The art of doing nothing (and why your garden should learn it too)

Sometimes I think my garden has more ambition than I do. While I sit in a plastic chair with a book, trying to pretend I’m doing nothing, the weeds are multiplying, the grapevines are making a run for the neighbours, and the lemon tree clearly has no grasp of the word “pruning.”

And yet — or perhaps because of it — this chaos is my favourite place. If there’s one thing I relearn every July, it’s this: doing nothing is an art, and nowhere more so than in the garden.

Give the garden a break, too

We ask a lot of our outdoor spaces: neat, stylish, low-maintenance and Instagram-worthy. So we plan borders, hoe the paths, scrub the tiles and string up fairy lights with a vaguely Calvinist sense of guilt.

But honestly? July was never meant for that. In Andalusia, it’s the month of tranquilo. And who’s to say that doesn’t apply to your garden too? Why force your plants to perform when you’re barely operating at half power yourself?

Plants that can fend for themselves are the best kind

There’s a quiet wisdom in lavender that reorganises itself, in rosemary that refuses to die, and in a cactus that pays you no attention yet grows anyway. You don’t need to be a garden designer to create atmosphere.

Shady spots beneath trees, winding paths with no clear logic, a chair that seems to have always been there — that’s the essence of the art of doing nothing in the garden. It starts with trust. In the process. In the dryness. In the simple fact that some things become beautiful all by themselves.

Sweat not required for atmosphere

A good terrace doesn’t require hard work, just strategic thinking: place chairs where the breeze comes through, throw an old rug under the table (softens everything), and stick to planters you can safely ignore for a week.

If your garden demands constant attention, the problem might not be the climate — but your expectations. Look at the locals: no one’s sprinting around with a leaf blower in August. They sit. They stay quiet. They breathe.

Doing nothing is also a choice

Maybe that’s why I feel increasingly in sync with my garden during summer. We both do less. We slow down. We’re not finished, not perfect, not Pinterest-worthy. But we’re alive.

Anyone who’s read my ramblings before knows I’ve often reflected on what a garden doesn’t need to be — from ideas for the modern villa to saying goodbye to tiles and fake grass. Even my balcony vegetable patch was approached with far too much ambition once. But the lesson sticks: doing less is usually better. Outdoors included. And isn’t that, in the end, the whole point of being outside?