Early Morning Garden Walk

How to start the day

I am awake early. I mean I always wake early, my many alarms decree it but I woke earlier than usual. I skim through Instagram as I lie in bed and I see a post from a friend. She shares photos of the simple delight of visiting another’s garden. A few treasured photos are posted, no doubt the moment of capturing meaning more than the images themselves. Sometimes taking photos is about the act of doing rather than creating. Dogs wake and we all slope to the kitchen where breakfast is made. I look out windows and see how still the garden is. The predicted weather forecast of rain later today prompts me to mix up my time precious morning routine and once breakfast is eaten I grab the camera and head out the front door. I want to capture the garden in the morning.

I take the first photo and adjust my camera settings to reflect that it is early morning and the light like me is just waking. In the trees along the fence line, where the elderberry is blooming with abundance, black birds squabble. I am not sure what the discussion is about but it seems to break the silence in the garden. The day has begun. Dew settles in around my toes, as I walk. I should really be wearing gumboots. I hear the delicate hum of a bumble that is working already. I admire it’s work ethic and determination to get an early start. Perhaps they too are aware of the change in the weather later today.

I take it slow. It is not a dart out in the evening between things to do which I normally end up doing. It is a small gift to myself before the day starts. A centering of sorts. The calm before whatever the day will throw at me. The garden is full and lush. I still have gaps to fill which I ignore for the moment. I also ignore the weeds. I am not here to work like the bumble, I am here to observe. So what do I see? Roses and Foxgloves pull focus. There seems to be a lovely combination of spires and lush bushes. I have planted a few foxgloves but most self seed. I love how each season they are in a different places, telling different stories. They seem to have created symmetrical upright patterns of multiples this season. I snap away.

Things are in the garden are also fading. The lilacs, once bright and fresh and white, now have a patina of brown. Antique looking, they are fading away for the season. I seem to have been unable to capture the clematis that flowered so abundantly in a way that I wanted too. I try and manage my frustration of not taking more photos, of exploring more than I did. I silence the conversation in my head that starts looping of what I should have done. Instead I acknowledge that this is the nature of capturing a garden. You will miss stuff for various reasons. I try to direct my early morning mind to think more about being in the moment and see what there is to see rather than chase worries down a rabbit hole. I head to my pots of ranunculus and snap the few that a still blooming. I think how I will mass plant them next year, where I am not sure.

The light, it begins to grow stronger. We are all waking together. The dogs have mooched back inside, now play squabbling, much like the blackbirds. I hear barks and thumping feet as they race from one end of the house to another. A bee flits by. The day has started in full and I feel ready for it.