I moved house in April. My new home is a ‘new build’ and I’ve enjoyed the fact that no-one has lived here before me and I can create everything to my own taste and style. Inevitably, my first few months have be focused on the interior of the house, getting everything unpacked, disposing of items I no longer need and organising functional storage.

Last weekend, as I was cutting the grass – which is almost the only gardening I’ve been doing – it occurred to me that although I’d decided that the garden was a job for 2022, I have an opportunity right now to plant Spring bulbs and to enjoy a display of crocuses, daffodils and hyacinths in the early part of the year.

The front of the house has a small garden, mainly planted with evergreen shrubs by the builder. For some inexplicable reason, there is a very small patch of lawn (currently looking dry, sparse and slightly forlorn) on one side of the frontage. When I say small, I mean it’s less than a square metre. Possibly half that.

Musing on Spring bulbs, I realised that this would actually be the perfect place for a display of crocuses. Maybe with a border of hyacinths…

Plant now and I’ll have some lovely Spring colour in five or six months’ time. If I make the effort.

Which got me thinking about delayed gratification:

“Delaying gratification is a process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure of life by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with. It is the only decent way to live.”

M.Scott Peck
(Author of ‘The Road Less Travelled’)

Delayed gratification isn’t fashionable. We live in a world that encourages us to embrace the motto of ‘I want it all and I want it now’. Patient dedication to a long term outcome is under-valued by those who have never experienced it. And by some that have.

Okay, so maybe this isn’t a great example. Planting a few bulbs is hardly painful. I’m sure many keen gardeners will regard that as pleasurable. I do too. The challenge is allocating time to choose and buy the bulbs and then a time to plant them, when my schedule is already looking quite full.  It would be easy to put it off and put it off and miss the opportunity.

I know myself well enough to know that now I’ve had the thought, I’ll find some time. I’ll probably order the bulbs from an online supplier, taking the time to choose what I want during an evening when I’m finished with work for the day. Once the bulbs are delivered, I’ll be keen to make sure they don’t go to waste, so an hour that might have otherwise been spent relaxing will become a gardening hour.

For me, as long as I get started on something, I know I’m likely to complete it. I also know that if I didn’t act on that particular bright idea, I’d regret it every day in the Spring that I walked past that forlorn patch of grass.

How do I know this? Long experience!

I have had my times in the past when I’ve sold myself on the idea that I was too busy to do something and then regretted it later. There have been times when the immediate demands of the day or week have drawn my attention away from the long term view.

Often, when something isn’t working out the way I’d like, I can look back and see the actions I could have taken. Action which, had I taken them, might have altered the current situation significantly.

So, if you’ve made it this far through my ramblings about my garden, here’s something to muse on:

What can you do now, to ensure that 2022 turns out the way you want it?