A Sweet Roll and Coffee

Guest blog post written by Dr. Betsy Grigoriu

Something shifts therapeutically when we spend time outdoors in a garden. For me, that shift started happening long before I knew what to call it or why it mattered. I am not a scientific gardener. I can’t rattle off the names of plants other than a few that everyone knows like fern, ivy or weed. I go by color, how runners spread underground, height and fullness and whether they like sun or shade.

I am a symbolic gardener. My garden reflects what’s going on in my life—how I’m coping or not. My own kind of eco-therapy. Over time, tending my garden has become my regenerative space, a living metaphor for emotional resilience, learning to live with ambiguity, gaining moments of clarity and releasing all the messy stuff I cannot change.

I didn’t always relate to nature this way. Growing up, my grandmother and mother had breathtaking annual and perennial gardens. The kind that onlookers slowed down to take in the bursts of vibrant colors and patterns. They weren’t scientific gardeners, either. Their gardening was about beauty.  A lot of hard work and a lot of time spent digging in the dirt making beauty. They shared their gardens with not only onlookers driving by but serving sweet rolls and coffee in the early morning on a cool flag stone porch, cookouts on the back patio surrounded by cascading flowers in pots, garden club tours and bouquets gathered for church altars. Theirs was a form of nature-based healing, even if they never called it that.

When I bought my first home, I assumed that gardening was part of being a responsible adult—like vacuuming or paying bills. Keeping a lawn, planning flowerbeds, choosing annuals, fertilizing, weeding—it was a task-driven relationship with the earth, not yet a therapeutic one.

With time and many years of experimenting, experiencing and evolving, I’ve become comfortable with the dynamic, ever-changing flow of seasons. And, with the fact that some plants don’t make it no matter how much money I spend on fertilizer, soil enrichment, or talking nicely to them. Some plants—like people—just never take root even with all my care. They aren’t bad plants. They needed something I couldn’t provide. I’ve let go of the belief that their failure meant I was failing. Afterall, I couldn’t force them to live no matter how loud I shouted at them to shape up and grow straight! Afterall, look at all I’ve given you!

I learned that even in winter my garden is not dormant. What has died breaks down and feeds what’s underground and the growth that pops through the ground in spring.  New growth couldn’t happen without the rearrangement of life under cover of snow and frost. Everything that dies gives way to the regenerative cycle of nature.

This is my green therapy—not pristine. Not perfect. Just alive and real. It’s a place where I can stand back, breathe in the humid air, smell the damp dirt, swat away the flies and rest in the comfort of lush greens, full fanning ferns—and weeds. Now, it’s time to sit and have a sweet roll and coffee on my own cool flagstone patio. Grateful for this therapeutic space that allows me to let go, pause long enough to take in my surroundings and savor the joy of being present and alive.

*Dr. Grigoriu is a psychologist in New York. After more than 35 years in the mental health field, I’ve learned that experience doesn’t mean having all the answers. Like everyone else, I’m shaped by what life brings—still learning, still growing, and still finding meaning in unexpected places. The garden, like life, continues to teach me, provides a sanctuary and rejuvenates my spirit.