Cultivating joy: ‘When I realised how healing gardening was, I wanted other people to experience and know about it’

Anyone who has suffered ‘basil trauma’, due to spontaneous herb or pot-plant death, may think they lack green fingers, but two inspiring gardening influencers-turned-authors want to plant the seeds to help your confidence grow

Patrick Vernuccio, aka @thefrenchiegardener, in his balcony garden in Berlin. Photo: Sabine Gudath

Patrice Harrington

Have you ever purchased a thriving basil plant from the supermarket and brought it home full of hope and recipe ideas, only to watch it wilt and die a few days later on the kitchen window sill?

One former marketing professional for companies including Netflix, Sony and Zalando managed to parlay this pretty universal experience of "basil trauma" — as he called it on his viral TikTok video — into a whole new influencer career in "urban gardening".

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