Ebbs and Flows - part 1.

The spark of originality is alive and well, fostered by each of us in the gardens we nurture.

More often than not, we come home from visiting a friends garden or see some vista in a book and think, yes, I'd like to replicate that. Only to find that the dictates of soils and micro climates preclude doing any such thing.

Even the vagaries of seasonal fluctuations of local climate, from year to year; mean that each and every garden will be different as the years unfold.

Looking out on what started off being our neat peat scree four years ago, little then could we have foretold its form today. It seemed like such a good idea at the time, a raised peat scree to grow Cushion plants and gentians in. As the winter months rolled by and spring became summer, one could tell that the best laid plans of this writer were going to be thwarted by mother nature.

We can plan with certainty in our minds eye only to have the foundations of these grand plans undermined by circumstances of the day. A flooding rain, not expected after sowing several hundred seed packets. Or a neighbour extending their house, blocking winter sun from a well built raised scree.

I don't feel any different to how I was, say ten years ago; but with age tinged with a mounting list of past changes, it does become easy to think that the struggle of place and climate; just for this year, is not worth it.

This is not as it seems at face value a negative statement. The mind, wary of the faded hopes for the year, takes its leave from things of the soil; and money and will are redirected to another venture.

This redirection with me was buying a few first edition books I had long hoped to buy if ever I won some windfall. Then by stealth, when least expected, a seedling long forgotten flowers and the mystery contained in a single seed once sown with such enthusiasm blesses the day and again one is smitten with; what if......?

What if I make more room over there by taking out two trees? What could look good over there now we have space again? Should we try growing more of this, or could we venture into new fields and try a new genera?

Questions come flooding into an inquiring mind, ignited again by a single unexpected garden visitor; once sown, long forgotten and remembered today with more delight than at the initial time of buying.

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