It's been a journey

Bonus FREE post for this week

A few years ago, I genuinely thought I was going to “do gardening content properly” on Instagram. This was optimistic of me, in the same way that people think they’re going to casually “do yoga at home” and end up mostly lying next to a mat eating snacks.

Gardening, I told myself, is perfect for Instagram. It’s visual. It’s seasonal. It’s full of dramatic transformations like “stick becomes tomato plant” and “mud becomes slightly different mud.” What I didn’t factor in was that Instagram doesn’t actually reward gardening. It rewards gardening while also performing as a one-person garden-themed comedy show for the algorithm.

At first, I leaned in. I made posts. I took photos. I filmed things. I developed strong opinions about lighting that I had never previously needed as a gardener. I began casually thinking sentences like: “This would be better content in the morning.”

This is always a slightly alarming thing to realise about yourself.

The problem wasn’t Instagram itself. The problem was me, standing in the garden, trying to be both:

1. a gardener

2. and a low-budget nature documentary director

What slowly started happening was that every gardening task acquired a second layer of meaning. I wouldn’t just be planting seedlings. I would plant a plant, step back, and then immediately realise it might actually be a really good video topic… so I would go back, dig it up again, and replant it slightly more theatrically for the sake of “content,” like I was directing a botanical remake of my own life.

The phone became part of the gardening tools in a way I didn’t consent to. Fork, spade, secateurs, existential dread, phone. And Instagram isn’t subtle about what it wants from you. It wants constant feeding. Preferably in short, visually satisfying bursts. If you don’t capture the moment, the moment didn’t happen. Or worse: it happened but is now wasted. This means you start experiencing your own life like you’re missing deadlines for it.

Somewhere in all of this, I noticed something quite strange: I’d become slightly worse at enjoying my own garden because I was too busy trying to document evidence that I was enjoying it. It turns out, this is a very modern form of self-sabotage.

Then I drifted toward Substack. Not in a dramatic “I’ve seen the light” way. More in a “I’m tired and would like fewer things to film” way. And unexpectedly, things improved.

Substack, at its core, has a completely different energy. It doesn’t require me to become a cheerful talking head in a sunhat explaining slug damage like I’m hosting a children’s TV show. It mostly just wants words. And I am, inconveniently for Instagram, significantly better at words than at being visually entertaining while holding a watering can.

The biggest change was surprisingly simple: I stopped having to perform my gardening in real time. Now I garden like a normal person again. I can spend a whole day outside without once thinking, “Hang on, is this postable?” I can weed, plant, observe, and occasionally just stand there staring at something because I forgot what I was doing - like a proper gardener.

Later, I can write about it.

On rainy days, I can sit inside and turn all my mildly chaotic garden thoughts into essays instead of trying to turn them into vertical video content with upbeat background music and captions that suggest I’m having a slightly more organised life than I actually am.

And I actually enjoy it.

I’m also not naturally someone who thrives in front of a camera. I always have this internal fantasy that I sound rather composed and elegant when I speak - somewhere between the Queen of England and a gently persuasive radio narrator. In reality, when I watch myself back, I sound much closer to… well… not that. Definitely not that. And certainly not the Queen.

Some people can do this sort of thing effortlessly. They’re natural on camera - funny, expressive, comfortable being seen and heard in motion. I admire them deeply from a safe distance. I, on the other hand, look and sound like I am being slowly audited by my own phone.

Substack fits me better because it lets me separate two things that probably should never have been merged in the first place: gardening, and performing gardening. One is peaceful. The other is me wondering if I’ve accidentally become a lifestyle influencer against my will.

I’m still present on Instagram, but I’ve simplified it a lot. I’ve noticed something slightly absurd: the posts that take the most effort - the carefully filmed, well-lit, properly edited ones - tend to get the least engagement. Meanwhile, the slightly inane garden humour I throw together in about 30 seconds will occasionally drift off and go semi-viral, like the algorithm has decided it prefers chaos over craftsmanship.

So I’ve stopped trying to win that game.

My Instagram is still there, but it’s now a much lighter footprint. Less effort, fewer expectations, more occasional garden nonsense when I feel like it. The real energy goes into the garden itself and into Substack, where I can actually think properly and write things down without wondering if I should be filming my soil.

And maybe that’s the point I’ve arrived at.

Instagram turns gardening into something slightly urgent, slightly performative, and oddly fragile - like it only counts if it’s captured correctly. Substack lets it be slower. Private first. Reflected on later. Imperfect, unrecorded, and still real.

So yes, I still share my gardening online. But I’ve stopped trying to film my way through it like I’m auditioning for “Gardener: The Reality Series Nobody Asked For.” My plants seem quite relieved about that too.

If you enjoyed reading this, you might like the paid subscription, where there is considerably more gardening, considerably more plant knowledge, and only slightly more self-control. Paid readers receive extra posts each week, practical tips, design inspiration, seasonal advice, and plenty of garden photography. Essentially, it’s a place where I share everything I’ve learned, everything I’m currently experimenting with, and the occasional lesson learned the hard way after confidently doing something that, in hindsight, was clearly a terrible idea.