The city gardener: Finding healthy solace among the greenery

Courtesy of Shumaila Ahmed

My friend Faiza told me that she had been suffering from a host of health complaints, which came on suddenly a couple of years ago.

We had lost touch for a while, but I was shocked at how similar her issues of joint pain, fatigue and candida, among others, were to what I had been battling myself for some time. Like Faiza [pictured above], I too had chalked them up to a stress-ridden life, and figured that modern medicine does not always have all the ­answers.

Talking to Faiza, it came as no surprise that, faced with her recent maladies, she found refuge in her garden.

I’ve always known her to be an enthusiastic gardener, keen to plant new things and experiment with innovative techniques. I still remember the day we lugged our first sacks of smelly cow-manure fertiliser in Faiza’s car from Warsan.

A big part of her passion for gardening stems from her desire to grow food right outside her kitchen, another space where she lets loose her imagination, creativity and love for life and family.

“My approach to gardening,” says Faiza, “has become much more holistic. I now consciously focus on making my garden a place where all my senses are affected and inspired – an environment that facilitates mental and physical healing.

“Whether it’s the smell of the coriander, the sight of beautiful bunches of tomatoes and pomegranates, the feel of the papaya trunk, the colour of the coleus, the blooms on the Rangoon creeper or the sounds of the birds in the morning, I find them all a source of healing and peace.”

Faiza’s garden in her villa in the Meadows has never been an overly fancy space. There are two beloved date trees that she and her husband Ahmed hand-pollinate every year; a charming gazebo that Faiza crams with potted Persian roses; and dotted around the garden, various flowering creepers and seasonal flowers, as well as the tomatoes, spring onions, herbs and other vegetables that take up one side of the garden during the growing season.

Recent garden surprises include a mulberry bush that has finally started producing sweet little berries and the first pomegranate from a young anar tree.

But a few months back, when the couple decided to construct an extension to their villa, the garden ended up crammed with living-room furniture, construction workers and their ­paraphernalia.

“I was downright depressed,” says Faiza. “But then my husband had four planter boxes made for me, and this season, I have grown all my crops in them.”

Faiza says that the garden has helped the couple become closer.

“It’s not just ‘me and my garden’ anymore. My husband is now also a very big part of it,” she says.

“While we have very different personalities and argue constantly, we have learnt to reach a happy middle ground in the garden.”

Somehow, for gardeners like us, the birth, growth, decay and rebirth in a garden is a source of comfort.

As Faiza says: “As I age and change, so does my garden. It is no longer just a place of perfect petunias. It is a place of balance, gratitude and love. After all, my garden is what I am: a lot older, a little wiser and definitely greener.”

Shumaila Ahmed is a Dubai-based gardener, teacher, researcher and writer.