Beyond the frenzy of seed sowing, winter is the season of snoozing and taking stock, says Alice Vincent, and letting your garden rest up ahead of the demands of spring. Illustration Alice Pattullo <\/p>

No need, garden, to hurry or sparkle. No need to be anything but itself <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>
I\u2019m in good company. On 2 January 1931, Virginia Woolf wrote a diary entry that I revisit often: \u2018Here are my resolutions for the next three months; the next lap of the year. To have none. Not to be tied\u2026To go out yes \u2013 but stay at home in spite of being asked.\u2019 It reflects a message smuggled into A Room of One\u2019s Own,<\/em> the book borne of the feminist lectures she gave at Girton and Newnham colleges, Cambridge, a few years earlier: \u2018No need to hurry, no need to sparkle, no need to be anybody but oneself.\u2019 It\u2019s a mantra I recite to myself often. For a while it sat on a torn-out scrap of lined A4 on my desk, the ink run from some more energetic plant watering. It applies well to many aspects of life, but at this time of year it applies particularly well to the garden. No need, garden, to hurry or sparkle. No need to be anything but itself.<\/p>\n

It might look like doing nothing but I prefer to think of it as more of a crucial dormancy <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>
As gardeners, we can learn from this too. I barely grow edibles<\/a> \u2013 certainly not in a manner that necessitates seed trays<\/a> and heated propagators<\/a>. I\u2019m unwilling to give over the time or space in the garden that they need at this point in my life. But when I did, January became a kind of mad race to sow tomato and chilli seeds<\/a>. Despite general consensus being that seeds will germinate more quickly, and grow more strongly, if sown after the vernal equinox, when the days are longer, recent years have seen a shift to a kind of competitive seed-sowing frenzy, played out on social media (where else).<\/p>\n
Sowing seeds<\/a> is an inherently hopeful act, and after the fuss and the mania of Christmas, there\u2019s something deeply appealing about the simplicity of taking a pot of soil and placing small things in it with the determination that they will grow. If that\u2019s what you need to tug you into the new year and out of a winter slump, be my guest.<\/p>\n

Nothing can bloom all the time; we shouldn\u2019t expect the same of ourselves <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>
I, however, will be unhurried and unsparkly, in a continuation of how I\u2019ve spent much of the past year gardening: standing back, looking on, watching it all unfold. It might look like doing nothing \u2013 indeed, I am writing this in bed \u2013 but I prefer to think of it as more of a crucial dormancy. Gardens wind down in the winter with good reason. We are in the season of snoozing and taking stock, of resting up and rejuvenating before the energy of spring and summer ahead. Nothing can bloom all the time; we shouldn\u2019t expect the same of ourselves.<\/p>\n
I spent half of last January isolating with Covid. When I wasn\u2019t binge-watching Below Deck<\/em> in a fugue state, I kept track of time by watching the sunlight move around the living room. I couldn\u2019t smell the forced paperwhite daffodils<\/a> that filled the mantelpiece, but I could see them unfold as the days passed. I craved a walk around the park, catching the smell of daphne<\/a> on the air and watching the day mellow into pink. January: not being anything but itself.<\/p>\n
Read all of Alice\u2019s columns for Gardens Illustrated<\/em> here\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n
This column first appeared in Gardens Illustrated<\/em> magazine. Subscribe here<\/a><\/strong><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n
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