What a Strangled Rhododendron Taught Her About Her Son and Work
The plant she nearly gave up on
A client of mine had one rhododendron she loved deeply and wanted to flourish.
It was young, still finding its feet, but the surrounding ivy was winning.
Years of it, growing through the garden, now wrapped tight, taking the rhododendron’s space and light.
For a long time she'd looked at that corner and felt only the size of the job.
The whole garden overrun, the one plant she loved slowly losing.
She is senior, technical, the kind of woman who is used to being equal to a problem. And you didn’t come here for gardening advice.
But this metaphor was useful for her, and I suspect you may be able to relate.
Here was a small living thing she thought she might simply lose, because she believed saving that one plant meant taking on and ‘fixing’ the entire garden.
When the impossible standard quietly shifts
Something changed the weekend she stopped looking at the whole garden and looked only at the rhododendron.
She didn't need all the ivy gone, which as you may know, is a virtual impossibility!
She just needed it off this one plant. Enough light, enough room, and the rhododendron could do the rest itself.
That was a smaller, truer job. One she could actually start.
What struck her afterwards was not the gardening.
It was how familiar the feeling underneath it was.
She had spent years treating "good" as a failure state.
If she couldn't fix the whole of something, she'd hold off, hold out, wait for a clear run that never arrived.
The rhododendron asked a different question.
Not how do I win, but how do I give the thing I care about enough room to grow?
The same 'ivy', everywhere she looked
Once she had it, she saw it across her whole life; both at home and at work.
At work, there was a colleague she'd spent years wishing gone.
Unfortunately, he wasn't going anywhere, and the wishing had been its own slow drain.
That colleague was her ‘ivy’.
Not a thing she could easily remove, but a growth to keep off the work that mattered, so her team got the space and light it needed.
There were her own standards, too.
The perfectionism that froze her from starting in the garden was the same perfectionism that made her sit on good work, waiting for flawless.
Changing that to ‘Tending, not winning’ loosened that grip.
And there was her young son, who she loves the way every working parent does, in a low constant hum that never fully switches off.
He was her rhododendron.
Growing, cherished, hers to give room to.
The things she feared he'd meet as he got older were ivy: real, persistent, never fully gone.
As painful as it was for her to realise, she could not weed the whole world around him!
So she did what she'd learned in the garden. You water. You weed close in. You protect what you can reach.
And you make peace with the rest, because tending a person is not the same as trying to control an entire garden full of invasive species over which you have very limited control!.
Why the all-or-nothing version costs you most
We are taught that strength means fixing the whole of a thing.
Solve it, clear it, finish it.
So when something cannot be finished, a colleague, a worry, the parts of ourselves we keep meeting, we read it as failure and we stall.
The cost is rarely dramatic.
It is a garden, like hers, the ivy left largely untended for over a decade.
Good work sat on. A challenging relationship that you fret about, until it can be perfect.
What she learned was quieter and more useful.
You do not have to win to begin.
You tend the thing you love, you manage what threatens it, and you let that be enough.
The rhododendron is still there.
It has more light now. So does she.
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I'm Dr Suzanne Doyle‑Morris and I support professional women working in STEM.
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The Women in Tech Promotion Playbook
Your roadmap to advancement with balance
The Women in Tech Promotion Playbook is a practical, evidence-based guide designed for ambitious women in STEM who want to advance their careers without burning out. Drawing on over 25 years of coaching and research, I outline five strategic steps that help women move from being overworked and under recognised to confident, visible leaders.
