{"id":151003,"date":"2025-04-13T06:05:58","date_gmt":"2025-04-12T23:05:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/poppy-okotcha-plants-taught-me-about-myself\/"},"modified":"2025-04-13T08:40:22","modified_gmt":"2025-04-13T01:40:22","slug":"poppy-okotcha-plants-taught-me-about-myself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/poppy-okotcha-plants-taught-me-about-myself\/","title":{"rendered":"Poppy Okotcha: \u2018Plants taught me about myself\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nIn her verdant garden in Devon, the model turned gardener talks about decay, family roots and living a wilder lifeIt is not by design that I have come to meet the Devon-based ecological gardener Poppy Okotcha on the spring equinox, when day and night are equally balanced. It feels fitting. In her new book, A Wilder Way: How Gardens Grow Us, Okotcha describes how it is now that she rids her garden of last year\u2019s old branches to make way for new growth. \u201cClearing the lot is a springtime ritual,\u201d she writes, \u201cit feels like shaking off a heavy winter coat.\u201d Okotcha sees the garden as \u201ca kind of guru\u201d, and one of its lessons has been the importance of things breaking down. \u201cA really valuable takeaway from engaging with living landscapes is the idea that decay \u2013 or an ending \u2013 is required for newness,\u201d she tells me. \u201cI like to think of endings as beginnings.\u201d While the idea of a horticultural life cycle isn\u2019t new, Okotcha\u2019s equal appreciation for every stage of it, and the parallels she draws between gardens and the human condition, feels fresh.Born to a Nigerian father and white British mother, Okotcha was brought up between the English countryside and South Africa, where her family relocated for six years when she was five. She describes the many gardens she grew up with, from her grandmother\u2019s \u201cmagic-filled plot\u201d in Wiltshire to the \u201csweet fruits and sunshine\u201d of various gardens in Johannesburg, and several more, rather wilder spaces tended by her mum after her parents\u2019 divorce and return to the UK. In South Africa, Okotcha and her siblings attended a Steiner school where she \u201clearned about compost and played in the dust\u201d, a far cry from the mainstream education she returned to in Britain. Through it all, the gardens, albeit changing, were a constant. And realising how the effort of transforming a garden healed her mother after divorce was, says Okotcha, a defining moment, \u201cSeeing her love for the flowers and how they loved her in return.\u201d Continue reading…
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\nSource : theguardian.com
\nRead more…Poppy Okotcha: \u2018Plants taught me about myself\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In her verdant garden in Devon, the model turned gardener talks about decay, family roots...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-151003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-property-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p75ss1-Dhx","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":58216,"url":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/me-and-my-garden-the-towering-silver-fir-was-planted-in-the-19th-century\/","url_meta":{"origin":151003,"position":0},"title":"Me and my garden: \u2018The towering silver fir was planted in the 19th century\u2019","date":"June 17, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\r Jane Hasell-McCosh, gardener at Dalemain country house, on gardening with children and her family\u2019s link to Captain Cook Walking among the poppies in midsummer is simply magical: they start out life as dark purple and turn into the most beautiful blue. Swathes of them open at around the same\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Property News"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":124774,"url":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/flower-power-why-blooms-are-an-essential-part-of-any-garden\/","url_meta":{"origin":151003,"position":1},"title":"Flower power: why blooms are an essential part of any garden","date":"March 1, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"\r A homegrown bouquet is great for pollinators, a pleasure for people and a green alternative to buying from the cut-flower industry \u2013 so don\u2019t forget to include them on your plotLast autumn, I visited Sissinghurst Castle Garden. November is not traditionally the best time for a pilgrimage to a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Property News"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":58890,"url":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/me-and-my-garden-at-5am-i-go-to-the-temple-to-chant-its-how-i-get-ready-to-work\/","url_meta":{"origin":151003,"position":2},"title":"Me and my garden: \u2018At 5am, I go to the temple to chant. It\u2019s how I get ready to work\u2019","date":"June 24, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\r Bhakti Vinode, head gardener at Krishna Eco Farm in Lesmahagow, Lanarkshire, on past lives and plants with soulsI started gardening when I was 10, so\u00a0it\u00a0feels entirely natural to me. We\u00a0believe in reincarnation here at the Krishna Eco Farm, and I feel that I\u00a0was\u00a0a gardener in a\u00a0previous life.I have been\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Property News"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":126770,"url":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/now-is-the-perfect-time-for-some-california-poppy-dreamin-alys-fowler\/","url_meta":{"origin":151003,"position":3},"title":"Now is the perfect time for some California poppy dreamin\u2019 | Alys Fowler","date":"May 20, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"\r They are easy to grow, flower all summer and have plenty of multi-hued cultivars. You can even make yourself a nice cuppa with themThe California poppy, Eschscholzia californica, is one of those easy, breezy things that no garden should be without. It has the laid-back, sunny attitude you might\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Property News"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":140555,"url":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/how-my-garden-taught-me-to-love-winter-poppy-okotcha\/","url_meta":{"origin":151003,"position":4},"title":"\u2018How my garden taught me to love winter\u2019: Poppy Okotcha","date":"December 3, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"\r If you thought this was the gloomiest time of year to be outside, think againThe darker half of the year is a time that historically filled me with heavy dread. I loathed and even feared the ending of vibrant life and the boring melancholy that winter seemed to tow\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Property News"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":114135,"url":"https:\/\/www.siamlandbank.com\/propertynews\/property-news\/cutting-it-fine-why-winter-stems-should-be-left-until-the-last-minute\/","url_meta":{"origin":151003,"position":5},"title":"Cutting it fine: why winter stems should be left until the last minute","date":"February 8, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"\r Chicago\u2019s magnificent Lurie Garden is a great advert for delaying your big chopAn admission: for a gardener professing to love the wilder, naturalistic look, I have difficulty restraining my inner neat-freak. 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