I had been staring at the Edin Rose for days. It was given to me by my friend, and felt distressed in its new home. I knew it needed deadheading. But I didn't feel ready.

I wasn't sure what was dying and what was alive. What needed to go, and what could stay. It felt like too much responsibility. What if I did it wrong?

I stumbled upon Dumbiedykes Community Growers (Link) group almost by accident. While filling out a council survey, I was asked if I knew of them. I didn't. My supervisors had been encouraging me to get involved in local growing initiatives, and I had been looking all over, but this group had been in my neighbourhood all along.

They met on Sundays. I messaged the organizer, who replied warmly and gave directions. "Near the new trees", she said. I wandered, confused, among patches of green that all looked the same to me. "What do new trees look like?" I felt ashamed to ask, so I didn't. Eventually, I asked her to share their location on Google Maps.

When I arrived, she gave me a tour of the place while we carried our some tasks. The space was more established than I had imagined: a community room stocked with tools, wood, manure, seeds, an old sink, and even a propagator. In front of it, a newly planted garden stood (these were the aforementioned new trees), a result of a long-term community ask. Apple trees, wildflowers, intentional design.

Together, we filled wheelbarrows with water containers and wheeled them across what I would come to know as the "new beds" (also referred to as Central Triangle)—a newly developed area with no water outlets. Water had to be transported and stored inside wooden chests. Here, I was assigned the easiest job: watering plants. As I moved between beds, gently tipping water over the soil, I noticed that most plants had markers next to them. I asked why—though the reason seemed obvious. The organizer said it helped distinguish between what should be growing there and what shouldn't.

What decided that? What we like to consume—either literally or aesthetically? I realized that gardening, like any other social system, organizes care through hierarchies. And just like people, some plants are easily welcomed, while others are simply othered.

Later, we moved toward the compost area, which was surrounded by hedges being slowly sculpted by the process of hedge laying. We passed it to gather manure, which the council had dropped off at the roadside. Again, we loaded the wheelbarrows and returned to the workshop.

During the tea break, watching the 6 other volunteers interact and reflecting back on the simple tasks I was assigned today, I felt like an outsider—peripheral, unsure of my place in the group. It reminded me of Lave and Wenger's (1991) idea of legitimate peripheral participation: how newcomers to a community of practice begin by doing small, accessible tasks. Maybe watering the plants was my welcome?

After tea, I accompanied the organizer to knock on doors. We were trying to get permission from residents to install a water tank beside their tenement building so we wouldn't have to haul water such long distances. No one was home. It was a sunny Sunday, after all.

This observation made me pause and go off on a tangent. Sundays, in most cultures, are framed as a day of leisure. Gardening, despite its meditative qualities, still reads as work. Could that be why the community participation was low? I recalled my friend mentioning that she wanted to join a Green Gym (Link), but that there were none in Edinburgh. What if we could also reframe gardening from work to exercise? Could that shift in framing invite a new kind of engagement?

I shared this with the organizer. She seemed interested.

Back at the site, I helped clean up before walking home. The distressed, wilting Edin Rose waited for me on the ledge. I finally felt confident enough to deadhead it—something I’d been putting off for days. Something had changed. Slightly, but tangibly.

Bibliography

• Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University Press. doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511815355