Lucy Butler
The Mindful Gardener on Anxiety, Motherhood and the Healing Power of Getting Outside
In this episode of We Are The People, I speak with Lucy Butler, the voice behind The Mindful Gardener.
Lucy shares her experience of living with depression and anxiety, and the quiet, practical ways she has learned to care for herself over time. For Lucy, gardening is more than a hobby. It is a way to slow down, move her body, calm her mind, and reconnect with herself when life feels overwhelming.
This is a conversation about mental health, motherhood, nature, social media, self-doubt, and kindness. It is about the effort it can take to keep going, the power of small daily actions, and the impact we can have on others even when we do not always see it in ourselves.
Lucy Butler did not set out to become a mental health advocate online.
Her Instagram page, The Mindful Gardener, began as a place to share photos of plants and flowers. Over time, it evolved into something more personal: a space where Lucy could talk honestly about anxiety, depression, gardening, and the small things that help her feel more grounded.
In this episode, Lucy speaks openly about experiencing mental health difficulties from her late teens, the exhaustion of trying to appear fine when things feel very different internally, and the strength it takes to keep showing up on difficult days.
She also talks about motherhood and the challenge of raising a child in a world shaped by phones, screens, social media, comparison and constant bad news. Lucy reflects on how difficult it can be to protect a child without projecting your own anxiety, and how modern parenting often feels like trying to navigate a world that is changing faster than anyone can fully understand.
We also explore Lucy’s relationship with social media itself. Although she has built a large and engaged audience through The Mindful Gardener, she is clear that she is not driven by algorithms, content schedules or online performance. Instead, she shares when she feels she has something useful to say — something that might help one person take a step outside, plant a seed, move their body, or feel a little less alone.
What comes through most strongly in this conversation is Lucy’s quiet strength. She may not always describe herself that way, but her story is full of resilience, honesty and care. Whether through gardening, teaching children to swim, parenting her daughter, or sharing her mental health journey online, Lucy’s impact is rooted in kindness.
And as she says near the end of the episode, there are not many better things to be remembered for than being kind.
In This Episode with Lucy Butler
We talk about:
- Growing up in Walsall and her early hopes of becoming a translator
- Choosing not to go to university and finding her own path through work and later study
- Meeting her husband through a job her mother encouraged her to take
- Living with depression and anxiety from her late teens
- The exhaustion of pretending everything is fine when it is not
- How gardening, walking, movement, reading and journaling support her mental health
- Becoming RHS qualified while pregnant and then as a new mother
- Building The Mindful Gardener on Instagram
- Dealing with imposter syndrome and low self-esteem
- Using social media without being ruled by it
- Parenting in an age of phones, screens and comparison
- Trying not to pass anxiety on to your child
- Teaching swimming, including children with special educational needs
- Kindness, legacy and the impact we can have without realising it
Mental health without easy answers
Lucy speaks about depression and anxiety in a way that feels honest and grounded. She does not present healing as a straight line or suggest that gardening is a cure. Instead, she talks about learning what helps, returning to those things when she can, and accepting that some days are simply harder than others.
Gardening as a way back to yourself
For Lucy, the garden offers space, movement and calm. Sometimes even five minutes outside can help interrupt an anxious spiral. Her story shows how nature can give people a practical way to reconnect with their bodies, their thoughts and the present moment.
Motherhood in a digital world
The conversation around parenting is deeply relatable. Lucy talks about screen time, phones, peer pressure and the anxiety of raising a child in a world that feels increasingly connected but also increasingly overwhelming.
Showing up despite self-doubt
Lucy is honest about imposter syndrome and the discomfort of being visible online. But she keeps coming back to one simple idea: if something she shares helps one person, then it is worth doing.
Kindness as legacy
The episode closes on a simple but powerful reflection. Lucy hopes to be remembered as kind. That idea runs through the whole conversation — in how she parents, teaches, gardens, shares, and supports others.
Guest Bio
Lucy Butler
Lucy Butler is an RHS-qualified horticulturalist, swimming teacher, mother, and the voice behind The Mindful Gardener.
Through her online platform, Lucy shares the connection between gardening, mental health and everyday wellbeing, drawing on her own experience of living with anxiety and depression. What began as a simple space to share photos of plants and flowers has grown into a gentle, honest community where Lucy talks about the grounding power of getting outside, moving your body, planting something, and taking small steps back towards yourself.
Alongside her work in gardening and wellbeing, Lucy teaches swimming, including lessons for children with special educational needs. Across everything she does, her approach is rooted in patience, kindness and the belief that small acts can have a lasting impact.
In this episode, Lucy joins We Are The People to talk about mental health, motherhood, mindful gardening, social media, self-doubt, and the quiet strength it takes to keep going.
LISTEN
