The grown up garden

A working bee

We all have memories of gardens from when we were children. They are the gardens we grew up in. Where we played and learnt. Explored and found things. They are often best remembered as a summer days or muddy gumboots. I do think there are other gardens which watch us grow and they are probably the ones we don’t reflect on as much. The gardens that watched us grow into adults. They know us in our twenties, when we are thirty and how we negotiate our forties. As I am in knocking distance of 50 there is one garden that has seen me grow from a young student into the woman that I am now.

The garden belongs to my mother in law. I first met it when I was just finished University. I was a new graduate in many ways as I learnt about life as an adult on my own for the first time. Living a student life and then finding a family garden as wonderful as hers was such a blessing. It gave me more than I knew at the time. As a family it has been a place we return to again and again over the years. The celebratory lunches under the pear trees. The pētanque on the lawn with the compulsory wine glass in one hand. Drinks at 5 under the shade of the umbrella, admiring the roses as a Kererū swept by. I’ve know this space for more than half my life. I feel at home in this garden as much as I do in my own.

This weekend we worked the garden. My mother in law is unable to garden as she once did, so family and friends gathered to weed and chop (a tree conveniently fell down in the wind), mow lawns and plant salad greens. We talked and shared. Catching up with folk we had not seen for months or years. We watched little feet discover this garden as a new space of joy. Learning what plants names were. Helping with the mulching. Safely stomping around with many adults about to guide her on her explorations.

We all had a generally good time, despite some awful weather. The good time was made of many parts. The obvious was connecting with people. Then there was the generally goodness one feels from working a garden. The satisfaction in the before and after. But I think thing that made us feel really good, was reconnecting with the garden itself and what had meant to us all over the years. I think we just felt incredibly lucky that we have all grown alongside this garden.