08/05/2026
People love plants 🪴🌻🌵🌳🌺 We can't help ourselves. Despite what modern life looks like for the vast majority of people in the western world, we are all just really smart animals (with opposable thumbs) and we still need nature the same way animals in the wild do. Maybe even more so, because we've gotten so disconnected from the environment we evolved in.
And maybe that's why the horticultural industry is the big business it is. I see specialised houseplants going for silly money online 😱 People get obsessed with their gardens and allotments. And I adore nothing more than seeing our humble little poly tunnel so full of green, with food plants promising nutritious harvests in a few short months and flowering plants getting ready for a summer display of colour and texture to delight people and pollinators alike. And knowing that nearly every single one of those plants was sown from seed, carefully potted on, and watered, all by hand, by us, right here... No machines. Just us, and the sound of the birds (and now of flowing water...)
This year we are experimenting with an aquaponics set up for growing pond plants 🐟🪸🫧 Not least of all because the goldfish I got last autumn for my outdoor pond needed somewhere to go after overwintering in little tanks in the house (because I didn't realise our pond wasn't deep enough for them... 😑 *sigh*). They are doing well in the big tank so far, along with some ramshorn snails and small clumps of willow moss (fontinalis antipyretica) that just went mad in the house tanks, but we still need to clad the tanks to manage water temperature fluctuations - though they haven't been as severe as I expected so far 🤞
However they have gone green. Like SUPER GREEN 🤢 So now we're working on clearing the water as naturally as possible with barley straw bales and a couple of well-rated products we're testing out. It's funny because our outside pond isn't green at all though it's also made from a half-IBC, so I'm thinking it's partly down to new-tank syndrome as well, though the parameters are spot on 👌 All fascinating stuff, I am most definitely slightly obsessed (but it does keep creating interesting side-quest projects for Paul to engineer, like temperature monitors that work with Home Assistant!)
For me personally, the best part is seeing my goldfish happy with loads of room to swim now after being cooped up in tiny tanks in the house all winter. AND that I have now been able to redesign 2 of the small tanks, one with just snails at the moment and the other with some gorgeous little white cloud and golden mountain minnows that I got last week. I absolutely adore them, they're so freaking cute!
So all this rambling to say that people need nature. We just do; and more and more data is coming out to prove that our biology requires it for true health in every sense - physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. We need sunlight, and fresh air and green things and to interact with other living beings as much as we need oxygen and water and movement.
So what do you do in your life to fill this requirement? Do you grow an indoor jungle? Or supplement your family's meals with tasty homegrown food? Or have you got a garden full of wild rambling beauties? Or are you like me and obsessed with underwater worlds? Tell us about your "thing" and share a photo if you like - we'd love to know what our community is up to 😊
Namaste folks, and have a great weekend 🙏💚
Opening hours:
10am - 4pm
Thursday - Sunday
Ystwyth Garden Nursery
Ysbyty Ystwyth
SY25 6DB
www.YstwythGCN.com
Phone / WhatsApp: 07545161843
