Slow Gardening

Oh yeah, slow gardening, I get it

Yesterday I hit the garden for the first time and for the first time I felt like I really knew what I was doing. I wasn't trying to manically 'organise' it - it felt like I was being in it and enjoying it deeply for the first time. You know it only took twenty years, so, you know, what the heck.

Instead of trying to channel my idea of what a garden would look like, I just cleared things very slowly and left many things which I would have insisted on taking away. Things get old, they decay they get the patine of age - they have their own charm. I loved how calendula had grown in between the cracks and that the nasturtiums were still flowering because of the mild autumn we had had. I loved the way the nettles had grown and promised myself that next year I would keep the nettles. Also rather like a revolution I discovered I could put my bins behind the gate and this meant that the empty space behind the gate would now have a use and the bins would be near the gate and that they wouldn't clutter up the garden. I suddenly understood the type of plant which I could put into a planter which I don't particularly love but I cant throw away and so I'm going to get that today.

I cleaned out the dead flower boxes and hand cut the grass. I hand cut the grass because it gives me time to think about many many things. Although in the evening all my fingers and knees were so sore because of the bending and squatting. I also love my tool bag which after twenty years has everything I need in it. I also looked at cutting and planting new things. Especially blackcurrants. I may take a few to the school. It always seems like such a shame to throw the cuttings away. My garden loves soft fruit and the birds love the soft fruit too since I can't eat anything cos i'm gone over most of summer. Also it loves roses - it seems to be able to keep roses all of the autumn because it is a little sun trap. These are things you discover after twenty years. Finally, I have a very diseased honey suckle creeper and I feel such affection for it too. It seems to be riddled with this fungal attack but will never give up growing. Every year to just twines away and looks a bit pathetic and sad but it survives you know.

This is slow gardening. Taking twenty years to know the site and doing it every now and then. My next project will be to do a giant robin painting on the front gate. Probably by spring. I can already see it. Already the birds have discovered the feeders and they are enjoying everything i've laid out for them.

Today is less sunny, but I'll continue cleaning the place out when the sun starts shining.

Yep slow gardening. I still dont know what to do with this stupid corner that never gets any light though... the whole laying down a mulch to kill the weeds didn't really work. Sigh.