Interview: Andrew Timothy O'Brien
...on his book, To Stand and Stare
During the winter season when so much of my zone 5 garden is frozen solid for weeks on end, the practice of walking around the garden and daydreaming keeps me going. I check for any newly emerged snowdrops and make a mental note to check on them again on the first warmer day. I think about the height of my hedges, the state of my pea gravel paths (if I can see them beneath the snow), and I might plan any annual displays for late summer. I try to appreciate where the garden is right now, and also think about what it will be in a few months' time when the white Trillium are up once more and the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are zipping around sipping from the Virginia Bluebells.
Today's author is someone who helps me to fully appreciate this quiet winter time and also reminds me of the wonder of plants. Andrew Timothy O'Brien is a gardener, gardening coach, blogger and host of the wonderful Gardens, Weeds & Words podcast. His latest book, To Stand and Stare: How to garden while doing next to nothing, which is published by DK Books, is a glorious read sprinkled with poetic prose and a generous sensitivity to the natural world.
I am thrilled that Andrew has agreed to answer some questions for us and to share more of his wisdom here today.
"The emotional dissonance so many of us experience when it comes to our garden - that it won't behave as it should, that we just don't have enough time to tend it, that we don't even know where to start - has at its root a mistaken belief that we are somehow apart from, even above, nature herself. If we can restore this relationship then all our busyness in the garden begins to look less like work and more like time spent with a good, if slightly mercurial friend, with positive benefits of health and wellbeing for both parties."
To Stand and Stare, pg 14
"Think of watering as an opportunity to spend time in the company of your plants; to check in, and see how they're holding themselves, and what they think of the weather. A drink with friends is always time well spent."
To Stand and Stare, pg 169
Julie: Befriending the garden is something that you talk a lot about in your book, To Stand and Stare: How to garden while doing next to nothing. How did you come to this perspective? Which plants were first to make that offer of friendship known to you?
Andrew: I think it came about in two stages. Firstly, a growing realisation that I felt comfortable – refreshed, even – in the company of plants, just as should be the case with good friends. That the more time I spend in conversation with them (yes, really; not necessarily verbal, but that, too!), the more we seemed to form an understanding. All of this just seemed to make sense. And then, when it came to developing my coaching practice, it was clear to me that so many people have an immense feeling of stress and overwhelm about their gardens, almost as if they find themselves at enmity with the plants, and that I could do something to help them overcome these anxieties by brokering, not just a friendly truce, but a real sense of companionship. As to the plants themselves, it’s probably going to be the weeds – the creeping buttercup, the wood avens, the bindweed – which, as a jobbing gardener, I initially spent so much time pulling out of the ground, but which I came to understand had more right to be there than anything else.
"Stepping outside is the first ground to be claimed in that battle we have with our inner resistance to gardening during the winter months." pg 27
Julie: So true! Sometimes putting on my coat and boots can be the hardest part. Once I am out there, I tend to get lost in taking snowy photos or looking at the bones of the garden. What have you gained so far this winter by stepping outside your door into the garden? Why is it worth the battle?
Andrew: Always perspective, clarity, peace, energy – the winter garden is almost bursting to weigh us down with these kind of gifts if only we’ll make the effort to get out of the back door and establish some kind of presence there. It doesn’t even have to be a particularly hard working one – just a few minutes a day, with a cup of tea, to stroll along a muddy path and take notice of what’s going on, what’s changed, who’s living there, and let these little daily meditations inform your gardening and give a little impetus to your day – particularly welcome in the dark half of the year.
"Almost all that is required of us gardeners is that we pay attention." pg 28
Julie: This is something that I have been mulling over in my own gardening for many years. Especially when gardeners grow in challenging climates, it seems that paying attention and gathering experience to share with others in your area is the best teacher. You give some wonderful examples in your book of paying attention. What are your favorite ways of paying attention to your garden? What might your garden say to you?
Andrew: I think I mention tea a lot. Probably cake, too, and I know there’s a whole section on sandwiches at one point. There’s something meditative about a hot drink outdoors – especially, though not exclusively, during the cooler months – it’s partly the steam curling up into the air, it’s partly the scent and the feeling of warmth in your hands. You’ll spill it if you dash about, so walking through the garden with a cup of tea or coffee is already slowing you down and, at a slower pace than you might normally assume, you can’t help but look around and notice things in your surroundings. Getting ourselves to slow down is the first step to paying attention, and while striding about purposefully might feel efficient, efficiency is almost the opposite of what we want here. Five or ten minutes of inefficiently pootling about every day, noticing things, can’t help but turn you and me into better gardeners.
"What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?" W.H. Davies, "Leisure" pg 228
Julie: I love how you often include a snippet of Shakespeare or other poetry in your garden writing, and your book title was taken from a bit of poetry by W.H. Davies. Are there poets or other authors that you enjoy reading regularly?
Andrew: Oh my goodness, so many. Dickens is always in my head – I love the stories, the rhythms, the humour and the long, long sentences – and snippets of Tennyson that my mother would recite. The two Johns, Keats and Clare, are so instructive for the different way they often approach very similar aspects of nature. Mary Oliver is always right on the nose when it comes to our relationship to the natural world, as was Walt Whitman. Thoreau and Emerson, of course, but to bring it up to date, you’d be hard pushed to beat the beauty and eloquence of Robin Wall Kimmerer. You might not expect this but I’m a big fan of crime novels and police procedurals, and quite a few writers in that genre (P.D. James and Ruth Rendell, to name two) seemed know their gardens and plants, which really helps to ground a story.
"At the top of the year... we turn to the garden for what it offers our weary souls in terms of clarity, escape and realignment." pg 86
Julie: In January, what are your favorite ways to come back and realign yourself with your garden?
Andrew: I have rarely gotten around to cutting off the old hellebore leaves before the new year sets in, and it’s always such a wonderful way to begin the season by setting down my board on the soft ground and clipping the mature foliage away to reveal the flowers and emerging leaves. It’s a job that has to be taken slowly and mindfully, because it’s all too easy to snip through a flower stem if you’re not paying attention. So, this task, certainly, and I’ll invariably still have some tulip bulbs to get in the ground.
Julie: You coined the term "winterspring" for the chaotic weather that carries us from our coldest days into clear spring weather. For us in northwestern Pennsylvania that usually happens in March or April. When the little Iris reticulata bloom and then they have a few inches of snow as a blanket, winterspring is here. When does "winterspring" usually begin in your garden in Kent? What is your favorite bit of winterspring?
Andrew: It’s probably a month earlier here, where winters are fairly mild and by April we’re past the vernal equinox and into the new season. So that liminal time of winterspring on the threshold between two seasons, often marked by quite a tussle in the weather with cold winds being quite common, kicks in here in the south eastern corner of the UK as February draws to a close and the days grow noticeably longer. And it’s that light, and that combination in the beds of the last of the hellebores with the early tulips and the blood red tips of the paeonies pushing through, that really make my heart begin to sing for the new gardening year.
"The first step... is germination. It is water, in the presence of oxygen that begins this process: water that seeps through the seed coat or enters via the tiny micropyle aperture in the casing; water that swells the seed's cells and causes its cover to split; water that awakens the metabolism from slumber, hydrating the enzymes required to begin releasing energy from the reserves of stored food and sends the nascent root, or radicle, on a pioneering journey through the aforementioned micropyle, beyond the protective seed coat, and out into the surrounding soil…
Here we are, still standing on the grassy path in spring and feeling all around the garden filling out and filling in... Something about growth never fails to engender in us delight."
To Stand and Stare, pg 134-135
Julie: Andrew, your book seems to capture the “poetic knowledge” of botany - not just the terms and biochemical reactions, but also the emotional connections we have to these natural processes. The more I learn about botany, the more it increases my own poetic knowledge about plants as a whole and helps me to sense what I cannot see. Where did you start - with the science of botany or with the poetry of growing things? Which do you think we should give first to new gardeners?
Andrew: Actually, the science-y chapters of the book were the hardest to write, because in first draft it was easy for them to sound like a text book, and I told myself that I wasn’t done with a section until it felt like it was singing to me off the page. I’m so glad that people respond to the way I see the garden, but I’m completely aware that it’s not for everyone. I was just brought up with poetry and words, and so that informs the way I think and relate to the world around me. It’s not the same for everyone – though I think that story is pretty much universal, it’s just that the stories and the voices we carry with us by which we understand the world around vary from person to person. It might be that a love of math or music is what stirs your emotions and inspires you to look deeper – and that can also be a way in to an appreciation of the botanical. Some might call it data, or context, or even poetry, but there are definitely stories to be told in nature, and I think if we’re willing, we can all find our own way to connect.
Julie: Can you share anything about your newest book project?
Andrew: Ah, it all has to be so frustratingly secret squirrel! But I can say it has something to do with stories, and climate, and resilience, and the way that we might make gardening a little easier – and by that token, more enjoyable – for ourselves as we move further into these uncertain times. And it all centres on a particular category of plant. More than that, I can’t say just now, but I’m so excited to be working on it!
Thank you so much, Andrew!
I know that many readers here will want to take a look at your book, To Stand and Stare: How to garden while doing next to nothing by DK Books.
You can read more from Andrew Timothy O'Brien on his own Substack @Bramble&Briar
Andrew Timothy O’Brien (he/him)
online garden coaching: www.andrewobrien.com
email: info@andrewobrien.com
twitter/instagram: @AndrewTimothyOB
blog: www.gardensweedsandwords.com
podcast: itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/gardens-weeds-and-words/id1418870058
Represented by Rachel Mills at Rachel Mills Literary rachel@rmliterary.co.uk
Praise for To Stand & Stare…
“Fresh and gently radical... a manifesto for a new way of looking at your garden, perfect for this moment in time, and very appealing indeed.”
Gardens Illustrated
Praise for the Gardens, Weeds & Words podcast...
“A lyrical celebration of the joy of gardening, this podcast delivers something thoughtful and unexpected every time.”
Sunday Times
“A beautiful podcast about our relationship with nature, Gardens weeds & words is a perfect accompaniment while you’re weeding.”
Telegraph
*Amazon Affiliate links are included in this newsletter. I make a few cents per recommendation, each of which I hope will be helpful to you!
What a lovely interview. Now I'm inspired to take a cup of tea out to my garden on these chilly (even in northern CA) winter mornings. Thanks so much for putting this book on my radar ... it looks just wonderful.