This weekly newsletter is a snippet of life in my garden and days with my camera, dogs and bees. It’s a small journey of sorts, capturing things I notice, see and love. I also like to think of this newsletter as your Friday moment to sit with a cuppa and just reflect for a moment or two. For a more deeper experience of my word sign up for my paid newsletter which comes out every Tuesday and is filled with delicious extras.
“My body always knows when autumn is coming. I sense the little slips as one season loosens its grip and invited the next one to find its feet”
Unearthed, Claire Ratinon
It’s March and I have started looking at seeds for autumn sowing. I tell myself just a few. I started reading “How to Grow the Flowers” by Marianne Mogendorff and Camila Romain, last night and they advise beginner gardeners who are still learning to sow seeds to just start with a few. This is sound advice as I still consider myself a beginner in the seed growing department. I take note and then find myself filling my shopping cart with many seeds and many variations. I ignore the voice in my head asking where will I put them all over the winter and press click on the order. I will figure it out. I am so seduced by the colours and prettiness that I can’t help myself.
Autumn always brings with it changing light. Part of me looks forward to it, part of me not so much. I notice the nights are starting to creep in and that I have to remember to take my photos of the garden a bit earlier than I would have a few weeks ago. I also notice shadows on the walls in the house which have been absent for the past few months. There are signs that the light is starting to soften. I love the longer days of summer but I often find myself muttering that the light is too bright when out with my camera. I am still trying to figure out how to manage this bright light. It’s part of the constant evolution of a learning photography.
I’ve become a collector of neglected plants. We pop into the hardware store and I head to the garden section. I snoop around looking for anything new or interesting or odd. I find some bone dry treasures which I scoop up and when we return home I put them in the neglected paddling pool we brought for the dogs to cool off in on a hot day. Despite being water dogs neither of them are interested in the pool so it has become my rehab centre for plants. After a day of soaking the plants have perked up and I put them in my nursery garden bed. I tell myself it’s autumn and I can start planting again, despite it being a very warm start to this change of season. After I have finished planting I notice a bee on the yellow coropsis and I am delighted to see that my purchasing madness is approved by the locals.
‘While I wonder whether winter will be hard in the shorter days and colder nights, because winter has been hard before, I welcome the deepening light and the slowing of energy, and the guidance that this seasonal change is imbued with - the call to quieten, withdraw and rest. I’ll relinquish my grip on all that I didn’t get round to, that didn’t work and didn’t grow and, in doing so, accept whatever comes next”
Unearthed Claire Rainton
I want to hold on to colour because I am secretly feeling a little daunted by the prospect of the approaching winter. I have never been one to find winters easy and last year with my Nana passing away was one of the hardest. My monkey brain tells me that this year will be the same. Part of me knows that this is not true. Since I don’t like the idea of wasting months wishing them over, life is too short for such things, I try to plan projects to get me through. I want to find some use for these months. The idea of using the ‘off’ season as a time of reflection is something I am slowly embracing. I have taken so many photos this summer and written so many words that I hope reviewing them, playing with them with help me through the dark days.