A Random Hum

a collection of thoughts in no particular order

It is evening in the garden. It’s still after a warm day that brought freckles out on my skin as I weeded one of the many flower beds that need weeding. Growth is happening in the garden and while my eye is drawn to new blooms that appear in the garden, admiring how the perennials are taking shape for the new season, weeds are cracking along with growth just as fast. I make plans of attack on how to manage it all and write notes to myself in my diary to do so many hours per day to get it under control and then I let it pass. It is what it is. A garden in growth.

I plant, on an auspicious day, salvias and sages purchased over the weekend when I meet a friend while we had cups of tea at the local garden centre. While selecting plants, I naturally spy things that I want to add to the garden, pink manuka ( I am so in love with the flowers) and viburnums, that I have seen growing in other gardens but I know I don’t have the space. I stick to something smaller, deep crimson salvia along with a pale blue version. I include some catnip as well. I mass plant them in the few gaps that I have left. Corners of the garden are filling becoming an interwoven collection of things. I love this, the layering of plants supporting each other. It is like the communities we create in life. I take photos of little scenes and it feels like I am capturing the story which in a day or two later will have changed. I think that is what I love about taking photos of the garden, there is an urgency because you know if you leave it another day there is a high chance the bloom that caught your eye will be gone or the scene will have changed. Forever.

It is constantly moving this garden of mine. The white ball viburnum that for ages I thought was a hydrangea has melted into a green and the white lilac that I failed to capture enough this season, is now rusty brown. I, of course wish for more, just like I do with the peonies who have such a build up for a blink and you miss it moment. Just as well I planted many and the few that I have forgotten about, planted a few years ago seem to have finally settled in and are showing signs of flowering. I sigh knowing I have to wait another year, to see these things again that have finished flowering. This garden is always teaching me patience. The colour palette at the moment is a bit loud and riotous. After the whites and yellows with hints of blue of spring it is now peaches, pinks and purples. It shouts for attention. I weirdly love it for the boldest and then wonder how it will look in a months time. I hunt out photos from this time last year, it was different again.

The act of weeding, seems to be soothing on a day when my mind is requiring gentle comfort and there is something about just mindless working a bed. There are piles of weeds lie on the lawn where I was working. My bucket for weed collecting is no more and I am yet to replace it so I just leave them where they are making some weak excuse as to why. They curl and fade, softening, which makes it easier to scoop them up the next day. I have left some weeds to grow, untouched in the garden. Dandelions remain as too the clover, in bloom they offer food for the bees. I am working on that balance and giving some weeds a rebrand. We shall see how this progresses, but I guess just thinking about it is progress of sorts. I want to work more with the garden, rather than directing it.