The ritual of gardening
and a rather large book
It is a lump of a book. One that requires you to sit up and read it, which I do, propped up by many pillows. I have made a nest on the bed which is my nature and something I tend to do this at this time of night. From where I sitting I can see the garden while watching the night crawl in. It seems to be coming in earlier, the days are starting to slowly shorten. The mango orange corners of the book pop out from the dust jacket, contrasting in an extravagant way against the crumpled white linen sheets. A cool breeze drifts in the open widow which is welcome as we have had a rare hot summers day. The greying sky is moving towards midnight blue heavy with incoming clouds. There will be no stars tonight. A dog jumps on the bed and curls up at my feet. I am always amazed at how they judge where I am sitting and can curl in perfectly.
The mighty tome of a book awkwardly cradled in my lap is Pastoral Garden. A collection of garden essays and profiles curated by Clare Foster, editor of House and Garden. Simply put it is beautiful book and worth the hefty shipping costs. I have made a ritual of reading a section of this book each night if I can. I nibble away at it, not just because of the size of book but also because of the many ideas, held within, all of which I find to some degree, inspiring and encouraging. They are in a way providing a sigh of relief. I can see how I want to garden in written and visual form.
We all know of the image (it is here if you don’t). A small upright house, almost like a child’s drawing, surround by a mass of flowers. There is a fence which defines the garden, marking a clear division between where the garden ends and where the field that surrounds the house begins. The garden bursts through the fence anyway. It is a mass of colour. It feels decadent. A luxury of a garden. A lofty ambition. It is a source of inspiration. In the pages of my tome is a profile of the creator, gardener Andrew Slater. As I read the section featuring his garden, I slowly meandered through the pages, paying close attention to the details in the words and images. His story is of a journey of becoming a gardener, of how he takes chunks of time to work and focuses on his garden, normalising this kinda of work as something you just do like breathing. It shakes up the ethos that paid employment needs to be solid and defined. I like the idea of incorporating this kind of balance where work is mix of time to earn and time to create. After all it is work, it just takes different forms.
From these few pages (I was unsurprisingly hungry for more), I learn so much. He loves the creation of the garden and the continued creating of it. He loves how he observes it and what observing gives him. He doesn’t see his value or contribution to the garden as any more important than a seed or plant. All are equal. All are the same. It is an attractive idea, the one of guide rather manager of a garden and I wonder how different a garden looks when we step back from our role of controlling our garden spaces and just let it be. Editing when required, guiding it along.
As I skim through the pages, looking ahead at what is to come on this journey of a book, I think of my own garden space and what I have observed over the summer which has hardly arrived. The summer is already starting to show it is planning on leaving soon. I think how I see the garden through my camera, how I observe it from a different angle. I am still marinating on it all but I do feel a change in our relationship, the garden and I. A softening of sorts. A new ritual perhaps. As I nest on my bed with my tome of a nook and a snoozing dog, I think of this…
“The ritual of gardening is all part of the evolving design of his garden”
It sounds like a perfect way to garden.