A garden can give you company without asking you to make conversation.

Some company makes no demands: something living, going on with its own business, that you can be near without performing. Plants respond to attention over weeks rather than minutes, so the relationship runs at a pace that suits a tired person. Solitude with something growing in it feels different from solitude alone.

Spend twenty minutes among plants this week without the aim of finishing anything. Water, pull a few weeds, look at what has changed, and let it be company rather than another task on the list.