What she does know, however, is that the next big plan involves getting her hands dirty. “What I am reading at the moment is gardening. I absolutely love it. I haven’t done enough on my own—I’ve done some volunteer gardening work, but I’m a gardener scammer because I haven’t done enough. I just love reading about it and trying to do it as much as I can,” she said.
Slightly surprised by her admission, I wondered, why gardening? “It makes you very happy. It’s good for you,” Windsor said. “You are always outside. Soil gives you great bacteria, gives you serotonin. It’s a way to meet different people if you volunteer to garden. I’ve met some of the best people and if it’s done in a sustainable way it could be a great thing for the planet. So it’s a win-win situation.” In fact, it turns out this foundational hobby is a metaphor for her own life. “It’s so therapeutic and peaceful, and it’s also just a way of accepting that you only go seasonally. If something isn’t working in your garden, it’s like, ‘It’s okay. I’ll try again next time.’ And realizing that it’s just a part of nature that things can’t grow or something can eat them, you just go with it and move on. It teaches you to go with the flow,” she said.
I looked out the window at my dying trees, and I turned to Windsor as my new master gardener – my millennial Alan Titchmarsh, if you will – and asked her if talking talk to the trees can revive them or not. “I actually do it with my houseplants a little bit,” she admits, telling me they are called Geraldine and Esmerelda.
When our conversation ended, our previous night out plans turned to Windsor volunteering to help me plant a tree. Always expect surprises from this woman.
Amelia Windsor x Beautiful Ballerina is now available.
