A strange relationship

It’s a Saturday morning a few minutes before opening and black clouds like palls of smoke scud across the heavy grey sky. I’m sat on the back steps by the blue pond determined to keep the sprinklers on right up until the last second. Alison our chief propagator and all round plants supremo has been in for several hours already watering the multitude of pots, containers and ailing beds, compared to her dedication I’m a part timer. What we have in common this morning is a sympathy for the garden that’s hard to put into words. I suppose it comes down to this; if the garden isn’t happy, neither are we.

There’s an almost infallible indicator by which you can tell how I’m feeling about the garden at any time; if I’m happy that the garden is happy I’ll be posting on instagram! It isn’t that there isn’t plenty of beautiful moments to post when I’m not posting, it’s that the gardens stress seems to be directly wired to my blood stream and I feel it.

At the moment what would make the whole situation better is rain and plenty of it.

I’ve always been quite an emotional person and in gardening I’ve found an occupation in which feeling deeply is generally an advantage. True happiness isn’t an emotion that can be sustained, it can only really be glimpsed in moments and that’s fine, I’m not expecting to feel happiness and contentment 24/7, I do and I will keep perusing it however.

Happiness in the garden, for me at least, is the combination of the elements of nature and the gardened elevated by the sublime, the sublime element is usually light, but it might be the blue flash of a kingfisher in flight reflected in the flowing river, or something else which momentarily reminds me of the miraculous nature of my existence, and its ephemeral quality.

Whilst plants around me suffer and die, a little part of me will continue to suffer with them. There are cycles to everything in life and my current discomfort will end, like the garden I will breathe a sigh of relief when the rain returns and once it has had time to work its magic and awaken the latent energy in the garden my own latent energy will return and our strangely intertwined journey will continue.