloom — no more than 20 minutes — so that you can swap that 20 minutes you’re scrolling for (which, let’s face it, we all know is making you feel like s**t) and do something that is actually going to help you feel better.

Doors close on the 5th of July 2026.

We would absolutely love to have you — there are some really cool women already in there.

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me next Tuesday at 12pm BST for my next live video in the app.

Join the Seed to create beauty that restores you and daily joy that doesn’t have to be earnt in your garden

My whole MO is to get more people off of their phones and into their gardens as a way of connecting with nature as the antidote to burnout. So if you are finding yourself scrolling on your phone to numb your feelings to try and feel better, then I can assure you as someone who has tried doing that for a really long time, it does not work — but getting out in your garden and spending time in nature does.

Today I’m going to share with you 10 really simple things you can do in your garden right now that will help you to feel better. They’ll help you improve your sleep. They will help you feel less anxious. They will help you feel less overwhelmed. They will quiet your mind. They will help you be less snappy with the kids.

If you can create a regular routine getting in the garden — and I’m to the point now where every time I reach for my phone I’m like “no” and I get out in my garden instead — I can guarantee you that instead of piling more information into your brain, giving yourself comparisonitis and comparing yourself to everybody else online, you will feel so much better if you get out into the garden and empty your brain of all of the stuff that’s milling around in there.

These are just a few of the things that you can do right now in June in your garden that will help you to do that.

Also, just to say that if this sounds appealing to you, then my signature program Bloom is now open for new members. If you know that you need a little bit of accountability to get things done, if you want things broken down into really simple steps so that you can just get outside and do the activity without having to research and work out what the hell you should be doing right now, then this is perfect for you — so do head over to the link here and have a little look.

Right, should we crack on?

1. Stake your tomatoes

Now, I’ll be honest with you, I’m more of a flowers girl myself — Adventures with Flowers is my business name — because I believe that we should all be able to have adventures with flowers on a daily basis because that ultimately is what is going to make us feel better. But I do make an exception for tomatoes, snack peppers and mini cucumbers because the kids like eating them.

As your tomatoes grow they will start to sag and get top heavy, especially when the fruit grows so the plant does need a little bit of support. All you do is you take a bamboo cane and poke it down into the soil next to the plant and then using a plant tie attach the growing stalk onto the cane, so it gives it some really good support.

So that is the first thing that you can do in the garden instead of scrolling on your phone. A really lovely mindful tip: give the leaves a little rub, bring your fingers to your nose, inhale deeply and transport yourself off — especially with sun on your skin — to somewhere where you last ate a lovely sun warmed tomato salad. For me, that’s the South of France. A gorgeous little mindful minute in the garden.

2. Tie in your sweet peas

In the video I take you on a bit of a tour of the garden. With all the rain that we’re having in the UK, intermingled with these sunny spells — my sweet peas have gone mad.

The plants themselves will have used their tendrils to grip onto the string of the support i’ve created for the, but I want the plants and flowers stems to grow nice and straight and tall. So I need to tie them in. Again, get some plant ties and tie in the main growing stem of the plant so they scramble up the supports rather than out and up nearby plants.

3. Rage weeding

This next one is one of my fave activities when i’m feeling angry or frustrated. I channel the frustrations of the day into the weeds and then when i’m unearthing them it’s like unearthing the anger and frustration from my day.

4. Cut the grass

This is not really a job I enjoy, if I’m completely honest, mainly because of having to navigate kids’ toys, the washing line and my garden borders at the end. So generally my husband tends to do the grass cutting. But it is a really wonderful mindful activity. When I do it I make sure to get into my body and I really push through my legs as I’m walking up and down. This really helps bring my mind and my attention to the back of my legs as I’m striding up and down and allows me to work on my mind body connection. Plus the smell of freshly cut grass is delicious.

5. Tackle the bindweed

In the video I take you down to my border of shame. It has been inaccessible, because my husband had a load of stuff here and so the bindweed has taken over pretty much everything. It’s climbing up and trying to strangle all of the plants.

If you have bindweed in your garden, it is a real pest to get rid of. It grows through underground roots that snap really easily and if you don’t dig it all out it will keep coming back, especially if you don’t keep an eye on it. I probably need a week’s worth of weeding sessions in this border alone, just to get rid of the bindweed.

When you take it out you have to be really careful about uncurling it from the plant so you don’t snap the stems. It is another great activity to ground you in the present moment because you have to really focus on your senses while you’re doing it. When you’re so absorbed in the task at hand there’s no chance of your brain diving off all over the place and thinking about all the things you’ve got to do, what you’ve got to cook for dinner or the fact that you’ve got to book a doctor’s appointment. It allows you to be really present in the moment.

So if you have got bindweed too, don’t worry — many of us have it. It is a case of slowly unfurling it and digging it out, and the key to doing this is little and often and keeping going.

That’s another reason why Bloom is such a good community to be in, because it’s really easy to get disheartened when weeds are constantly growing and you feel like you aren’t making any progress. But seeing other people going through alongside you makes you feel less alone and presents you with the opportunity to turn removing it into a fun activity. A bindweed blasting week as we all focus together on digging out our bindweed.

6. Top up your pond with rainwater

I have got a water butt right near my mini pond, and so what I’m going to be doing later this week is filling up my watering can with water from my water butt — not from the tap, because tap water has got all sorts of chemicals added into it — and I’m going to be adding that water from the water butt into my pond to make sure it’s nice and full. So there’s lots of water in there for wildlife such as the bees to come and have a drink, and for the birds who like to come for a little dip in there too.

7. Sit with a cuppa in the sunshine

My next one is quite an unusual one and you might think to yourself, I don’t really think this is a gardening thing. But something I don’t think that we do enough of as women, is to sit, cup of tea in hand and appreciate the hard work and effort that we have put into life every day, as well as creating our garden.

In my Bloom community, this is something that I will always encourage you to do at the end of every gardening session: just take two minutes, even just to sit and acknowledge that you have taken the time out for yourself. Or to celebrate the effort you’ve put in to weeding that border, or planting out those plants, sowing those seeds, whatever the daily activity is. It’s really important to sit and acknowledge that it’s a job well done.

I think we are so quick in this world to move on to the next thing before we’ve even acknowledged what we’ve achieved.

I think it’s really important to, firstly, recognise what we’ve achieved but also congratulate ourselves for it, because often nobody else does.

Once you start doing this at the end of every gardening session, guess what? It echoes out to all other areas of your life and you start taking the time to acknowledge all of the things that you’re achieving.

8. Sow some foxglove seeds

My garden is full of self-seeded foxgloves. The first time I grew them of course I sowed the seeds myself, grew them on and planted them out. Now I encourage them to self-seed and they pop up all over the garden. Right now in June, is the perfect time to sow foxglove seeds so you get lots of lovely flowers early next year.

This is an ideal activity to start with if you’re new to gardening and haven’t got an established garden.

Quick word of warning: foxgloves are poisonous to pets and children. So if you have either, grow them in a place that is inaccessible to said children or pets, make sure the children are aware that they are not to eat or play with the flowers or give these a swerve and try sowing some honesty seeds instead.

We grow foxgloves because I love them, the children love them, the bees love them — and we are all about cultivating a real sanctuary, yes for me and my family, but also for wildlife.

9. Deadhead your roses

My roses were looking glorious earlier this week and then the rain came…. So now many of their petals have water damage on them and the heavy downpours have meant that many of them have had their petals knocked off sooner than they would normally have done. By getting off your phone out into your garden and deadheading them you’ll encourage the plant to produce more blooms.

A little note here to say, if you have no idea how to deadhead a rose, then come and learn how with us in Bloom. Not only will I be sharing daily gardening activities to invite you into the garden i’ll also be showing you exactly how to do the activities too, so even if you’ve never gardened before you’ll feel supported and held as you create your new nourishing habit.

10. Cut a posy of flowers to bring indoors

The reason I like to do this is because as much as I would like to spend my entire day out in the garden, I do actually have other things that I need to do indoors. Now, when I can, I sit in the garden and work. But when I can’t, I like to bring a little posy of flowers inside to connect me with nature whilst I’m working.

It’s very common, isn’t it, for us to focus on ours screens for a really long period of time and then by the end of the day feel absolutely wiped and wonder why. Having that little posy of flowers there on the desk next to you can give you that little moment of connection with Nature, something to look at for 2 minutes and give your eyes a break from the screen. It does have to be fancy, just a few stems, all of the same plant if you want to.

If you’ve read the article or watched the replay, do let me know in the comments which of these activities you are going to try in June to get off of your phone and get out in the garden.

If you would love to spend more time in the garden and swap your screen time for green time, I can support you to making that switch in Bloom. To guide you as you create a really nourishing, healthy habit that is going to help you sleep better, calm your very busy mind and make you feel less snappy. After a year in Bloom you’re going to feel calmer, more confident and more in control of your mind and your life.

If you’ve got any questions at all, you can send me an email — I always love to hear from you. It is just me on the other end of the emails. I don’t have a big team. It’s literally just me on a one-woman mission to get as many women as possible off of their phones and into the garden as the antidote to burnout.

Because things are not going to change — they’re only going to get worse in terms of tech companies trying to demand more of our attention. But we have the power to say, ‘no, enough. I’m done giving you my attention and brain space. Actually, I’m choosing nature. I’m choosing a simple activity that is not just going to set my brain on fire and instead make my brain feel calmer and happier.

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me next Tuesday at 12pm BST for my next live video in the app.

I hope you’ve got a drink and you’re ready to learn. I have forgone my usual hot drink in favour of a water bottle the size of my head, but it’s necessary in this heat. I’ve got a few ice cubes in there so it stays nice and cool.

Welcome if you’re new here — I’m Kendall Marie Platt. I’m a horticultural therapist and I am here to get you off your phone and into your garden as the antidote to burnout. One of the ways that I do this is through my channel Adventures with Flowers TV. I come live here every Tuesday with tips on largely gardening, but also life stuff on how to actually fit gardening into your life, because we all know that nature is good for us, but sometimes it can feel hard to actually get out and get in the garden.

Tip 1: Water in the Evening

My first tip is to water in the evening once the sun has gone down. I know it could be tempting if you go out to the garden around lunchtime and see plants wilting and think they need some water. But actually, that is not going to be that much help to the plant because the water is probably going to evaporate before the plants even have a chance to use it.

So, wait until the sun goes down and the temperature drops. At the minute in the UK, I’m waiting until about 8.30 in the evening and then going out and doing my watering. This means the water will actually have a chance to sit on the soil and then go down to the plant’s roots, which is where the plant actually needs the water, rather than just evaporating straight away in the heat of the day.

You can of course water very early in the morning as well. My preference is to do it in the evenings for two reasons: early in the morning I’m in kid chaos and there’s no way I’m going to be able to get out into the garden. Also, if you water in the evening, the plant has the whole night to take up that water before it starts being evaporated by the sun.

Tip 2: Water at the Base of the Plant

This leads nicely on to the second tip, which is to water at the base of the plant. I see so many videos of people with soaker hoses just spraying their plants. Your plants are not going to take up water through their leaves — the water needs to go down on to the soil and be taken up by the roots.

If you spray with abandon on your plant’s leaves, especially in the middle of the day, you can very easily actually burn the leaves. What happens is the water spots land on the leaves and then the sun evaporates them off, which can actually burn the leaves of the plant causing the plant stress and opening it up to be vulnerable to pest attacks. Just like us when were stressed we seem to pick up every bug going. So let’s give the plant and ourselves every chance of minimising stress and staying healthy.

Tip 3: Give Plants a Deep Soak

The third tip is that plants like a really good soaking rather than a little dribble of water. Rather than setting yourself the task of trying to water the entire garden in one evening, you’re far better off choosing one section of the garden and giving it a really, really good water.

Because then the plants have had a chance to have a really, really good drink. When it’s really, really hot, we don’t just have one little sip of water — we like to drink lots and lots to replenish ourselves, and plants are the same. So give them a really good soaking rather than just giving them a little taste of it and then taking it away.

I recommend to my clients to actually create a schedule for watering the different areas in their garden and this is something we will be doing together in Bloom when the doors open again soon.

Tip 4: Prioritise Newly Planted Plants

The fourth tip is to focus your watering efforts on newly planted plants, because their root systems are not yet established. Plants that have been in your garden for a long time are going to have a really well-established root system — the roots are going to be able to find more water than a plant that has just been freshly planted and has got a really tiny root system that’s not yet established.

So, if you are short on time and you’re conscious of not using too much water, please focus your watering efforts on plants that you have newly planted, because the more established ones shouldn’t need it.

Tip 5: Move Pots into the Shade

The fifth tip is to move your pots into the shade temporarily. You’ve probably arranged your pots aesthetically — in a gorgeous little collection by a doorway, either side of your front door, or next to your seating area. Chances are those places are in the sun for a large part of the day.

For a prolonged heatwave, I would recommend moving those pots temporarily into a shadier part of the garden, or certainly an area where the sun is only shining on it for a couple of hours a day. This is because the plants in the pots have got a smaller root system — the roots can only spread as far as the pots go. You need to water plants in pots daily anyway because the plants can’t get water from the ground around them.

But by putting them into the shade, there’s going to be less evaporation from the soil and from the leaves throughout the day, which means they’ll have a better chance of survival in this heat.

At this point I was planning to share some equipment with you that helps me save time when it comes to watering but my phone had other ideas and overheated so i’ll make that the subject of a future live and article!

If you want access to the right information when it comes to creating your garden without having to hunt it down in books or online. Meaning there’ll be less chance of you making mistakes and wasting money, then book a Garden Power Hour and we could have one area of your garden sorted by the weekend.

Upcoming available dates are:

Thursday 28th May at 9.30am

Thursday 4th June at 9.30am

Monday 8th June at 12.30pm

Tuesday 16th June at 9.30am

Monday 29th June at 12.30pm

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me live next Tuesday in the app.

If you’re new here, welcome! My name is Kendall Marie Platt, I’m a horticultural therapist, and I am on a mission to get women off of their phones and into their gardens as the antidote to burnout — because the answer does not lie in the depths of your mobile phone. It absolutely does however lie in getting in nature and letting your emotions flow in the safety of your garden. So welcome, you are so welcome here if you are new, and welcome back if you haven’t been here for a while.

I do these live episodes of Adventures with Flowers TV every Tuesday at midday so add them as a recurring event to your calendar and come and join us while you eat your lunch or have your morning cuppa.

Mistake No.1 – Allowing Peach Leaf Curl disease to spread through my Nectarine Tree

The video above shows my nectarine tree and as you get up close to the leaves, can you see what is going on? The leaves are kind of going all curly and discoloured. This is a disease called peach leaf curl.

My nectarine tree is growing against a brick wall in my garden, and what I should have done — and it’s been particularly bad this month because it’s been so rainy here in the south of England — was to create some kind of frame that comes off of the garage to protect the nectarine tree from the rain. This is because once the disease gets in, it then gets spread to the other leaves of the tree by the rain, which is why now it’s not just one bit of my tree thats affected, it’s loads of the leaves on the tree.

What I need to do now is pick off all of the slightly curly leaves to stop the spread even more, because the disease prevents any fruit from forming.

When I planted this tree a few years ago I had the dreamy idea that I would have loads of lovely nectarines growing so we could bite into sweet juicy nectarines straight from the tree. And for a few years we did get a some — and then this disease set in and I’ve been neglecting the tree, if I’m really honest.

I want things I grow in my garden to earn their space, so I’m at the stage now where either I need to get rid of the tree completely, or I need to give it half a chance and try to cover it during the rainy season to protect the leaves from this diseas. Watch this space for a little DIY project over the winter — something my husband is going to be delighted that I’m going to ask him to help me with!

Mistake No.2 – Not removing some of my Briza Maxima plants from the border

The second mistake is allowing these Briza Maxima to take over the border. They are gorgeous plants. Can you see and hear on the video how they’re moving in the wind? When they knock together they make the most lovely sound — they are one of my favourite things to plant as a sensory plant for sound. They’re also really lovely for cutting and arranging in bouquets, and I dry a load to use in my Christmas wreath workshops that I host here in my garden workshop.

But as you can see, they have literally taken over the border as far as the eye can see — and they are actually now spilling out into the driveway. Each little pod is a seed, and if left in the border they will spread their seeds and make loads of new plants which is what has happened in my garden. So in the next few days I really need to start digging some of those up otherwise they are going to completely take over! The Briza are starting to outcompete some of my other plants, meaning some of the plants are love are struggling to get the nutrients to survive.

Every year I’m like, “Oh, where’s that plant that I had last year?” — and it hasn’t grown, or it’s got completely destroyed because the briza has taken up all its space and nutrients. So the mistake wasn’t planting it, but not keeping on top of pulling it out and harvesting it before it starts spreading its seed everywhere.

Mistake No. 3 – Not erecting my sweet pea supports properly

My third mistake — you’re going to die when you see this in the video! I had a few leftover Mangetout Spring Blush pea plants that wouldn’t fit round my other sweetpea wigwam. So I decided to create another one in the front garden for them to scramble up. But what I didn’t do when I was putting it up was anchor the base of the poles in enough. The ground was a bit hard when I was digging the poles in, it was a hot day, and I was trying to do it in a rush.

So I put it up, planted all the plants around it, and then a few days later the weather turned really grim — really windy and really rainy — and the entire thing just completely collapsed. All the plants are completely dead because they were pulled out of the ground when the wind took down the supports. So lesson learnt anchor your plants supports into the ground properly if you want them to withstand the elements!

So those are my three mistakes this month. In reality, there will always be mistakes made in the garden — you could have encyclopaedic gardening knowledge and mistakes will still happen. Mother Nature is sure to throw you a curveball too. Right now in the UK it’s really cold and raining in the middle of May, and that has caught a lot of people out with frosts and planting things out too soon.

What I want you to take from this article is that it’s unavoidable to make mistakes when gardening. Allow yourself to make those mistakes, allow yourself to be a beginner, allow yourself to just give it a go. I do understand that can feel terrifying for those of us who grew up in a school system that told us off every time we made a mistake — sometimes it doesn’t feel safe for our nervous systems to try a new thing because we might make a mistake. But if you’re willing to give it a go, please do get in your garden and embrace the f**k ups!

If however, you feel like there’s still something holding you back and you need somebody to give you a bit of a jump start, I have spaces available for a Garden Power Hour with me in the next few weeks. I would love to support you — either in person if you’re local to me (just outside of Reading in the South UK), or online where I get in my garden, you get in yours, and I show you how to do the things you need to do and how to do them in a way that calms your nervous system and helps you to feel fabulous.

The benefits are confidence, clarity on what you need to do to move your garden forward, and how to do it in a way that doesn’t freak your nervous system out. My superpower is holding space — for people, for their emotions, for all the big stuff that comes up when we’re in the garden.

I know there’s a huge rise around people using AI for gardening advice, and whilst I think that’s great for time saving, it’s not always accurate, it’s not bespoke to your garden and life situation, and AI can’t possibly teach you how to garden in a caring way that won’t set your nervous system alarm bells ringing.

Hit reply to find out my latest availability or pay for your power hour below and we’ll find a mutually available date to get cracking.

Right, I’m off to go and cook a frittata for lunch! Have a gorgeous day, and I hope to speak to you soon. If there’s something in particular you’d love for me to talk about in one of these episodes, please do message me — I’m always open to thoughts and ideas.

Have a lovely week.

Don’t forget to ‘Get off your phone and get in the garden’.

Kendall xx

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Not giving it enough time

I don’t mean spending hours and hours on it- because let’s be honest who has that. I mean sticking at it for enough time. Keep going, taking action, keep talking about it and how good it is. I did that classic thing of allowing myself a 2 week window to sell the thing and then stopped talking about it afterwards.

Perhaps you’ve done the same with your garden. Spent a weekend out there and then when you didn’t get the immediate transformation you see on those gardening TV shows, felt utterly despondent and gave up.

Anything worth having is worth waiting for. And anything truly wonderful does require some effort from you. Not toiling away for hours every day. 20 minutes is enough. My mentor Sara Dalrymple advocates for spending 30 minutes a day on selling your services much like I advocate for spending 20 minutes in your garden.

Perhaps we could both commit to that, me writing emails or creating content to sell my services for 30 minutes a day and you gardening for 20 minutes. Pop it in the comments if you’re game. Imagine where we’d be in a month’s time!

Avoiding it when it wasn’t working

This is absolutely my pattern. When something doesn’t work immediately I tell myself I can’t do it and then hide. I’m not sure if it’s the RSD (rejection sensitivity dysphoria) linked to my ADHD or just that I’m terrified that if people see me fail publicly then that makes me a terrible person, which I’m pretty sure is a universal experience among women raised in the 80’s and 90’s.

The irony being of course that by hiding away I am condemning myself to failure because no one can see me and what I have to offer so they can’t buy it and then I fail.

Have you done this in your garden? Made a start and then given up before you’ve even really got going? I’m gonna be real with you here. Gardens are not a one and done. Plants want to grow and so if you bury your head in the sand when it comes to your garden, before long you will be looking out on a jumanji-esque landscape that will feel utterly overwhelming.

That’s why 20 minutes each day works so well. You chip away at it a little at a time, making small changes here and there and giving your mind a break as you connect with Nature each day.

I’m going to share something with you here that I do whenever I feel uncomfortable about something and want to avoid it. I reach for my phone. It’s such a toxic habit that I am desperately trying to wean myself off of. I’m an expert in this, I talk about using the garden to feel your feelings all the damn time and yet there I am reaching for that little box to numb them instead.

So next time I launch Bloom and I start to feel the familiar uncomfortable feeling when things aren’t working, i’m going to head out into the garden and get my hands in the soil. Because I know when I give my brain space it generates a plethora of fabulous ideas that will help me keep showing up and not hiding away.

Not enjoying it

I adore my business and I adore the services I have to offer you. Each one has been created to help you solve a particular problem in your garden and your life. But I’ve got it stuck in my head that selling my services has to be hard. Perhaps you’ve been telling yourself that gardening is hard or a chore or not something that can be enjoyed.

The next time I open the doors to Bloom (late May 2026) i’ve promised myself that i’m going to have fun with selling it. Talking about all the ways it helps you to connect with nature on a daily basis. How it helps you quiet your mind. How it helps you actually find time in your busy life to unwind with your hands in the soil.

I’d love for you to reframe how you see gardening. Instead of something that has to be done, how about you view it as something that gets to be fun, enjoyable. Yes, even weeding can be fun. Set a timer on your phone for 20 minutes and have a bet with yourself about how far along the border you can get weeded in the 20 minutes. When your timer goes off and you’ve managed more than you thought you would, you’ll get that lovely hit of dopamine!

Doing it someone else’s way

I have joined so many programmes and courses over the years that tell me how to launch and sell my services and do you know what, this launch still flopped. Not a single person joined and I had only a handful of chats with interested people. Yes I could tell myself the internet is noisy, people can just google or chatGPT gardening advice, insert any other excuse here.

But if I’m really honest with myself, if I was truly speaking about how life changing my work is with regularity. If I was really owning my point of difference, the fact that I’m a vulnerable, imperfect, busy woman and mother just trying to carve out a bit of time and space for herself to connect with Nature everyday so she doesn’t feel like she’s drowning 24/7. Then I would have welcomed people into Bloom. Because I truly believe that, this (along with community and a safe space to land) is what we’re all looking for.

Have you been doing the same with your garden? Hunting for planting plans on the internet, maybe even going as far as buying the plants it suggests but then struggling to even get them in the ground. You’re telling yourself it’s because you don’t have time when really its because you feel zero connection to the generic planting plan AI spat out at you. You are a beautifully unique human so it’s no wonder that someone else’s ideas don’t fill you with joy. My work is all about helping you find the space to connect with your wants, dream and desires so that you can stop following someone else’s script when it comes to your garden.

Telling myself I don’t know enough

As women growing up in a patriarchal capitalist society with a plethora of information at our fingertips we are becoming increasingly disconnected from our intuition. You know that inner knowing that gives you a nudge, or that feeling in your tummy that warns you that something bad is about to happen. This is our body’s way of keeping us safe. But when you are told constantly that you are wrong, or your opinions aren’t valid or that you’re too sensitive you start to believe it and instead of trusting in your mind and body you begin to look outside of yourself for answers. This starts from the minute we are born. So is it any wonder that as midlife women we are now far more likely to trust a robot than ourselves?

I did this when I launched Bloom back in March. I used someone else’s launch scripts because the thought of just writing to you felt overwhelming and I listened to my conditioning that told me I didn’t know enough, instead of trusting my inner knowing.

Perhaps you’ve found yourself heading to Claude for gardening advice, or consuming endless YouTube videos of some old white guy telling you how to garden instead of trusting in your inner knowing, in generations of ancestors to whom growing things was second nature.

It’s this connection I want to restore in you. Connection to your inner knowing and your self- trust and also to Mother Nature and your ancestors.

The first step in getting my support with growing this connection is to book a Garden Power Hour. First we’ll get you really clear on what you want for your garden and yourself. Then I come to your garden either in person or online and lend you my gardening confidence as we start to take action together to transform your space and your relationship with your garden.

You’re paying for the convenience of someone imparting their gardening knowledge, but also that that someone is doing so with the care that AI can never provide. With the understanding that taking time for you to garden as a woman and mother in 2026 is a rebellious act, but one that is much needed for our health and for the health of future generations.

Available dates in May 2026

11am BST Thursday 21st May 2026

9.30am BST Tuesday 26th May 2026

9.30am BST Thursday 28th May 2026

p.s. if you’re also a small business owner and you want to get better at selling your stuff and hyping yourself then another mentor of mine Lucy Werner has an amazing deal on. I’m in her Hype community because it keeps me putting myself out there even when I want to hide away and I think you should be too. Lucy from Hype Yourself is teaming up with Lex from Revenue Rulebreaker to offer a 2-for-1 discount. Fancy joining us? Check out what they are up to here: www.hypeyourself.com/bundle

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Today I’m going to be talking to you about how to make sure that your tulips — that you’ve spent money on and spent ages planting — come back year after year.

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It’s really tempting, isn’t it, to go to the supermarket, grab a bag of tulip bulbs, chuck them in your trolley and plant them. Maybe you get a really nice display that first year, but then the second year you’re left thinking, “Oh well, they haven’t come back — I thought bulbs were meant to come back every year.” And in that way that women do, you blame yourself for not being good at gardening. First of all let me say this, not all bulbs are created equal, and i’m going to share with you here are a few things that you can do to make sure that your tulips flower year after year.

Tip 1: Buy from a Reputable Supplier

The first thing is to buy your bulbs from a reputable supplier. The supplier that I love are called Peter Nyssen. They are really, really good — the bulbs are great quality, and if I’ve ever had any issues, their customer service team get it sorted it out quickly and efficiently. So please, if you want to get those tulip bulbs coming back every year, I would recommend buying from a proper bulb supplier as opposed to doing that supermarket trolley dash while your picking up your groceries.

Tip 2: Choose perennial varieties

The second thing you can do in order to give yourself a better chance of having your tulips come back every year is to choose the right bulbs. There are varieties of tulips that are perennial — meaning they come back every year — and some that are not perennial. Here are some of my favourite perennial tulips:

Pinks and Purples

* Pink Impression — a really lovely bright pink

* Mistress Mystic — a really lovely pink

* Negrita — a purple variety

Peach Tones

* Mystic Van Eijk — a peachy colour

* Artist — another gorgeous peachy one, with slightly flouncy leaves; not quite a parrot tulip but more bougie than a traditional shape

Pink and White

* Marilyn — a lily-shaped tulip, mainly white with hot pink stripes; looks gorgeous in bouquets too

Orange

* Ballerina — a lily tulip in a bright orange colour with beautiful pointed tips on the petals

Green and White

* Spring Green — white and green striped; adds a nice contrast amongst brighter colours

Deep Purple

* Queen of the Night — a really deep, almost black-purple with a lovely rounded shape. Even my husband, who is not into gardening at all, comments on these every year!

Bear in mind that the fancier varieties will likely sell out sooner rather than later, so get your bulb order in as soon as they start selling them — usually around the end of summer for a September/October delivery.

Tip 3: Leave two leaves on the plant when cutting

If, like me, you love to cut your tulips for the house, make sure that when you are cutting them you leave two leaves on the plant. These leaves are what will feed the bulb for next year — if you chop them all off, the bulb won’t have enough energy to flower again.

In order to be able to do this you’ll want to grow very tall tulips. To maximise the height of your tulip stems, plant the bulbs closer together in the ground. This encourages them to grow nice, tall, straight stems, so you can still leave those two leaves on the plant and cut a lovely long stem for a vase.

Tip 4: Remove the seed pods

Once your tulips have finished flowering the petals will fall off and they will start to form a seed pod — you’ll notice it looks a bit fat at the top. You want to take that seed pod off either using secateurs or simply pull it off by hand.

You don’t want the plant putting energy into making seeds; you want all that energy going back down into the bulb to feed it for next year. You can just go along and take the seed pods off — it’s a five-minute activity, great for when you are short on time but you want something grounding to connect you with nature. Compost the seed pods, and by removing them you’ll be encouraging the plant to put all of its energy back into the bulb.

If you’re new here, welcome. I come live every Tuesday at midday sharing gardening tips, horticultural therapy tips, and advice on how to incorporate gardening into your life — because we are all busy and struggling to find the time but we know that more time is Nature is the answer to lowering our stress levels and avoiding burnout.

I have a membership community here on Substack where you can come and garden along with us. We hold bi-monthly garden-along sessions where we all log on online together and garden as a community. If you’re thinking “I quite like the idea of gardening but I’m not really sure what I should be doing or when,” then joining The Seed is the perfect way to start. You get weekly activities so you can look at the activity of the week and go and do it in your garden, no overthinking just action.

If you would love to get into gardening and do it in community with other women who are juggling life, work, motherhood, or caring for elderly parents — while still trying to take a little bit of time for themselves to connect with nature — we would love to have you join us.

That’s all from me for today. I’ll be back next Tuesday. Have a great week — happy gardening, bye!

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Hi, if you’re new here, I’m Kendall Marie Platt — Horticultural Therapist and space holder for garden-curious women who are burned out from holding it all and ready to find a place to exhale.

Welcome to Adventures with Flowers TV, the show for garden-curious mid-life women who want a garden that doesn’t just look beautiful. It restores them daily.

The challenge

My client Carly had a woodland area under the most beautiful lime green acer that was full of potential but fear was holding her back. She was terrified of accidentally removing something vital or destroying existing plants; she had defaulted to a “leave it and hope” approach. The result was a space that wasn’t growing into anything intentional, just existing and actually being taken over by self seeded sedge grass.

The turning point

Us working together in a garden power hour changed everything for her. Through my hands-on guidance, she gained the knowledge to identify what was worth keeping and what was ready to go — and crucially, the confidence to act on it. The fear of “getting it wrong” was replaced with a clear plan and the tools to execute it. I showed her how to use a mattock to remove the tough sedge grass clumps that were popping up everywhere and how to use it to loosen the tough soil underneath so she could plant into it.

The transformation

Armed with know-how and a new sense of authority over her own garden, Carly went from passive observer to active creator. The “wait and see” mindset gave way to decisive action — digging out what wasn’t serving the vision (the bloody sedge grass) and making room for what would. See the picture below for everything she dug out! We found a lovely skimmia that was looking a bit sad in a pot at the bottom of the garden and she added that in, alongside a stunning deep purple hellebore that she’d saved from near death at the local supermarket.

Life now

The woodland area is well and truly on its way. Carly is no longer guessing — she’s shaping a space that reflects exactly what she wants it to be, with the skills and confidence to keep it growing in the right direction. She’s got plans to add in some heucheras that have been living in containers that I pointed out would love a spot in the shade.

“Thank you SO much! I wouldn’t have had a clue! Now having the know-how and confidence to dig that sedge grass up and make the border what I want, my woodland area is well and truly on its way.”

— Carly

And do you know what the best bit about our session was? I also spent time showing her how to cut back and clear the old wood from a 30 year old clematis that had never been pruned and had stopped flowering. We made good progress but this is something she will continue with in 20 minute blocks of time.

I also showed her how and where to prune some of the trees that were growing into areas of her garden that she doesn’t want them to. All of that in just 60 minutes!

She now has an action plan she can follow to keep taking steps towards the garden she wants and she’s inspired to keep going because she can see the impact her efforts are making.

I have 3 spaces for Garden Power hours in May, that can take place in person in your garden or online if you’re not based near me.

Available dates:

11am BST Thursday 21st May 2026

9.30am BST Tuesday 26th May 2026

9.30am BST Thursday 28th May 2026

So if you are adopting the ‘leave it and hope’ approach like Carly but you know that what you really need is someone to support and guide you to take action then book your power hour now. Because we both know it’s not going to sort itself out by keeping your fingers crossed and hoping.

If you enjoyed this episode let me know by hitting reply or dropping your thoughts in the comments.

To get new episodes of Adventures with Flowers TV delivered straight to your inbox pop your email in here.

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! For the full Adventures with Flowers TV experience download the Substack app.

I’m going to explain why they’re so good at helping you to power up, avoid that mid-afternoon slump, and how you can use them at the end of the day when you want energy to do more than just flop on the sofa feeling like an exhausted donkey. Because that is not what we are about here. We are about using our gardens to re-energise us so we can enjoy our lives.

Welcome! If you are new here, my name is Kendall Marie Platt. I’m a horticultural therapist and space holder for garden-curious women who are burned out from holding it all and are ready to find a place to exhale. And that place is your garden.

Welcome to Adventures with Flowers TV — the show for garden-curious midlife women who want a garden that doesn’t just look beautiful, but restores them daily.

Have you got your cuppa? Then let’s get going!

Plant 1: Wisteria

The first plant is the utter beauty behind me in the video — my wisteria! Yes, it takes over the house, but goodness me, does it look beautiful. One of the main reasons I like it is that every time I step out of my front door, I feel like I’m in Bridgerton. I feel like I’ve got my fancy clothes on and I’m going to go about my day as a lady of the Ton. So that is one of the ways it really energises me. The gorgeous purple colour is another reason, and the scent is absolutely stunning. It’s really sweet, and it just really brings you into the present moment as you inhale that gorgeous jolt of sweet scent.

Plant 2: Peonies

The next plant is my peonies. I grow loads of peonies. Even though they are fleeting, flowering for only a few days in a warm Spring, just look at the colour and the voluptuousness of them! The main reason I grow them is because I had them in my bouquet for mine and my husband’s wedding. So from a memory point of view, they are just so energising and beautiful and looking at them really lands me back in the utter joy of my wedding day.

I grow lots of different colours, but my absolute favourite ones are the really bold colours. I’ve got a lovely Kansas here — really, really beautiful. I’ve also got Coral Charm, which isn’t quite flowering but in the video you can see the pinky coralness of them coming through. The scent on them is quite delicate but quite sweet, so again, a really lovely way to ground into the present moment and breathe in some nice energy from your plants.

Plant 3: Geum

The next one is my geum. Look at that — in an otherwise pretty green border, that hot orange is just such a tonic, is it not? These lovely orangey petals and the flowers keep coming as well, so if you cut them for the house and pop them in a vase, you can bring a bit of the outdoors in, and the plant will keep producing those lovely bright orange flowers.

The leaves are really, really soft — another way to get out of your head and into your body and boost those energy levels is by engaging your sense of touch. These ones don’t smell, but I think the colour is so bold and bright that it’s a really, really worthwhile addition to your garden if you want your outdoor space to boost your energy levels.

Plant 4: Mint

My next plant is not actually flowering just yet, but it is a plant you can grow all year round — and it is a lovely strawberry mint. You can either put your face straight in it and take a deep sniff or use your fingers, rub a leaf between them, and then even if you have to run back to your desk to get on with work, you can take the scent with you on your fingers.

I really highly recommend having some kind of mint in your garden for a real zing of energy. There are loads of different types — I also had a really lovely blackcurrant mint in my sensory herb garden workshop at the weekend. Or another favourite was a pineapple mint with beautiful variegated white and green leaves.

If you want to, you can pick a leaf off and eat it directly, or chuck a couple of leaves into a nice cool glass of water — a big slurp of it will definitely wake you up! So if you’re in that spaced-out, slumpy zone, go out into your garden, pick a couple of mint leaves, pop them in a cold glass of water, have a big drink and I guarantee and it will re-energise you.

Plant 5: Acers

The last thing I want to share is all about the overlaying of two colours that can really give you energy. Take a look at the video to see the acid green of one of my Acers and then the hot, hot red of the second one behind it. When I come out of my back door, I can see those two colours together down the garden almost jostling for my attention. It’s not a clash, but it’s so energising having the acid green right next to that bold red.

So those are my five plants for boosting your energy! I would love to know — pop it in the comments or reply to me via email — which one of these are you going to give a go at growing in your garden? I would love to know, because I’m all about getting you actually gardening, not just overthinking about it.

If you’ve enjoyed this article and video, please do give it a like and subscribe to the Seed to get next week’s article in your inbox. Being out in nature, spending a little bit of time in nature for ourselves every day, is something we really need if we are not going to end up completely burnt out and exhausted.

So do choose one of these plants to add into your garden. Or if you already have one of them and you weren’t using it as a way to boost your energy, do let me know how you feel after giving it a try.

And if you want to come and join The Seed — my horticultural therapy membership, where we focus on therapy-led gardening that reconnects you to your body, your space, and your sense of self, one session, one season, one breath at a time — we would love to have you.

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

This is very much an interactive video and article, so please do ask questions and either reply with or put your thoughts in the comments. I really want to know what you’re thinking when it comes to the topic of gardening tools.

Who I Am

I’m Kendall Marie Platt, a horticultural therapist and a space holder for garden-curious women who are burned out from holding it all and ready to find a place to exhale. This alongside your garden is the place where we are going to learn to do that.

I specialise in therapy-led gardening that reconnects you to your body, your space, and your sense of self — one session, one season, one breath at a time.

Everything I share here is about getting you in the garden in those small pockets of time that, as busy women, we manage to carve out for ourselves, because my belief is that gardening is the antidote to burnout. I believe that the way we solve the mental health crisis in the world — not just the UK — is to get more people in their gardens. And I help you to do that in really simple, bite-sized ways.

Tools You DO Need

1. Trowel

I love a trowel. Some people use a garden fork — for me, it’s all about the trowel, and that’s not just because I studied forensic archaeology and have a bit of an affinity for them. I just really like how they feel in the hand.

Garden forks irritate the crap out of me, actually, because I feel like things just slip through the tines. So I’m a trowel girl — but I would advise going to the garden centre and trying a few on for size, just like you do in the changing rooms for a new outfit.

One thing I would say: choose a wooden-handled one. If you choose a plastic handle — and I learnt this because my husband was an archaeologist — when you dig and hit something hard, the plastic handle really reverberates and it’s really uncomfortable on your joints. But if you use a wooden-handled one, the wood absorbs some of that impact and it doesn’t put quite so much strain on your arms.

I’d also like to point out the difference between a normal trowel and a bulb trowel. A bulb trowel has graduations marked on it for planting depths — really useful for knowing how deep to plant bulbs. If you’ve only got the budget for one trowel, get one that’s a bit of a hybrid: the shape of a regular trowel but with measurements marked on it. Then you’ve got the best of both worlds.

2. Garden Kneeler

The next thing you need is a garden kneeler. The reason you need one is because, as women, we’re lucky if we get 20 minutes to ourselves to get in the garden — who’s got the bloody time to change their clothes? Not me. I like my clothes. I like wearing a nice outfit that I feel good in. I don’t want to have to spend five or ten minutes getting changed into my ‘gardening clothes’.

A garden kneeler means you can kneel on it while you’re doing whatever you’re doing and you’re not going to get mucky. And let’s be really honest — even if you do get a bit mucky, we all own a washing machine. So let’s start to unpick a bit of that conditioning, which I’m sure comes from being kids and being told “don’t get messy.” Bugger that. Clothes can go in the washing machine to wash any mud off.

3. Secateurs

You definitely need some secateurs. We all love a little bit of pruning — pruning the anxieties away! That’s actually one of the horticultural therapy activities that I’m currently writing about in my book.

You will need a pair of secateurs because things grow in a garden and you need to cut them back. It’s that simple.

A few brands worth knowing:

* Niwaki — a really nice Japanese brand, quite expensive, but the bright-coloured handles mean you can find them again when you inevitably leave them in the garden.

* Burgon and Ball — a slightly cheaper fluorescent range, great if you’re new to gardening and not ready to invest £75 in secateurs. They do hot pinks and yellows. Ideal if you’ve got ADHD like me, or just a busy brain which means you get distracted mid gardening session — bright tools are much easier to find wherever you’ve abandoned them.

* Felco — around £45 a pair, and you can send them off each year and they’ll service them for you, which is pretty handy from a time-saving perspective.

Whatever you choose, you should clean and sharpen your secateurs once a year to keep them cutting well.

4. Watering Can

A watering can is a must — mainly because we really should be saving water where we can, rather than just using a hose.

I started with one of those plastic ones from the garden centre, only cost about a tenner — which was great, but over time they go brittle in the sun because I never put them away, and I just felt like I was buying plastic, which wasn’t great for the environment. So I eventually upgraded to a metal one, which my kids got me for a birthday. It’s so well made that I’m planning to pass it on to them — a slightly strange heirloom, but a good one.

Watering cans are brilliant for a post-work watering session — when you’ve had a really full-on meeting or a really busy day, just fill it up (ideally from your water butt) and give the garden a good watering. If you use the rose attachment, it gives that lovely tinkling sound as the water falls, which is so calming. If you can really tune in to that sound, it’s a wonderful way to stay in the present moment and get into the flow state.

Another lovely bonus: when it’s been really hot, watering with a can creates better petrichor — that wonderful smell you get when rain hits hot earth. A watering can is really effective at producing it. Such a lovely, calming sensory experience.

5. Gloves

Gloves protect your nails, and gardening can be pretty hard-wearing on them. I’ll be really honest — I don’t always wear gloves, because sometimes I like to feel the soil on my hands. There’s actually a lovely bacteria called Mycobacterium vaccae which, when it gets into your body through contact with soil, raises your serotonin levels. So bare hands in the soil can genuinely boost your mood!

But sometimes I do wear gloves, especially for really mucky tasks or when I want to protect my nails. I really like the brand Feverfew — specifically designed for women, which is completely my bag. I tried them for the first time this year and I really like them. They take a measurement of your hand to make sure you get the right fit, rather than the usual vague small/medium/large sizing from the garden centre, which always either left my fingers too short or the gloves too baggy. They are a bit more pricey, but I think they’re worth it and they’re going to last really well.

6. Spade

If I’m really honest, if you’re just getting started, I don’t know that you’d need one of these straight away — you can dig holes for plants with a hand trowel, and actually I still prefer to do that. But if you’re digging a big hole for a tree or something, a spade is a really good option. They’re also really useful for spreading mulch or compost and moving it from your compost bins onto your garden borders.

One thing to know: there is a difference between a spade and a shovel. A spade has a fairly flat profile — like a blade — which is what you need for digging clean holes. A shovel is more curved at the edges, which is better for shovelling compost but not as good for digging. If you’ve only got the budget for one, get a spade and leave the shovel for a future birthday wish list.

Tools You DON’T Need

A Dibber

I definitely got one of these in my Christmas stocking one year. Why do you need one? You don’t it’s basically just your finger. I suppose it’s quite handy that it has centimetre markings on it, but don’t waste your money. Just use your finger.

A Pricking-Out Tool

This is a slightly handy little tool for getting into seed trays and hoiking up seedlings so you can pot them on into a bigger pot. But if I’m really honest, you can just use an old teaspoon. So I wouldn’t worry too much about one of those either.

Fancy Weed Extractor Tools

You know those bizarre weed extractor tools that get demoed on QVC — the dandelion tool where you can get the weed and then fire it across the garden? What the f**k? Literally, you don’t need that. That is an utter waste of money. From my experience, they are quite expensive and actually pretty rubbish. Just use a trowel or your garden fork.

Hit reply or come and let me know in the comments what tools you’ve been eyeing up and i’ll give you my honest opinion about whether I think you need them or not.

A Practical Tip: Your Garden Go-Box

Keep all your tools together in the same place so you can always find them. I call this my garden go-box. I keep a bucket that I use to throw weeds into, and inside it I keep my gloves, my trowel, my secateurs, and my kneeler. That way I know where everything is at all times.

When I finally get my 10 or 20 minutes in the garden that I’ve carved out for myself, I go straight outside and I know where everything is. I don’t waste 10 minutes looking for the bloody tools — by which point I’d have to get back on with work or somebody needs me. Such a simple habit, but it makes a real difference.

Come and Garden With Us

If you want to come and get gardening in community as the antidote to burnout, come and join The Seed. We all need a bit of accountability while we learn new habits — and we deserve to give ourselves these lovely new habits.

We have garden-along sessions twice a month where you can come, I’ll share some therapeutic techniques at the start, we’ll get some gardening things ticked off your list, and then we’ll come together after 20 minutes to chat about what came up. Sometimes big emotions surface, and that is okay — this is a therapeutic gardening session, but online, from wherever you are in the world.

The current therapeutic gardening model doesn’t work for busy women, and I am on a mission to change it so that we can all access it as and when we need to, from our own gardens. Because I believe that having a garden that holds you and feels like your true sanctuary is something that all women deserve. Something that many of us have the ability to create — and it doesn’t need to take hours. You can do it in just 20 minutes a day.

I’ll be back next week with another episode. Thanks so much. See you soon.

To get next week’s episode in your inbox pop your email address in here.

Thank you to everyone who tuned in live! Join me for my next live video in the app.

This is a chat I had (Kendall Marie Platt 🌱 , a horticultural therapist and founder of Adventures with Flowers) with the gorgeous Gail Doggett , a coach for ADHD writers and new-ish allotment holder extraordinaire discussing gardening and neurodivergence and how it helps to calm our busy minds.

With practical actionable tips you can try in your garden or allotment today.

AI Summary provided by Claude

Gail’s allotment journey: After waiting nearly a decade on a London waiting list, Gail got a half-plot allotment last year. She tackled it through hyperfocus and sheer physical effort, divided it into zones (growing area, covered middle section, and a bramble-clearing project at the back), and grew flowers, nasturtiums, and marigolds for joy rather than following any structured plan.

ADHD-friendly gardening strategies discussed:

* Rage weeding — channelling frustration into the act of pulling weeds

* 20-minute timed blocks with self-competitions to boost dopamine

* Zoning large spaces to avoid overwhelm and create visible progress

* Embracing novelty — the natural uncertainty of gardening (will it grow? what will it look like?) keeps ADHD brains engaged

* Habit stacking and building a consistent gardening practice, even in small ways

* Gardening by the moon as a framework for novelty and variety

Broader themes: Both women connect gardening with helping clients — writers and gardeners alike — overcome self-doubt, trust their instincts, and make progress incrementally. They push back against the pressure of “perfect” gardens seen on social media and TV, emphasising that a personal, joyful, experimental approach is far more sustainable and fulfilling.

Come and join us in the Seed for horticultural therapy activities to calm your mind.

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Don’t forget this round of Bloom closes at midnight on Friday 3rd April 2026 and I won’t be opening the doors again until June 2026.

Do you need a big garden to join Bloom?

Not at all. Bloom is for any size garden. Yes its about transforming your garden space into something glorious but its also about getting you out in your garden regularly to feel good. Therefore even if you are gardening on a balcony, the steps i’m teaching you in Bloom will apply.

What tools will I need in Bloom?

This isn’t an exercise in getting you to buy more stuff. The tools you are already using are likely ideal. Obviously if you don’t have any tools yet I can recommend some tools I love. As a minimum I’d suggest a trowel or hand fork for weeding, some secateurs and a bucket or garden trug to put your plant waste into. If you want to sow seeds then you’ll need some bits for that, but we’ll go through all of that in seed sowing week. There may be some things I suggest might save you time during the course of our time working together- but these will never be framed as a ‘must buy’ and I trust that you will use your discernment as to whether you need to buy them or not.

What’s the difference between the Bloom tier and the paid member tier?

Great question. Simply put the difference is garden transformation. Bloom is for people wanting to make a big change in their garden with a full year of my support. The paid member tier is for you if you’re happy with your garden but you want to learn how to use it to support your nervous system and wellbeing through horticultural therapy.

If I’m a paid member of the Seed already will I be charged the full amount for Bloom?

No, Substack will charge you the difference between what you have paid (annual £100, or £10 monthly) and the Bloom price.

So if you paid £100 yesterday to join the Seed, when you upgrade to Bloom you’ll be charged £150. However if you paid £100 6 months ago, you would be charged £200 and your renewal date will change to a year from today.

I don’t live in the UK and so we have a different climate and native plants to you. I feel overwhelmed with the research to figure out what is best to grow in my area. How do you address this in Bloom where your members live in different parts of the world?

The way I teach you to choose your plants in Bloom is linked to the conditions your garden has to offer (we’re going to be working out what these are in week 3). I am all about teaching you to work with your garden specifically and listening to your intuition rather than picking prescribed plants from lists. Some of our exercises will be for you to go out in your local area and see what plants you like that a growing happily. That way you know they will grow in your area.

You have the ability to ask me questions about this in the comments of all of the exercises so I can guide you if you are stuck.

If you give activities for every day of the year and we miss some days or even weeks, how do we catch up without becoming overwhelmed?

We have 2 community garden along sessions each month which are ideal for catching up on the activities. I use them for this myself as life often gets in the way for me.

Each Sunday I will send you an overview email with the activities for the week ahead. In that email I will encourage you to look at your week ahead and decide which activities you will do and those which either you don’t have time for (these can be saved for the garden along session) or might not be relevant for you right now- for example you might decide that you want to save growing from seed until later in the year.

Are your pre-recorded online masterclasses available to us if we join Bloom?

They are but in a different format. I found that people struggled to find 90 minutes to watch them. So I have broken them down into shorter videos and you will just be shown what you need to complete the daily activity. For example a 10 minute video of ‘seed sowing in pots’ rather than a 90 minute video on everything there is to know about seed sowing.

This is because I found people were watching the classes and then losing momentum before they’d taken action. This new format prevents that and gives you the lovely dopamine hit of actually taking action rather than being stuck in consuming and learning mode.

I don’t know anything about gardening is this for me?

Bloom is designed for complete gardening beginners, so whether you’re brand new or you’ve tried to create your garden sanctuary before and plants keep dying on you Bloom is the answer to your gardening prayers. I’m going to take you step by step through the exact process I use with my 1:1 clients to turn their gardens from spaces they would be embarrassed for anyone to see, into spaces that their friends are always asking to visit because they are such a paradise of flowers and beauty.

How much time will I need to find? I’m really busy.

I feel you there babe. As a busy working mum myself I struggle to find time to garden. But I also know that I’m a much better mother, partner and all round human when I do take that time every day. Each activity is just 20 minutes maximum. You can do 20 minutes each day, because you deserve at least 20 minutes for yourself in a day. Or save all the activities up and do them on the weekend. In Week 1 I’m going to be helping you to find 20 minutes in your diary everyday to prioritise your health and wellbeing and get you in the garden.

How will Bloom help me feel less overwhelmed by my garden?

I felt completely overwhelmed over 13 years ago when I moved into this house and garden. And you know how I moved forward and created my dream garden sanctuary? I broke the big overwhelmed project down into small bitesized steps. If you’re thinking that feels too much like hard work then good news, i’ve done it for you. And i’m going to deliver you one step each day over the next year so this time next year you’ll be sipping on your morning coffee surrounded by sensory plants and feeling truly held by the space you’ve created without an ounce of overwhelm in sight.

I’m a plant killer, will this work for me?

Clients always say this to me. But once we figure out what plants are actually suited to their space, they very quickly change from ‘plant killer’ to ‘plant invigorator’ with surprisingly little ongoing input! So in short yes! We’ll be focusing on this in Week 3 of Bloom.

I’ve wasted so much money on my garden I don’t want to waste any more. Can you really help me?

The top 2 reasons people end up wasting money on plants is because either they don’t choose the right plants for their space (see above) or because they aren’t choosing plants designed for longevity. We’ll be covering different types of plants and their average life expectancy in Bloom so you can make sure you choose ones that will be supporting you for years to come.

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Hi, I’m Kendall Marie Platt, a horticultural therapist and space-holder for garden curious women. I’m on a mission to help every woman create her own garden sanctuary as the antidote to burnout.

Whether you’ve been knocked by redundancy, the constant judgement from others in motherhood, divorce or separation, workplace bullying or just life, your self worth takes a battering.

Growing beautiful flowers to bring you joy and delicious food to feed yourself and your family will help you improve your self worth, self confidence and begin to trust in yourself and your abilities again.

If you are ending the day feeling like nothing is going right it could be that horticultural therapy is for you.

The way you want to be thinking about gardening is not that it’s a ‘have to do’ but that it’s something you get to do to reset your nervous system and begin to believe in yourself again.

If you want to give horticultural therapy a try come and join my ‘Get your garden ready for Spring challenge’ simply join my newsletter the Seed and the short daily activities will be delivered to you daily from 16th-20th March 2026.

Hi, I’m Kendall Marie Platt, a horticultural therapist and space-holder for garden curious women. I’m on a mission to help every woman create her own garden sanctuary as the antidote to burnout.

As women we are under so much pressure juggling all the things. We’re often caring for kids or elderly parents, working to pay the bills, trying to cook and eat nutritious food, get your 2L of water in each day, move your body to get strong AND carve out just a little bit of time for you every day.

It’s f*****g exhausting and it’s time to create a space that holds you so you don’t have to hold it all alone anymore.

Your garden gets to be your sanctuary.

And the best bit is that because it’s right on your doorstep you don’t need to book onto a yoga class or head to the gym to work out your stress, you can access it whenever you need to.

The way you want to be thinking about your garden is not another thing to beat yourself up over because you haven't ‘sorted it out’ but that it gets to be your therapy space, a place where you can finally exhale and let all of the stresses of the day out into the soil. Make sure you check out part 4.

If you want to give horticultural therapy a try come and join my ‘Get your garden ready for Spring challenge’ simply join my newsletter the Seed and the short daily activities will be delivered to you daily from 16th-20th March 2026.

Hi, I’m Kendall Marie Platt, a horticultural therapist and space-holder for garden curious women. I’m on a mission to help every woman create her own garden sanctuary as the antidote to burnout.

Whether you have a neurodivergent brain like me or you are just juggling a lot, it can feel like you’re drowning in the noise.

Daily time in your garden helps you to turn the dial down on the noise in your head and give you some much needed peace and quiet.

If you are ending the day with your head feeling like its about to explode it could be that horticultural therapy is for you.

The way you want to be thinking about gardening is not that it’s another thing to tick off your to-do list but that it’s a way to release some of the pressure you are under right now and avoid burnout. Make sure you check out part 3.

If you want to give horticultural therapy a try come and join my ‘Get your garden ready for Spring challenge’ simply join my newsletter the Seed and the short daily activities will be delivered to you daily from 16th-20th March 2026.

Hi, I’m Kendall Marie Platt, a horticultural therapist and space-holder for garden curious women. I’m on a mission to help every woman create her own garden sanctuary as the antidote to burnout.

The reason gardening and horticultural therapy specifically is so good for lowering your stress levels is because it helps you complete the stress cycle.

Every day stressful things happen and most of us just carry on with our day and try and forget about them. But guess what that stress sits festering inside of you and raises your stress levels. Getting out in your garden, and practicing some horticultural therapy exercises even for 20 minutes can help complete the stress cycle and get the days stresses out of your system.

If you are ending the day feeling tired but wired it could be that horticultural therapy is for you.

The way you want to be thinking about gardening is not that it’s a chore but that it’s a way to lower your stress levels and avoid burnout. Make sure you check out part 2.

If you want to give horticultural therapy a try come and join my ‘Get your garden ready for Spring challenge’ simply subscribe to the Seed and the short daily activities will be delivered to you daily from 16th-20th March 2026.

This is a Substack Live conversation between Kendall Marie Platt 🌱, a horticultural therapist, and Lee Griffith, a coach who helps people unlearn limiting beliefs. They explore common mental blocks that stop people from gardening, finding that these surface excuses almost always point to deeper issues around identity, self-worth, and conditioning.

To get more tips on how to grow your garden sanctuary direct to your inbox pop your email address in here.

The main beliefs they unpack are:

“I don’t have time” — really about not prioritising yourself, perfectionism, or feeling that rest and pleasure are indulgent. Kendall shares that her own burnout forced her to finally make daily garden time non-negotiable, even if just five minutes.

“I don’t know enough” — rooted in needing to feel competent before starting, fear of failure, or intimidation by gardening’s expert culture and Latin plant names. Lee admits she bought every Alan Titchmarsh book and still hasn’t felt ready 12 years later. Both agree you don’t need to know plant names to enjoy a garden.

“I kill everything” — often the result of buying the wrong plants with no strategy, then collecting that failure as evidence of a fixed identity. Kendall points out even expert gardeners lose plants, and seed germination is only around 50% by nature.

“My space isn’t good enough” — driven by comparing your garden to Chelsea Flower Show or TV makeover shows, which use professional growers, huge budgets, and entire teams. Those shows also never teach people how to maintain what’s been created.

“It’s an old person’s hobby” — linked to fear of judgment and a belief that rest belongs in retirement. Both note the gardening world remains predominantly white and middle-class, though this is slowly shifting.

A recurring theme is that children learn gardening (and self-care generally) through modelling their parents, so getting adults into the garden now has a knock-on effect for the next generation.

They close by mentioning their respective offerings — Lee’s Unlearning Lab coaching programme, and Kendall’s group programme “Bloom,” launching 21st March 2026, built around 20-minute daily garden activities.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

Lee on the real reason behind “I don’t have time”: Rather than the gardening itself being the issue, she argues it comes down to the belief that rest and pleasure are indulgent — and that the time excuse is likely showing up across everything you’re not doing for yourself, not just gardening.

Lee on the “I need to learn more first” trap: She admits that after buying every gardening book 12 years ago, she still felt unready — illustrating that the goalposts of “knowing enough” never actually arrive.

Lee on identity and failure: The pattern she describes is: plant dies → outcome becomes identity → identity means I’m not good enough → therefore I can’t garden. She notes that even the best gardeners lose plants, but we don’t take that in.

Kendall on time vs. priority: Her sharpest line is the observation that if you use your garden to support your wellbeing, saying you have no time for it is the same as saying your wellbeing isn’t a priority.

Kendall on phone scrolling: She points out that most people could find 20–30 minutes a day just by adding up their phone time — and that garden time is demonstrably better for mental health than doom scrolling.

Kendall on modelling for children: Her core argument is that teaching children to garden matters less than parents doing it themselves, because children copy behaviour rather than instruction.

Thanks for reading The Seed! This post is public so feel free to share it.

Experiments from Lee Griffith to help you unlearn these beliefs:

Ask yourself what’s the smallest experiment you could run this month that gently challenges your belief?Make it small enough that you can bypass performance and perfectionism.For example:- ‘I don’t have time to garden’ > garden for just 10 mins a day, or come and join us in Bloom for daily 20 minute activities.- ‘I don’t know enough’ > plant 1 thing and see what it tells you- ‘I kill everything I plant’ > change 1 variable condition- ‘I don’t have the money to grow a gorgeous garden’ > rearrange what you already have or grow something from seed- ‘My garden isn’t good enough to be a sanctuary’ > redefine what sanctuary is for you

Give them a go and let us know in the comments how you get on.

If you want to come and unlearn in community then we will be undertaking and tackling some of these experiments and belief shifts in Bloom starting 21st March 2026.

If you have other unhelpful or limiting beliefs you want to shift then join Lee in the Unlearning lab.

Thank you to everyone who tuned into our live video! Join me Kendall Marie Platt 🌱 for my next live video in the app.

Hi darling, if you’re new here, you are so, so welcome. I’m Kendall, a UK based horticultural therapist and space holder for garden curious women. Here on my Substack, I share tips on how to grow your garden sanctuary and how to use gardening to reduce your stress levels and avoid burnout.

Roses are one of the best plants to grow in a garden in my opinion. Not only do they come in all sorts of beautiful colours, but their calming scent wafting across the garden after a long day at work, child wrangling or supporting elderly parents can be just the tonic you need to feel your shoulders drop and the stress start to leave your body.

I’m sharing here the 3 things you need to know about roses, and because gardening in 20 minute blocks is my thing, know that none of the activities listed here will take you more than 20 minutes.

1. Types of Roses

Maybe you’ve inherited an established garden and you are wondering what roses are already in your garden so you know how to look after them.

Or perhaps you are buying new roses, wondering which roses to choose and you want to know if there are easier roses to look after? Or where the best place to start is.

Shrub/Bush Roses:

These are the most common and easiest to care for and they don’t require tying in to supports. They are the best type of rose for beginners so if thats you I recommended starting with them.

Climbing Roses:

You may have seen these growing over front doors, those gorgeous rose arches and up trellises next to seating areas so their gorgeous scent wafts over you as you relax. They require supports either in the form of structures such as rose obelisks, trellises or wires placed into the wall or fence for them to scramble up and be tied into. Rose care for climbing roses is a little more involved because you will need to tie them into their supports and avoid their prickly stems as you do so.

Rambling Roses:

Rambling roses grow very large and spread extensively, hence their name. They are only really suitable for big gardens, I’m talking stately home/ walled garden size. Because of their large spread and size they require significant maintenance time. Because of the time involved in pruning them, coupled with their very large size I don’t recommend them to my clients.

2. Where to Plant Roses

Roses prefer sunny locations. The more sun you can give them the more flowers you’ll get. Some roses will tolerate shade.

I buy mine from David Austin roses and their website has a great tool that allows you to filter on colour, sun levels and size and type of rose.

I recommend having a browse on their website even if you aren’t based in the UK for inspiration and to choose the best rose for your garden.

You can buy roses in bare root form from November to April which is when they are in the dormant state and saves you a bit of money.

But be sure to have your planting hole dug and ready for when they arrive as they need to go into the ground quite soon after delivery. They may be ok for a couple of days in a bucket of water before being planted but I like to get those exposed roots into the soil as soon as possible.

If you are watching this video at another time of year you can buy roses potted up all year round, they are just more pricey!

If you are a BLOOM member of the Seed and you’d like some help choosing your Roses, comment below and I’ll give you a steer.

3. How to Care for Roses

Roses require little care once established, sprinkle Mycorrhizal fungi inside the planting hole to feed the plant’s roots.

You might see rose fertiliser in the garden centre but personally I don’t feed my roses every year. I prefer to focus my efforts on keeping my soil healthy so then all my plants can benefit. This is something I’m going to be showing you how to do in the live round of the BLOOM tier of the Seed starting 21st March 2026.

Planting your roses

Sprinkle mycorrhizal fungi around the inside of the planting hole to help the roots establish. A very complicated name for a very simple product.

“We’re not about getting all the Latin names right here. That’s not my jam at all.”

Deadheading

Removing spent flower heads to encourage more blooms enables your garden to be full of those gorgeous blousy blooms from June through to October. Let me know in the comments below if a video on deadheading would be useful.

Pruning

I know pruning strikes the fear of god into most people especially if you’re kind of new in the gardening space. I’m going to say this one thing plants want to live! So let’s not get all up in our heads about this, it is actually really hard to prune something to death.

Why prune your roses

* To keep the plant healthy and remove any sign of disease for example the dreaded Blackspot. Once you have pruned the diseased parts off, make sure you don’t add them to your own compost heap and instead put them in the council compost bin for incineration. Similarly make sure to collect up any diseased fallen leaves around the plant and add them to the council compost bin so the disease doesn’t spread through your soil or home made compost. Make sure you wash your secateurs between removing the diseased parts and pruning the healthy parts of the plant.

* To encourage more flowers so that you have lots of roses to pick and bring inside the house in the summer. In fact someone in the community asked if there is a restriction on how many roses you can pick. They were worried it would damage the plant if they cut too many flowers to have in the house. The answer is, No, there’s no restriction. The more flowers you cut the more the plant will produce.

* To restrict the size of the plant. Cutting your Shrub roses down to 30cm from the ground means the size of the plant stays in check, the blooms will be at eye height instead of hanging over the neighbours fence so you actually get to enjoy them in your own garden without having to crick your neck. Plus you will grow roses with long straight stems which will look much better in your vase.

The equipment you’ll need to prune your roses

* Secateurs are your main tool for pruning your roses.

* You may need a pruning saw but usually only for very old, thick stems.

* A pair of good gardening gloves or gauntlets, which are like extra long gloves that go up your arms to protect them from being spiked. I just stick with a pair of gardening gloves as I only have about 6 rose plants in my garden.

* Hot soapy water, sponge, and towel to clean secateurs between cutting the diseased and the healthy parts of the plant to make sure you don’t transfer the disease.

This last tip is for you if you’ve found yourself staring out the window whilst hanging your washing on the airer thinking ‘Hmm those roses need pruning but am I too late to prune my roses?’ ‘How should I cut them back or prune them without killing them?’

The first thing to do to make sure you don’t kill them while cutting them back is to prune them at the right time. This reduces the amount of stress on the plant and just like us, more stress more means more illness.

When is the best time to prune your roses

‘When should I prune my roses?’ is one of the most common questions I get asked. So I’ve got a really simple rule for you to follow:

Prune your roses when everyone else is buying roses

February 14th, St Valentines day. I do this every year and I always have armfuls of roses to pick and put into vases in my house all through the summer.

The lovely Josefin Waltin from ‘of Words and Wool’ on Substack shared the most heartwarming thing with me a couple of weeks ago.

The rule in Sweden is to prune the roses when the birch leaves are the size of mouse ears 🐭

This really appeals to my mantra of get outside, notice the weather and what is growing around you, don’t just blindly follow the gardening books and advice online. Actually get out in your garden, look at what’s going on, look at the leaves growing on the trees, look what’s out there and actually use your senses to notice. Because noticing the growth in your garden is such a powerful tool to connect us to nature. And then by connecting to nature, we’re connecting back to ourselves, and in a world that is constantly trying to keep us disconnected and distracted, connection is powerful.

If your roses are out of control and you’d like some guidance as you prune then paid members of the Seed get access to a step by step tutorial ‘How to prune your roses in 5 simple steps so that you’ll have gorgeous blooms this Summer’ and as a BLOOM member of the Seed you can request a bespoke tutorial for your specific challenge!

Come and join the community to find out more

Don’t forget: Roses are easier to care for than people think - plants want to live and it’s hard to prune them to death!

Have more rose related questions? Put them in the comments and i’ll give you my thoughts!

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Not sure what to do in your garden? I’ve got you with a whole host of 20 minute activities here for you to choose from. Search for the month we’re in, choose one and get out and do it alongside us.

Your mind and garden will thank you.

p.s. Something new and very exciting coming soon so make sure you’re subscribed to the Seed to be the first to hear what it is. Paid members will get the scoop first!

Thank you to everyone who tuned in live, especially Jo Thomas 🌿 for sharing in the comments! Subscribe to the Seed and join me for my next live video in the app.

Including:

* I’ve grown plants from seed, how do I know when my plants are ready to go in the ground?

* I want to have really full looking borders, how closely should I plant my plants?

* I’ve planted my plants out but now they’ve stopped growing, have I killed them?

* And question live on the call from the Seed member Jo Thomas 🌿 who was feeling anxious about planting out her plants given the heat and lack of rain we’ve had.

Being able to get your gardening questions answered is just one of the perks of joining the Seed membership.

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

In this live video I share some key signs that your seedlings need potting on and show you how to pot them on so they continue to grow well and flourish!

To get alerts for future live demo videos pop your email address in here.

Videos can only be watched live in the Substack app so click the button below to get it and come and join the party!

Before you begin, decide on what gardening task you’d like to get done.

If you’ve no idea where to start then come and join the Seed membership and choose a 20 minute activity from the list of this weeks activities.

Share in the comments below with us for accountability.

Then check in with where you are on a scale of 1-10. Where 1 is low mood, anxious and stressed and 10 is energised, calm and joyful.

Click ‘play’ on the above video and garden along with us for 20 minutes.

Check in with where you are on the scale again after 20 minutes in your garden.

Let us know in the comments where you went from and to on the scale.

A little side note to say that it’s ok if you didn’t experience a great shift.

The impact of regular time in your garden is accumulative, a little bit every day and you’ll start to see those numbers increasing. Think of it as compound interest for your health and wellbeing

Come and join the Seed for support, accountability and a space to learn as you garden.

If you’re reading this on desktop or in email then get the app and come and join us live for a grow along next time. Adventures with Flowers TV broadcasts live in the Substack app on Mondays at 12.30pm UK time.

* My garden is very green and masculine. I’d love to add more colour and femininity to it. What should I plant?

* I want my garden to be a calming space but every time I look at it I feel so overwhelmed and feel just like paving it over.

* PLUS Seedling Rosie asked for my top tips on how and when to move Spring bulbs

Come and get your gardening questions answered live next month and join our 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.

Ideal for adding to food and cocktails, jazzing up your glass of water and helping you to create areas in your garden to change your mood.

There are herbs for more energy, herbs for relaxation and herbs to attract wildlife.

I mentioned I spoke to Andy and Kate from Urban Herbs all about my burnout episode on their podcast and how my garden helped me to grow strong again. You can listen to the episode here.

This was a bit of an off the cuff live. Usually live episodes of Adventures with Flowers TV go out on Monday’s at 12.30pm UK time.

Add you email address here to get an email next time I go live and come and join the fun!

Join me for my next live video in the app

Come and garden along with me for 20 minutes while we shine a light on areas of our lives still shrouded in shame. So that we can begin to break free from the constraints of the social structures that are keeping us stuck, exhausted and burnt out.

This week the theme is: My body is the least interesting thing about me.

My iPhone overheated half way through our chat- so when I disappear abruptly you know why!!

Lesson learnt for next time- don’t do lives in the greenhouse on a hot day 🙈🙈

Join me for my next live video in the app

🌱 I helped Jo with some ideas to plant up a tricky area covered in tree roots, stumps and old concrete posts.

🌱 I shared my tips on adding more colour to your garden and ways to ensure the plants come back each year for Kellie.

🌱 Kimberly asked whether she should start growing from seed in pots or directly sowing them on the soil outside in her garden- I shared my thoughts and an important little known fact about germination rates of seeds.

🌱 Rosie wanted some help rejuvenating the soil in her pots so she’s rewarded with lots of lovely flowers this summer.

To get alerted when the next episode of Adventures with Flowers TV goes live pop your email in here:

Going forward the ability to have your gardening questions answered in the LIVE episodes will be for paid members of the Seed only.

But my intention for this LIVE was to make the questions free to all. Unfortunately the tech conspired against me and only paid members were able to comment.

So if you wanted to ask a question on the live but were unable please do pop it below in the comments and I’ll answer it here!

Now I said this gardening TV show for the modern time-poor woman was going to be co-created, so I need your vote on the format you’d love to watch and engage with.

Join me for my next live video on Tuesday 8th April 2025 in the app. Keep your 👀peeled for the topic in the April overview post.

In case you’d love to come and join us in The Great Garden Rebellion and understand the essential steps to get started to make sure everything you plant has the best chance of success then you can book your spot here.