Gardening

The garden is not beholden to the Apostle Paul’s creed, in that the gardener does not always reap what is sown – sometimes the harvest is greater.

The warming weather brings jasmine into bloom – the power of its scent is to evoke old memories and to forge new ones.

The winter gardener rejects textbook directives to withdraw and attend to her tools, and instead nurtures the tiny perfection of the garden to come.

The shortest day of the year approaches as an invitation for the gardener to consolidate – to do less, better.

The liminal spaces are where interesting things happen, where change is effected – in the garden, as in life.

Memories sharpened by grief offer glimpses of a home and a garden that were the fruits of love and labour.

Time away from the garden allows weeds, like dust, to gather – a reminder of the limits of control and how everything ultimately yields to the life cycle.

The curl of possum tails around branches evokes for the author the unsettling sentience of climbing plants and things that grasp.

Life in the garden is about the balance of seasonal temperatures, light and shade, kindness and cruelty – and sometimes it’s about the spaces in-between.

Determined not to add to her pile of plastic pots, the author embarks on the meditative practice that is raising seedlings.