Between us there were few empty spaces, and staring at my calendar made me feel vaguely uneasy, painfully aware of the many activities and apps that conspire to keep us treading water and further from what Cal Newport terms ‘deep work’ in his 2016 book of the same name. I expressed my concern over the pace of modern life, social media, virtual meetings, definitely the advent of email, and to my friend’s surprise, the amount of garden tours and sales I would be attending as spring rocked gently into full swing. So many distractions.

Dedicated gardeners might also question the idea of garden tours and sales categorized as a "distraction," but before my gardener’s license is summarily revoked for heresy, I offer the defense I offered my friend as we compared schedules.

Crucial to becoming better at what we do as gardeners, is the time needed to settle into a contemplative state – stretching your mind and limits within your own garden. In the pursuit of outside garden-related activities, we can easily ignore the central point and allow ourselves to become [quite innocently] distracted.

May is the month in which I struggle the most with this problem because it is at once a month that invites us to observe, contemplate and get better, AND a month awash in sales, tours, activities and obligations. Keeping all of it balanced is challenging. There is just so much on offer.

Do you dare say no? Do you dare step back? The lusty month of May is all about yes. After all it’s been a long winter. Two years long. To feel overwhelmed by commitments is surely to feel ungrateful for your place in that modern machine. Or is it?

My friend smirked at my tendency to think deeply on things he does not feel warrant much thought, but then he doesn't garden as much as I should like him to, and worries far less, so May must be much like other months in his mind – prettier than August and buggier than April with a dogwood or two thrown in for good measure.

So, fast forward two weeks (how else should we do it?) and here we are. May. The month upon which we focused February hopes and dreams. And, we must guard every moment fiercely against pointless distraction, lest they all become hazy in a mad rush of What Must Be Done.

Cultivating a calm spirit in a digital world which is shouting at you most of the time can be extraordinarily difficult. I don’t have the answers (which should be painfully obvious from the words above), nor do I say "no" nearly enough yet; but I can offer one point which I find to be consistently helpful if I am equally consistent in its undertaking: My days are more centered when, in their earliest hours, I head straight outside, coffee in hand...to the garden.

Of course this begins with ignoring the first and easiest distraction – my phone. And that is far easier to ignore when it is charging in my office, rather than by my bedside. A quick check the night before to see the when and the weather of the following day is sufficient, I don’t need a reminder turning into a rabbit hole in the morning, and the alarm pulling me out of bed is set on a digital clock (a dime a dozen in local thrift shops these days).

There are no headlines in the garden. No news, no weather, no inflammatory posts from people I thought I liked, no reminders, no Wordle temptations that never end, no attachments with four dates that need to be entered into the calendar, no bills to pay, no articles to read that I've just been forwarded, no spam, no DMs, no tags, no last-minute requests, no volunteer mandates, no trips to be planned, no difficult emails to be written. No mind-altering, day-altering, mood-altering distractions. Whether good or bad.

Nothing more but me, my plants, and strong russet-black coffee in a favorite ceramic mug. This is the time that I grow the closest to my garden – observing, contemplating, deciding. It’s that Deep Work time. These are the moments I can take a hard look at wonky lines, or bizarre color combinations, or something that has never, ever, ever, worked and that I can ignore during the rampant growth of summer.

When I can think about what I want – whether specific ideas or plants – and what I wish to solve, the season’s tours and plants sales that I do attend are made so much more useful. Instead of wandering around with a plant looking for a space, I recognize the space looking for a plant.

It is also a time to contemplate what is working. What is surprising me and exciting me. What’s making me feel like I know what I’m doing. We all need that feeling to keep moving forward.

When mornings are wet, as they sometimes are in spring, I can replicate that quiet contemplation with a browse through a few choice design books. Books, unlike digital media, provide a finite experience. I can open and close them at my whim – and will not find myself subject to cookies, ads, inducements, and clickbait that distract better minds than mine.

May will be busy. Some of it wonderful and some of it wearing, but those early hours are ours -- the day will start soon enough. I can't completely escape the insanity with which it will greet me, but I can change the way I open the door.

I hope we all claim our Mays this year, morning by delicious morning. It's easier to be calm when you begin with quiet. And it's easier to be quiet when you begin with the garden.