You may have met my dear friend, the Cosmos Queen, in some earlier posts. Links below if you missed them. Well, here she is again, demonstrating the awesome power of the garden.
Greatest benefits of becoming a gardener
The amazing benefits of gardening
The Cosmos Queen’s beautiful dahlias
We first met under incredibly sad circumstances over four years ago. Sadly, her much loved husband had passed away. We stayed in contact and as I am a trained mental health first aider, I offered my support and friendship. Consequently, I could see she was naturally grieving the loss of a future planned together and this was overwhelmingly painful for her.
As we got to know each other, I mentioned my garden, as I knew the benefits of gardening for our wellbeing. With this in mind, I wondered if she might be interested in growing a few flowers one day. And become a gardener she has!
Read on for an update on her amazing journey into gardening and the awesome power this can bring.
The Cosmos Queen’s garden
To begin with, I was supplying a few flowers that I had grown in Favolosa, my greenhouse. These included a few cosmos plants to see if an interest in gardening might be awakened.
As a result, my friend came to love the cosmos flower and became the Cosmos Queen.
Next came the visit to my garden and the dahlias. This resulted in an interest for these spectacular and beautiful flowers. A wish list was compiled, and I ordered them for her birthday. I was seeing the awesome power of the dahlia and a lifelong passion unfold.
I order dahlias from Sarah Raven. I can thoroughly recommend them for quality.
Click here for Sarah Raven dahlias
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As the Cosmos Queen had wished for the decorative dinner plate varieties, she had a few beautiful blousy blooms but nothing to interest the bees.
After more visits to my garden, which is designed to be as wildlife friendly as possible, I could see her dream was to have a wildlife friendly garden as well.
The Honka brigade in 2023
The Cosmos Queen sprung into action and ordered more dahlias. This time there was an abundance of Honka’s in the order. Probably because I rarely had a photo of my Honka dahlias to share with her, without a bee, butterfly or hoverfly latched on!
So, she received the dahlia tubers, grew them on with tender loving care, and planted them out in her garden.
Next came the call and an excited Cosmos Queen was bubbling over with joy. “My Honka Fragile is flowering and there is a bee!” Photo above.
In addition, my phone then started to ping, and along came ten photos of Honka Red, Honka Pink and honka Fragile. Similarly, every flower had a bee.
Wow. So many Honkas and so many bees. How absolutely fabulous!
Next came a chat or two about wildflowers. Consequently, she hatched a plan. She is an organised girl who dearly loves a plan.
The wildflower plan
The Cosmos Queen had also decided her garden just had to have wildflowers.
So, she bought wildflower seeds early in the year and decided where to put them. She wanted all of her new borders, all eight of them so far, to have dahlias, cosmos and other flowers.
Therefore, she decided her first dip into wildflower growing would be in a container to be moved around as her garden plan evolved.
Clearly, with eight new borders in the garden already, her plans were becoming ambitious and changing day by day. Daily, she was feeling the awesome power of gardening building up, along with her muscles!
She hunted around for a suitable container. After finding an old tin bath, holes were drilled, and the bath was filled with soil and a little compost.
Because wildflowers prefer poor soil with few nutrients and don’t mind growing in close quarters, a pot filled with soil is ideal for them.
After filling with soil, she watered the tin bath, sowed the seeds and sprinkled some soil on the top.
Next up was a peek in the tin bath every day to ensure the soil remained damp whilst the seeds germinated.
Accordingly, the seeds germinated, the wildflowers grew, burst into bloom and the bees buzzed in. See a photo of the beautiful wildflowers above.
Ultimately, a jolly happy Cosmos Queen, more colour for her garden and some happy pollinators.
Containers are the perfect choice for small gardens, courtyards, and balconies so you can still have wildflowers and do not need a meadow for a lovely display.
A feast for the bees
After seeing the echium blue bedder, buzzing with bees in my garden, the Cosmos Queen made some notes and decided to grow some more flowers for her borders.
Additional borders were dug out in double quick time, using the awesome power of those newly developed gardeners muscles. She doesn’t hang about, that lovely Cosmos Queen.
As she does not have a greenhouse, I suggested some hardy and half annuals to direct sow in the many borders she was digging out.
A hardy annual can handle being frozen in the soil (how hardy is that!) and can be planted in early spring or even autumn for a head start on flowering for the following year.
However, a half hardy annual will not tolerate any frost so if you do not have a greenhouse or spare sunny windowsill, you can direct sow once the frosts are over and the soil warms up. This is normally in May in the UK.
Above, you can see her lovely Echium blue bedder. A beautiful blue flower and a magnet for the pollinators.
Additionally, she sowed cosmos (of course!) zinnias, sunflowers, cornflowers and poached egg plants.
As a result, she has some beautiful additional colour in her garden and plenty of flowers for the bees, butterflies and hoverflies too.
A fabulous boost of awesome power
Ultimately, to see a dear friend enjoying life again after a devastating bereavement brings me so much joy.
We had one of our normal one hour, that now becomes ninety minutes or more, phone chats recently and my dear friend sounded incredibly upbeat. Obviously, the entire conversation was about dahlias and wildflowers, butterflies, bees and other flowers in our gardens. Plus, a little news on wildlife we had seen for my 30 days wild posts.
After the call I received a message which she is happy for me to share. See below for part of the message.
“I came in from watering my garden tonight and I turned in the doorway to look back at my garden. I thought to myself, I have done all this myself, with a lot of encouragement from the Dahlia Queen. For the first time since losing my husband I realised that I had a deep sense of wellbeing that had been missing up to now. And it was all down to you and gardening, so thank you honey”
What a lovely message and how heartwarming to see what gardening can bring to our lives. I am thrilled that gardening has helped my dear friend and over the last few years we have become firm friends.
Gardening gives a glow and some awesome power
Wellbeing is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as ” the state of being comfortable, healthy and happy”
Additionally, wellbeing includes so many positive things, including feeling socially connected and purposeful as well as feeling happy and healthy.
Reading the lovely message from the Cosmos Queen shows the awesome power gardening can give. The social connection we have, mainly through gardening, is a fabulous benefit for both of us and such a boon to our wellbeing.
Additionally, we have some jolly happy pollinators too.
I truly believe that gardening is so powerful and life affirming for our wellbeing and I hope that everyone gives it a try. Whether this is in a garden, big or small, a courtyard, some pots on a balcony, or some houseplants in your home, the results can be the same.
My own story about how my garden helped me to deal with stress and anxiety can be found here Wonderful powers of a flower
For more real life stories click on this link https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/health-and-wellbeing
Also, I hope you will join in the Big Butterfly Count this year from Friday 14th July to 6th August as the sight of these beautiful creatures is also a boost to wellbeing. Here is my recent post on helping butterflies and also the link to find out more about the count.
Counting beautiful butterflies, gardeners can help
Big Butterfly Count (butterfly-conservation.org)
Right, time to get my hands in the soil and do some gardening with my lovely chickens so see you next time I hope.
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