How Gardening Teaches us to Learn (and Grow)

Over the last few years my garden at home has been severely neglected. In fact the only thing I have been successful at is growing nettles and bindweed. 

But now I have a bit more time to devote to its rescue. Recently I've realised that gardening is a bit like making clothes. You plant a seed (an idea, a project, a pattern) and tend it carefully until it grows into something beautiful that you can be proud of and treasure. While I have been working in the garden lately I’ve been thinking — gardening isn’t just a nice metaphor for sewing. It’s a wonderful metaphor for life and learning, too. 

And if we take a few lessons from the garden into the way we learn, especially when we’re mastering new skills like sewing, pattern cutting, or fitting garments, we might just find the whole process a little kinder on ourselves — and a lot more fruitful.

You Can't Rush a Garden (or Learning)

I am a D in the DISC profiling system, which basically means I want it done yesterday!  But working to rebuild my garden I am having to physically and mentally slow myself down and remember that patience really is a virtue. 

No matter how impatient you are, you can’t bully a seed into sprouting faster. You can’t shout at the tomatoes to ripen overnight. And you definitely can't expect a new greenhouse to materialise overnight.

Learning is the same. You start with small steps: learning how to finish a seam properly, understanding grainlines, making a simple pattern adjustment. It takes time, patience, and a lot of gentle encouragement. And sometimes, growth/learning is happening underground/ subconsciously, where you can't see it yet.  You just trust that by doing you will make it happen.

Conditions Matter

Whether you are a small shoot of lettuce or someone wanting to develop their pattern cutting, you need the right conditions to grow or learn. Lettuces need the right soil, water, and sunlight to thrive. Potential pattern cutters need a space where mistakes are welcome, questions are encouraged - there is no such thing as a stupid question and there's no pressure to be perfect or get it right first time.

That's exactly the kind of learning environment I firmly believe in and actively foster. No shame, no rushing — just lots of nurturing support, solid knowledge and experience, a dash of creative thinking, and plenty of tea and coffee can help things along too.

If you’re struggling with a skill, it might not be you that’s wrong — it might just mean you need a different approach, a new explanation, or a bit more nurturing. As we all learn in different ways.

Pruning Helps You Grow

In the garden, you have to prune: snip away what isn’t thriving so that the healthy growth has space to flourish. It can feel a bit brutal, but it’s necessary. I have completely stripped away the vegetable garden as I had no idea what was actually in there under all the nettles and weeds. Now I have a blank canvas, I can begin to see what is beginning to spout back.

Learning is no different. Sometimes we have to unpick a seam, go back a few steps, or even rethink a whole project. That's not failure — that's making space for something stronger to grow.

When you take the pressure off yourself to get everything right the first time, you open the door to real, resilient and deep learning. Mistakes aren’t weeds to be ashamed of — they’re part of the natural cycle of growth. And actually to be encouraged. 

Every Season Has Its Work

If there is one thing the last year or so has taught me it’s that there’s a time for planting, a time for caring, a time for harvesting — and yes, sometimes a time for resting or lying fallow.

Sometimes we need that fallow time to rest and recuperate. Cogitating over ideas and concepts we are yet to try. If you're in a season where you’re just soaking up information, or practising the basics over and over without spectacular results yet, that's still valuable work. Learning isn’t always linear. Some seasons are about invisible roots, setting strong foundations. If you upend a seedling from its pot, you will nearly always see more growth in the roots than in the shoots.

So rest is important too. You don’t need to be "producing" all the time to be learning. Reflection, daydreaming, gentle experimenting — all of that counts towards forward momentum expanding your knowledge base.

Joy is in the Tending

The best gardeners don’t just love the final flourish of flowers — they love the whole process: the seed selection, the early shoots, the watering, the weeding, even the muddy knees. Just look at Adam Frost from Gardener’s World.

The same is true for sewing and learning. If we can find joy not just in the finished dress or garments we make, or even just the process of sewing. But in the decisions on what to make, cutting out the pattern, making up the toile, fitting, adjusting and tweaking as well as the sewing — we’ll keep coming back to it, season after season, learning and developing our critical thinking as well as our sewing skills.

This is what I truly believe learning should feel like: nourishing, joyful, and rooted in love for the craft (muddy knees optional). Which is what I believe I create in the workshops I run. 

So, next time you feel stuck or frustrated in your sewing journey, remember: you're just a garden in progress.

Plant the seeds.    Trust the process.    Tend it with care.

And in time, you'll have a whole glorious bloom of sewing skills to call your own.

🌱Jules x