Nature and Mental Health – guest post by Susie White for Mental Health Awareness Week

Posted on May 14, 2024

It’s been a troubling year. The death of a close friend, a marriage break-up in my family, disturbing news of war, so much trashing of the natural world. Resilience is a bit of a buzz word but when I think about how resilient I am, it’s a quality that is tightly woven into how I feel about the natural world. Into its rhythms, mood changes, weather, plants, wildlife and life cycles all combined.

I gain strength from my garden. Every day there is something to notice, some small or large change or some new wildlife event drawn to its many-layered richness. In the last week I’ve watched a pair of lizards basking on a dry mossy stone, seen a male wolf spider do a mating dance for a female and been amazed by the boldness of a mallard sitting on eggs in the herb border.

Making a garden from scratch gives you an intimate link with a piece of ground. From the very first spade in the ground and the first plant going in, it has been entirely created by you. When we came to this abandoned plot in a quiet North Pennine valley there was nothing here to bring in wildlife, no worms in the compacted soil, no nectar plants, or nesting places. We used the materials of the valley, the stone and wood that link to the landscape. Every single plant has been an opportunity and watching the whole mature and soften has been a joy.

For 23 years I had run a walled garden that was open to the public and it gave calm and happiness to many. When the lease came to an end, I lost not only a way of life and a job but also a deeply understood and known place. It was a hard thing to face but it was gardening and nature that pulled me through.

From the start I kept a series of diaries, recording the making, the observations, the plantings and how I felt. When it came to writing Second Nature, I was able to go back to those diaries and have a direct link to those feelings. To have a sense of the freshness and how new it all was.

This is the most personal book that I’ve written. It draws on the childhood experiences and a lifetime of working as a gardener. It’s an evocation of a place within a special landscape and the wildlife that lives there from curlews and buzzards, red squirrels and adders to beetles and hoverflies. It’s practical with composting, mulching and growing being so much a part of the organic whole.

The physical process of gardening, of secateurs and forks, repetition and observation has a calming effect. I can feel bothered by something but an hour in the garden brings a settling of thoughts, a sorting out without actually focusing on the problem. There’s been a sharing too, with friendships developed through gardening together. But most of all it shows that a small patch can make a huge difference both to wildlife and to people.

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Susie White is a gardening and travel writer, broadcaster, wildlife photographer and lecturer. A lifelong and passionate gardener, she developed the garden at Chesters Walled Garden on Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland. Since then she has created a garden from scratch in a hidden valley on previously uncultivated land. Beyond the garden, Susie’s interests include the environment, conservation, wildlife, upland hay meadows, archaeology, heritage skills and the landscape and walks of the North Pennines, Northumberland, and the Lake District.

Second Nature by Susie White is available now.