Dearest Reader, how are you? I’ve been continuing to struggle with a virus this week. Although I’ve been feeling much brighter, and even miraculously got some jobs done in the garden, my brain still feels a bit like tinned minestrone soup - you know there’s something in there that is good for you, but you can’t quite identify any of the bits. While I swim out of the brain soup I hope you will accept this post from the deep dark archives of 2021 as a placeholder until I can do justice to the peatland plants, birds and insects I’ve been trying to write about this week. Take good care, Sarah
Garden Journal 1st - 7th April 2021
We’ve been preparing to sell my grandmother's house and her beloved garden for a while now. I dread to think what she’d say if she saw her garden has become overgrown. She liked stripes on the lawn and carefully manicured border edges, but I haven't really been able to face going there.
Just recently I’ve been trying to rescue some plants from the borders and paths, mainly wild Primroses, Aquilegia and Sedum that I’m worried the next occupants might spray with pesticide because they are growing all anibendod.
It’s been a real comfort tucking bits of her garden into the soil I’ve been so carefully tending and seeing them relax as if they know they are safe here; leaves greening, stems straightening. I didn’t realise but at twilight, the pale yellow flower faces of the Primroses seem to start glowing like golden coins or tiny full moons, they line the bed edges in my home garden now like everlasting tea lights.
Seed sowing is in full swing. I’m already feeling like I’m ten steps behind where I ‘should’ be as the windowsill shuffle of pots and trays changes daily. The garden is a pretty no-nonsense style teacher when it comes to learning perfection isn't good for you or even really possible so I’ll just keep going, keep learning, keep making mistakes and figure things out. Gardening is definitely something I enjoy doing for the process, not the result, because, after all, a garden can never really be finished.
It’s because of that process that I’ve wanted to start keeping a kind of garden journal, or scrapbook, sketchbook - collaged odds and ends of paper with notes on - book. I feel as though every day I sit and watch and interact with the garden I’m being taught something but I’m not always attuned, not always listening in quite the right way to fully take in the lesson and know it. I suppose this will come over time. My strongest relationships have been built over gains and losses, ebbs and flows so I try to see no difference between those bonds and my relationship to this place, taking each season as it comes.
I know the best way for me to learn about something is to do it and draw it. Drawing something requires a kind of questioning, deep looking that my brain doesn’t switch on without a pencil in my hand so I’m hoping that by taking my studio tools out to the garden I’ll be better at looking, understanding and learning from the patch of land I’m stewarding for this particular time.
I love that you describe that the best way to LEARN something is to draw it.... This feels so true in the essence of what you are sharing. When we desire to translate something THROUGH our creative Gifts, we must step INTO inquiry with it and actually integrate WITH the medicine carried it the story it stewards. Beautiful idea to keep Garden journal, a weaving of learnings and lovings birthed from the Garden.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your "placeholder". A lot of your thoughts resonate with me. I am very much looking forward to your next post ... whenever that might be as I wish you good health in the meantime. Take care, best wishes, Sarah.