This is MY garden

 

photo credit : Amanda Loviza

We’re open!  After ten months of hard graft, we have something worth sharing. I think.  So now we’ll see how people react to it….!

Though the intention has always been to make this a garden for the public, all I have done is do what I want to do.  Without truly realising it until now I have been following the advice of my favourite quote “Whatever you dream you can do, begin it now.  Boldness has genius power and magic in it.”

At times I have had a wobble when realising that there is no other garden like this in the country (unless someone can tell me otherwise).  At times that’s a YAY feeling – I like to be a little bit out of the ordinary.  At other times it has been a ‘What the hell am I doing?’ feeling: Perhaps there’s a very good reason there are no other gardens like this out there……?

Nonetheless, the wild woman that is emerging in my 50s, this new-found boldness to please myself and my instinctive human creative desire have combined and I’ve done it anyway.  Perhaps more than anything, what I am saying with this garden is ‘Grow your own dreams.’

The first unusual thing about  the garden is that it is based on a series of circles.  Why, I can’t properly explain.  Maybe because circles are everywhere in life, circularity is everywhere; natural cycles, moon cycles; tiny circular atoms are at the root of everything.  Maybe a little bit because I’m bored with gardens consisting of straight edged ‘rooms’.  Also I wanted it to look good from the sky.  Because obviously, with my super-power hovering skills, I’m going to see it that way a lot….. or not.

Each of the circles is based on a theme, person or place I visited for my book and expands on the thoughts associated with those themes.  Each garden is very very simple and fairly low maintenance, though to me a maintenance free garden is pointless – I want to be engaging daily with my land.  But I’m aware that, for some, the ease of maintenance will be an attraction and it is for the newbie gardener that the garden has also been designed.  I’ve put in lots of encouragement and advice in the form of Pot Tips (see what I did there?), lots of signage and a Helpful Hut where ‘confusing gardening stuff’ is explained.  The ‘How Do You Do Garden’ is the simplest of step-by-step guides where people can even dig for the first time if they want to.

Overall the garden is about our relationship with our land.  Getting down and dirty with Mother Earth.  Watching the beetles and the worms as we work.  Feeling our place amongst things.  Feeling a part of it.  Finding some peace.

The last circle is barely a garden at all.  ‘The Dance’ is simply another ‘thing’ I wanted to do : Just me and Gaia making something beautiful together.