How Pruning Flowers Became a Lesson in Mental Health
So, many of you might already know how much I love gardening. I simply adore playing in the dirt, discovering how to care for new species, and am a tree mom to my small red maple, Leanie. I have always loved flora. And when it came to world-building for the ’Cosm Series (Life in the ’Cosm and its prequel, The Stealth Lovers), I loved having sentient daisies who assumed they should take care of people—not the other way around. I mean, not gonna lie: with the way my brain brains, I would love a floral personal assistant.
When I was new to gardening, in my 20s, I didn’t understand the importance of dead-heading (removing dead flowers on plants) and pruning. I’m embarrassed to admit I’m only really understanding it now. The notion took root (see what I did there) when someone explained it so clearly to me. If you keep something dead on a plant, a lot of energy will go into it, halting the plant from forming new sprouts and buds, preventing it from growing to its full potential. This was why my gardens in the past weren’t as lush or full of blooms as they are now. Oh, I had been diligent about fertilizing, but not deadheading or pruning.
A lot of nutrients were feeding dead things. But prune the dead thing, and watch new wonderful things happen.
Thus, I transferred the lesson to my own life. I had been giving a lot of energy to situations that were not meant to remain in my journey. One example is Twitter. And when you give and give and try to make something grow that just can’t grow anymore, you yourself feel like you’re withering. So, I cut out that thing, even though pruning hurts, and waited. In no time, I had diverted all that energy back into writing books. My new sprouts were forming! There were buds too!
This can also happen with careers, relationships, even family. Sometimes we have to realize that the only way we can thrive is to stop feeding what has ceased to be viable. These decisions are never easy, but if we can do them safely, then we might find we’ll start to grow—and thrive—again. Of course, I am no supreme expert and this article is just my opinion based on my lived experience, so please, always do things at your own pace, on your own time, and taking any impacts into consideration. Nobody knows you and your life like you do.
Saying goodbye can be tough. I find it is easier though, when I assess whether the situation can be saved. Giving myself permission to accept when something is futile is vital to my brain. I’m a problem solver by nature, and I want to come up with solutions.
Sometimes, in the end, the answer is to prune, heal, then wait for the new sprouts. Again, in my experience, the new growth always comes.
We only have this one life, at least that’s what I believe anyway, and I really want to keep growing, each and every day until winter has finally come for me. While it’s still gardening season, I owe it to myself and my mental health to get rid of what keeps me from blooming. May the shiny new leaves and vibrant petals begin!
Cait Gordon is an autistic, disabled, and queer Canadian writer of speculative fiction that celebrates diversity. She is the author of Life in the ’Cosm, The Stealth Lovers, and the forthcoming Iris and the Crew Tear Through Space (2023). Cait also founded the Spoonie Authors Network and joined Talia C. Johnson to co-edit the award-nominated, multi-genre, disability fiction anthologies Nothing Without Us and Nothing Without Us Too.
Header photo is a photo of a scarlet coneflower that has many buds and is just coming into bloom.
