Each morning we wake and immediately look to our daily weather forecast through the three small stone windows. Today it’s a pure grey-white, everything shrouded in mist, brightened by a strong sun behind.
I’m slow to get out of bed today. After a week of sleepless nights, I took a tablet desperate for one night of sleep. It worked and I feel groggy from both the sleep and tablet’s combined effects.
On my mind is watering the houseplants. I’m worried about our Pachira aquatica - nicknamed Eddy after our friend whose amazing plant inspired me to buy one - I neglected it last month and it started losing its palmately compound leaves. The Schefflera arboricola too in Topher’s office. Houseplant worry gets me out of bed, watering them is the first thing I do.
Following the annual hedge cut we can see into the garden again from the top floor and I look at the teasel silhouettes rimmed by the glow of bright diluted light. “I should go and take photos but I’m too tired,” I say to Topher trying to justify my laziness.
It’s a two coffee morning. Our cat Rumbles has developed a routine of herding me into the living room for a morning cuddle to warm his paws. We watch France 24 to catch up on the world’s horrors in its reasoned analytical way, far better than the inadequacy of British political media.
Apologising to Rumbles I move him off to gaze out the window again. I thought the mist would have gone by now to make way for the sunny Autumn day ahead. “I’ll get showered… I should take photos.” I say again, trying to muster motivation.
It works this time though, from somewhere the motivation comes, and I rush upstairs, shove on some trousers and socks, then grab my camera. Unlocking the front door I’m met by the warmth of the morning on my bare arms and face. Quiet. Quiet as snow. Quiet as autumn mist.
A nasturtium with impossibly beautiful bronzed orange flowers has found a way to climb into the berried cotoneaster that forms the living roof of our old pigsty. I love this area where we store logs bought and coppiced from our land. Small planting areas are a slow project to establish wildflowers and cultivated plants.
I duck under strings of cobweb across the entrance to our main garden, surrounded by hedges. The webs decorated by mist and light, I don’t want to break them. Something barks in the distance, either a dog or a deer.
Looking at the tan brown teasel and echinops stems, the pale glow of miscanthus and calamagrostis grasses, a pop of colour here and there from asters bursting into flower. I feel a happiness and peace come over me. Glad to have stepped out, to have this space.
Autumn is one of my favourite seasons, but I say that about every season. Whichever day it is, that’s my favourite season. Our gardens connect us to the seasons in amplified ways. I love the life of nature, no wonder I feel this way.
Gardens accentuate seasonal shifts. The multitude of plants I’ve grown are each softened by the mist and catch the light in their own unique way. I feel safe here, surrounded by the hedges, the familiarity of the plants and wildlife that live in them. Just the act of being here, to stand and stare for a moment. It brings calm and reassuring inward thinking, making sense of it all.
I guess I grow our garden to catch the seasons, to celebrate the way that constant change makes me feel more myself. I lift my camera to photograph cobwebs across the cenolophium seed heads.
Thinking back to my old blog posts that were more diary like, I miss those days. Writing for the sake of writing and the freedom of creativity it brought. I feel I can’t do that with my newsletter, that each email should have distinct purpose and practical guidance for people. I’ll lose subscribers if I flood their inboxes with my random thoughts.
Is that the best garden writing? To only ever be practical. Gardens are about lives, the people who live in them. I decide not to send the newsletter, perhaps I can just put a gallery on my site or a few pictures into the void of Instagram that sucks our souls dry in the hope of its algorithm permitting us to show our pictures to people who followed us to see them.
But the garden is so moving today, perhaps because I’ve slept properly for the first time in a long time. Or that it looks how I’ve hoped it would for so long. I’m moved so much that I am reminded that yes, garden writing can be important and creative. Often beautiful.
I feel more me today for whatever reason. Feelings the garden at this point in autumn has given me are rising up. They won’t last, emotions are as changing as the seasons. I want to share it, to say to the world ‘I hope you experience this feeling too’. Writing for writing’s sake, free and caring.
Looking out the window, the mist has lowered into the valleys, only the peaks of the Pennine Hills visible from where I sit. Our garden path on one of those peaks is flooded with sunlight. Before I know it, I’ve written and hit send.
Please keep writing like this!
Beautiful photos, beautiful thoughts.