A collection
Autumn is a time of harvest and of reflection. As the leaves fall of the cherry tree I start collecting books and words and things for the coming months. Things to nibble on as the days draw in and we find ourselves once again hibernate for the year. I thought this week I would share some of these with you.
I do love it when you discover things at the same time and they end up becoming a reflection of each other and they in turn encourage and enforce ideas that have been floating in your mind. This past week saw the Wild Dunedin festival take place. I have not attended before and after picking up a brochure casually lying on a coffee table at work I thought I should expand my world and attend something. The something I attended was the garden tour of George Street Orchard, a fruit forest garden which I had heard off but never seen. It was a delight to visit a garden heavy with fruit to harvest, with pears, grapes and figs all shimmering in the Autumn light.  I had to show restraint from nibbling on the golden raspberries that were tantalizing in reach. I loved seeing a full garden with no lawns only paths and secretly wish I could do the same for all our garden. Maybe one day. Echoing  what I saw in the garden where ideas that are explored in one  of the current books on my reading pile, “Beyond the Meadows - Portrait of a natural and biodiverse garden’ . This is a delicious book with many inspiring images (see their insta page) as well as good practical and inspiring advice on creating a garden which feeds and supports humans and creatures. It is the story of the creation of a garden which I find is the best way to learn. I have repeatable stuck pages under the nose of the other half stating this is what I want to do, whenever we have our land.
I recently realised (and this might have been obvious to others) that I can sign up for talks given at the Garden Museum in the UK. I am not sure why I did not think of this before. The talks I’ve signed up for are as follows (with accompanying books which the talks are based on).
·      Rachel de Thame: A Flower Garden for Pollinators
·      Olivia Laing: The Garden Against Time
·      Claire Takacs: Visionary Gardens and Landscapes for our Future
For a list of upcoming talks visit here and yes I will aim to be adding these books to my reading pile - they look like gorgeous reads.
Other things that are bringing me joy are a couple of favourite newsletters that I subscribe to via Substack:
·      Lisa - Wildly Sown a fave on Instagram has a newsletter which I greatly enjoy and she is someone who shares my approach to gardening on many levels. Love her latest post and her free guide on establishing a garden - the perfect thing to read over winter to help with future garden planning.
·      Austin Kleon - Sends out a weekly list of 10 things that he found interesting which I find a great way to discover new things. I am keen to try and make a zine over the winter.
·      Alice Vincent - always love her writing.
We did a bit of exploring in the weekend, taking a small road trip to Oamaru late on Sunday afternoon. We took the dogs and went for a stroll around the local botanical gardens. I loved that we could take them with us (we can’t take them to our local gardens as dogs are not permitted) and it was a great stroll for everyone. The Autumn colours were gorgeous and I loved seeing a flower bed created to support Monarch butterflies. We saw alot of butterflies in the garden which shows this type of gardening works. We think we might add the Sunday drive to our weekend so I am looking forward to exploring new places with the family.
Do share in the comments anything you are collecting to make your winter more enjoyable.