Presenter Sabine Platz: Passionate hobby gardener

Are you a latecomer when it comes to gardening?

Yes, that's right.

I did have a garden, but we didn't really have any contact.

I put a deck chair in it at the weekend, but my thoughts were mostly somewhere else.

But then I did gardening for the morning magazine for a season.

After that it was clear to me: now women have room for their new passion.

I was 40 then.

How has passion changed your life?

I've stopped at every flower shop and every garden center, planting vegetables left over from the shoot.

I read gardening magazines and did more and more research.

Then something awoke in me that had basically always been there.

I remembered my childhood days, when I would pick chestnuts in the park and plant them.

Now it came with power.

Suddenly I went through life with different eyes.

Even if I was just joking at first, putting the rose next to the hydrangea and two heads of lettuce in between: Suddenly we were in contact, my garden and I.

In the beginning was chaos?

At first I didn't know anything and gradually worked it out.

My grandmother, who was very fond of gardens, had just died and I regretted not having learned from her.

I always have to think about what a magnificent phlox she had in her garden.

In my work, too, I meet great experts whose knowledge I absorb.

A little of it ends up in my films, the bulk is stored in my head and heart, is carried home and implemented.

What was the most valuable tip so far?

I have been growing tomatoes for many years.

At the beginning of the year I was in an organic nursery in the Allgäu, where I learned an incredible amount about sowing.

Don't put tomatoes warm on the windowsill!

The seeds come into the ground and are then kept warm for exactly three days, whether light or dark.

Then you put them in a cool place, around ten to twelve degrees, and above all light. They grow more slowly, stay nice and compact and strong.

That can't be, I thought, I've been making tomatoes for 15 to 20 years and now something like this.

I'm grateful for the tip, especially with the variety I'm growing now.

What is this tomato?

A Romanian beefsteak tomato.

Transylvanian Saxons know exactly which variety I mean.

My grandmother was from Transylvania and grew these tomatoes all her life.

A piece of home in Germany.

When we buried my grandmother, I was in her garden for the last time.

There were tomatoes in little pots.

I was heavily pregnant, already had a garden, but left it there.

That was my biggest mistake.

I have regretted it many times since I started gardening.

I wrote about my grandmother in my book, and since then people who have read the story have sent me seeds.

Great right?

After a good ten years: is everything running perfectly in the garden?

Of course not.

Gardening is a fight against nature.

The garden teaches you that it will always win.

Nevertheless, you always have small successes along the way.

If the vegetable patch doesn't turn out as planned, something else grows that you didn't have in mind.

The garden shows you: Come on, I'll push this candy over to you.

These little pleasures are what make gardening great.

But you have to be open to it.

People who are too driven by success and focus on themselves completely lose sight of it.

This happens to me every now and then too.

Isn't it frustrating when everything doesn't go as planned?

Only a moment.

I get mad sometimes, but after five minutes I get overwhelmed and start again.

I won't give up.

Even after gardening for many, many years, it still feels like you are at the very beginning.

Any other hobby would have given up long ago.

If I had been playing tennis for ten years and still couldn't get the ball over the net, I would have looked for something else long ago.

That's the amazing thing about gardening.

Every year you think: This time I'll rock it!

Is there something that just won't work?

Clear!

For years I've been trying to create a perennial border that blooms all season long.

It's in partial shade and I'm pretty sure talented gardeners could manage that.

But I just can't do it.

I'm slowly giving up.

I also struggle with underplanting hydrangeas.

What is going on there that seals the floor well?

I've tried

but only half of what I planted last year is coming back.

And my front yard is completely covered in moss.

The most important finding for you?

The people I meet for my column, whether they are English perennial gardeners or orchid breeders, are a specific species.

I now understand why.

If you are regularly in the garden and digging up the compost heap, you will become humble.

You realize: We are all nothing more than compost ourselves, and that's where we all end up.

That sounds philosophical as a hobby, but that's actually exactly what it is. Nature creates something new out of the old.

When gardening, you become aware of your own finitude.

Then you also look at the here and now in a completely different way and concentrate on it.

Gardeners get a different perspective on others and become more respectful.

If we all gardened more, there would be no wars in this world.