Dusking - resonate mindfully in your garden

Mindfulness in your garden takes a twilight twist with a calming practice that encourages you to slow down and take notice of the dusk.

At the Chelsea Flower Show this year I have designed the Bat Conservation Trust’s Nocturnal Garden which is all about planting to feed the tiny insects that bats eat. 

In the Nocturnal Garden I'm going to show you how easy it is to grow plants that increase bat numbers in the UK. Planting things like cow slips and fennel can be a really easy way to increase the numbers of the insects that bats eat. We're coming into summer and that means that that's when bats are flying and they're nibbling insects at dusk.

After you have planted a selection of these plants, I would like to encourage you to slow down and connect with your garden at dusk - the prime time to notice bats.

The idea of dusking is a type of grounding mindfulness that I am glad to encourage and embrace. You know this section of my site is called Grounding Notes afterall, and so too is my substack newsletter. 

Grounding and mindful resonance in gardens has helped me deal with a busy family and work life, and I believe it can help you too. 

I came across this idea of dusking where we slow down and mindfully notice the transition from daylight into evening light. And I think this could be the new grounding. We have kind of been doing breath work and we've taken part in yoga, in gardens and things like this. We have a name for sipping a nice drink in the garden as the sun goes down - sundowners - so let’s embrace dusking too. 

Picture the scene. We go out in our new bat-friendly garden with a nice glass of something, and just relax and take a breath as the day slips away and the night drifts in. We might even spot some bats.

Noticing the changing light can likely help us separate the working day from home life - this is really valuable for me personally if I work from the home office and skip the commute in to the Shoreditch office. 

I really rate doing this with your shoes off connecting to the earth as well. 

When I spoke to Zoe Ball and Jo Whiley on the Dig It podcast about this idea, Zoe said “Melanie, you are so right. Let's all become duskers. It is a real magic time in the garden.”

Zoe is already an avid “dusker”.

“I'm in for dusking,” she added. “I'm already a dusker. Same. I have to say, I've got a west-facing garden.

So, the sun goes down across the houses that are at the back of my garden. And so, I really feel that change in the light. And I've got this little bench that was the best thing I've bought in my garden, this little bench, and it's just in the most beautiful spot.

I can sit there and have a coffee in the morning as the sun starts coming over the garden. And then, you can sit on it at night and you watch the sun going back down across the houses. And then, I do see bats.”

Dusking by its nature does not have to take long, but it is worthwhile. Much like the value of taking that one first conscious deep breath in the morning. 

Come and see the Bat Conservation Trust Nocturnal Garden on the Triangle at the Chelsea Flower Show this year. If you join me there at dusk, we can do dusking together. 

Follow me at Melanie Hick Gardens on Instagram to find out more and download the plant list.