Be Here Now

On January 10, 2019 By janeIn Extras, My Garden, Plants, Writing4 Comments

I started last year with a grand plan. 2018 was going to be the year of the blog. It was going to be the year that I took the blogging process seriously, writing a weekly post about my garden, following other bloggers, commenting, engaging, doing the whole thing properly. And as part of this commitment I was going to learn to take better and better photos so I could show people what was going on in my part of the world.

But I have a confession to make. Which is that very quickly it all got too much for me. After a belting start I got struck down with the demon flu, and was then incapable of doing anything that remotely resembled putting myself out there. Taking photos, blogging, Instagraming, Facebooking, thinking about posts, planning new stuff for my garden. It all felt too much. The thought of doing any of it left me feeling breathless and burdened and overwhelmed.

And I couldn’t for the life of me understand why. Particularly when, once the beast from the east had had its wicked way with us, the weather turned glorious, packed to bursting with sun filled days, blossom more bountiful than I can remember, colour and warmth and brightness. So much to post about. What was not to feel happy and grateful for? Why the tight chest and anxious feelings?

It was the Ceanothus ‘Trewithen Blue’ that finally did it. But I can’t show you a photo of it. Because I didn’t take one. Even though it was crying out to me every time I walked past it. There it was in all its fabulous powdery blue, clothing the wall by the drive, billowing with gorgeousness. And I rushed past with my head turned away, hardly daring to look at it. The sight of it triggered anxiety, almost a feeling of panic.

And what a thing to be feeling anxious about. When there is so much going on in the world, I was getting in a state about blossom!

So I talked to a friend. We were looking at her beautiful garden, and I mentioned the anxiety I’d been feeling. And it turned out she’d been feeling the same.

We asked ourselves if it was our age. Turning sixty, time shrinking, life a finite thing, only so many springs left so better make sure we don’t miss anything, etc, etc, etc. And yes, we thought this might well have something to do with it. But I began to give it a bit more thought, and I realised that there was more to it.

Because here was the thing. I’d fallen into the trap of trying to hold onto the moment too tightly. Been searching for a way to make things permanent when they’re not. That’s what all the photography and Instagram and Blogging and writing was about. It was my way of trying to fix the things that I love in a place where they couldn’t be lost.

But the truth was that the more I tried to hold them close the further away they became. And the effect was to stop me from enjoying them while they were there. I was avoiding the Ceanothus because I knew its beauty wouldn’t last, and – because I hadn’t found a way to capture it that did it proper justice – I was feeling anxious.

I’m reminded of that quote about happiness being like a butterfly, how you can’t chase it, but have to sit and wait for it to come and land on your shoulder. My problem was that I’d been trying to catch it and trap it and pin it into a glass case for posterity. Which had precisely the opposite effect.

This was a bit of a eureka moment for me. (I have them from time to time!) It was the moment I realised that I needed to stop feeding the anxiety and start doing things differently. So I made a decision. I took a step back from all the stuff – the commitment to weekly posting, the blog following, Instagram checking, photo taking stuff. And instead I went out and stood under branches heavy with blossom, and breathed in and breathed out. Walked and looked and took the time to see. I started with the Ceanothus. Went and stood and marvelled at the blueness of it, the contrast of dark green leaf with flowers miraculously arranged into panicles, the structure and form and sheer perfection of it.

And I decided to make time to go round the garden and count ten things that made me feel happy. Without taking photos or planning posts or doing anything other than looking and feeling and being there.

It kind of worked. Getting ready to open the garden for the NGS in June rather got in the way. But I had a year away from being out there, and it was a year to reassess my relationship with myself and the wider world.

So now, at the start of another year, I’m going to get back to writing and taking photos, but I’m going to do it for me. When I feel like it. (Which is why I’ve written two back to back posts and may well not write another for months to come!) So that I’ve got a record to look back at of the things that matter to me.

It’s not that I’m giving up on all the stuff. I’m just going to do when it feels right. And enjoy the moment.

Euphoria

On April 4, 2017 By janeIn Garden Design, My Garden, Plant Photography, Plants5 Comments

So I’m a lightweight! You don’t have to tell me! The weekly posting promise I made at the beginning of the year has gone tits up. A few days away, a run of the kind of weather that life was invented for, and there’s just too much going on outside for me to be sitting at my computer writing about the garden when I could be in it. So I’ve got a bit of catching up to do.

It’s also hard to do justice with words and photos to the miracle that is taking place outside my window. I am trapped in a state of frustration at my inability to capture the constantly changing scene that is taking place in my garden. From day to day there are new delights. And the truth is I can’t keep up.

But nobody likes a quitter. And this morning it’s raining. Which the garden desperately needs. And it gives me time to write rather than do. So here goes.

At this time of year I’m ‘dropping the b’ and turning the name of one of my all time favourite plants into the word that best describes the feeling I get when I do my garden shuffle. If you read this blog on a regular basis you’ll know the plant I’m talking about because it gets a fair bit of space devoted to it within these pages. But it’s now, when the slow build of early spring is gathering pace and the garden is really beginning to sing, that the Euphorbia is really beginning to look its best.

At the moment it’s the Euphorbia characias wulfenii weaving its way through the garden that draws the eye, giving structure and coherence and energy to the borders.

But there is also the Euphorbia amygdaloides var robbiae bringing light to the difficult corner under the bay cones in the border by the drive. And the Euphorbia palustris I fell in love with at Beth Chatto’s garden, beginning to get going in the long border. There’s the Euphorbia myrsinites spilling out across the paths in magnificent contrast to the deep red tulips whose name I’ve forgotten but who keep coming back each year.

And not to be left out, there’s Euphorbia ‘Redwing Charm’, its twinkling red eyes bulking up to fill the tricky space under the Osmanthus burkwoodii.

Euphorbia… Euphoria… it’s impossible to resist.

And it’s not just the Euphorbia that is prompting this feeling. The euphoria is being given a boost when I look at the borders where I can see the new shoots of all the planting I put in a couple of years ago when I carried out my great garden edit.

Last year it was hard to get a feel for how it was going to go. Some things thrived, others didn’t. New shrubs looked underwhelming, and the balance I was aiming for was a matter of faith. This year I can already see that I’m getting closer to what I was hoping for so I’m feeling really excited.

The other thing prompting euphoria is that for the first time in quite a few years whatever it is that digs up my tulip bulbs has stayed away. It has been a source of intense pain to me, seeing my beds dotted with neat little holes marking the spots where all my hard work in late autumn has been laid to waste. Year after year the tulip activity in my garden has been patchy, and yet I go on planting and hoping that this year might be different. Well this year is. In November I planted my bulbs deeper than ever and mulched with a thick layer of spent mushroom compost and it seems to have done the trick. Tulip fever here we come.

These days of warmth and action, interspersed with days of gloom and grey are what spring is all about, the teenage time of year when it’s impossible to predict what is going to happen next. Apart from the certainty that we’re moving towards something better. The challenge for me is to live in the moment and enjoy the detail, and not get swept away by the thought of what is to come.

My failure to write posts for the past couple of weeks means that some things have come and gone without getting the attention they deserve. The Narcissus February Gold on the banks in the field garden, which this year ignored their name and did their thing in March, shone in the sunshine.

Narcissus Jenny, one of my particular favourites, is still being graceful in the front garden although past her best.

The hellebores continue to deliver under the Viburnum opulus by the drive. The new Prunus cerasifera I planted in the field garden a couple of years ago established itself sufficiently to make a proper contribution as blossom bringer to coincide with the the daphne and lonicera in the main garden.

Scilla spread through the beds in the far corner, bringing its intense blue to the party.

Those pesky muscari are finally proving their worth under the espaliered apples.

And the rhubarb. The rhubarb deserves its own post.

If I can find the time to write it.

Spring fever…..

On May 12, 2013May 13, 2013 By janeIn My Garden, Plants1 Comment

I love this time of year. It’s when my garden really starts to move up a gear. The weather’s been particularly kind to me, putting everything on hold while I was away for three weeks over Easter. Now the garden is madly busy, doing its spring thing in a great rush. And I’m having to pay attention and keep on my toes otherwise I might miss something.

This year the spring blossom seems more blossomy than ever.