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How gardening helped me become a better leader

My mum is both a keen and excellent gardener. Even at nearly 80, she can be found most days throughout all four seasons pruning, planting or weeding in some part of it. Those are three of the few gardening terms that I know, as I take more after my dad when it comes to horticulture. I like to look at it but I don't really know how to do it. I am lucky to live in a property with no garden, and have done so for the last twenty years, so apart from at school my efforts have been restricted to things that can be grown indoors.

Even though I have only been operating within the field of indoor gardening, my results have been mixed, to say the least. Any gifts from children, which once included a wonderful chilli plant, are killed within a matter of weeks, and family members know better than to give me anything that is alive to look after. I have even managed to kill 'air plants', which are supposed to need no care whatsoever!

Whatever I tried, nothing worked. I over-watered, over-heated, under-watered and under-heated. My lack of success despite my desperation to get things to grow meant that was beginning to think that I had been cursed, that perhaps I was destined to be (gardening joke on it's way) ... 'Uncapability Brown', or perhaps 'Monty Don't', for the rest of my life.

I stuck with it though, and I recently discovered the cure for what I thought was a terminal condition. The answer to my prayers came straight from the seventies, which is where all the best things come from, so I am now the proud owner of a thriving terrarium. 

I am going to ignore the fact that when I purchased my terrarium from the local garden centre with vouchers I had received when I left my job I was asked if they were a retirement gift (I am in my early fifties) and focus on the positives. I am now able to use a glass dome, sphagnum moss, sand, compost and a spray bottle to create an ecosystem where my little plants are now not so little. I have enjoyed it so much I might even buy a second one! There is a very clear method for growing things in a terrarium, and by focusing on providing the optimum conditions for my plants, rather than panicking when they were not growing fast enough, I was able to become, for the first time in my life, a successful gardener!

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